"We Wanted to Talk About the Lives of People Close to Us” – A Conversation with Pale Grey

“W e hope listeners will want to get on the bus and be curious about these characters.” There’s something quietly powerful about the way Pale Grey approach their work—like they’re sketching out the lives of strangers and, in doing so, holding up a mirror to our own. The Belgian band has never rushed their process. With every song, they wait for the story to arrive—sometimes unexpected, sometimes fragile. And when it does, they build around it with care.

At the heart of Pale Grey is a shared sense of trust. “We all know that we want to put the song before our egos,” Gilles tells us. Disagreements happen, but these four musicians have grown into something close to instinctual—balancing each other out, lifting when one falters, and moving forward only when the whole group feels ready.

Their latest video for “Nikita” reflects this way of working: thoughtful, character-driven, emotionally layered. Nikita is just one of the twelve fictional names on their new album, It Feels Like I Always Knew You—each one a reflection of everyday life and the quiet weight people carry with them. From disillusionment to fleeting strength, the songs carry fragments of lives you may or may not recognize. But they all feel familiar. “We wanted to talk about the lives of people close to us, hoping that it would reflect certain experiences in the listeners.”

In our interview, Gilles from Pale Grey opens up about creative tensions, learning to rap, the stories behind the names, and the beauty of making space for someone else’s voice.

header photo by Mayli Sterkendries

Hey! Nice talking to you! So, “Nikita” seems to look at how competitive the art world can be. Love that theme! What first gave you the idea for the song?

Hi. this is Gilles answering for Pale Grey. Thanks for this interview. (smiles) The idea for each song comes after the composition. Once the song is musically complete, we wait to see what inspires us. In this case, as in all the others on this album, it was a character that came to us, that of Nikita. Her best representation ended up in the video clip. The title was filled with a kind of bitterness that led us to this story.

Why did you choose the name “Nikita” for the song?

We tried to name each track on the album together with the band. We didn’t want to directly name them after people who existed or who might have inspired the lyrics, but rather iconic names that seemed to work well. For Nikita, I think it was Max who came up with the idea, in reference to the film of the same name which tells the story of a strong, gregarious woman, which fits in well with certain traits of our protagonist. A kind of warrior’s name.

The video features a character grappling with disillusionment. Can you talk about the process of finding the right visual language to match the song’s tension and emotional weight?

We worked with a team of casters and videographers to find the right people. When the 12 characters found themselves on the bus together, we took the time to create the dynamic in the most coplex way possible in a small space and with as much detail as the camera could analyze, the story had to be understood without more action. Nikita is in the center and seems to be the only one who doesn’t care about the rest of the bus. She’s obsessed with her phone and her own reflection. She remains central and magnetic, which creates envy and jealousy around her.

“She remains central and magnetic, which creates envy and jealousy around her.”

Your third album It Feels Like I Always Knew You is on the way. What can listeners expect from it?

We spend a lot of time writing a record, and for this one we also took a lot of time to create the coherence and cohesion of the whole record. We hope that having built it up in this way, listeners will be able to feel the affection we have for these characters/stories, and that they too will want to get on the bus and be curious about them. We wanted to talk about the lives of people close to us, hoping that it would reflect certain experiences in the listeners. As for the musical aspect, I think we’ve found our balance between our pop-rock side and the desire for a gentle atmosphere that characterizes us, without forgetting to experiment.

The album has songs with people’s names—why did you decide to do that? (smiles)

In the end, the songs all came together with different personalities, each telling a different story. Once we’d got them together, we saw them as a group of intividus, and we soon got the urge to give them names, as we would with children.

So, when do you feel an album is ready to see the world?

Once again, for us it’s a very long process, as we all work in 4-way teams. The ideas come from each other, and at a certain point the feeling of balance between what each person has brought to the table and the different types of universe all seem to come together, and we move on to the der studio phase. all 4 of us have to be 100% happy with each song.

“We all know that we want to put the song before our egos.”

And what was the most challenging part of making this album?

For me (Gilles), the more rapped parts are a novelty, and it was a real challenge to experiment with this way of using my voice. More generally, we wanted to be more open and spontaneous than on our previous albums, so we recorded everything in a very short time in the studio, and Ash Workman’s relaxed way of working helped us achieve this goal.

Do you all agree easily when working on a song, or do you argue sometimes? (smiles)

To be honest, we argue a lot, but it used to be more complicated than it is today. Now we know the value of each other’s qualities, and we know how to trust each other better, because we all know that we want to put the song before our egos.

And what’s the best part of being in a band?

When you’re creating, it can be hard to believe in what you’re doing, but if there’s more than one of us, we don’t all doubt ourselves at the same time, and there’s always another member of the group to take over. Then it’s nice to get up on stage and go on tour with equal status and equal experience, it brings us closer together. I think it’s really important to understand the strength of the collective at a time when more and more projects revolve around a single individual.

“It’s very cliché, but being happy by doing things for the most beautiful reasons.”

What’s one thing people might not know about Pale Grey?

Max (guitar) likes surfing and old movies.
Jan (keyboard) likes to can food himself.
Simon (drums) made his own staircase.
Gilles (vocals) would like to learn sign language.

The most important thing in life is?
It’s very cliché, but being happy by doing things for the most beautiful reasons.