#feb2000

[theplaguezine]

ANCIENT RITES

Interview with Gunther Theys by Daniel Hinds

(conducted February 2000)

Ancient Rites may not be the first name thrown out when the words 'black metal' are uttered, but they have been around as long as anyone on the current scene and produce a very unique version of the style.  With all eyes on Norway for so long, perhaps their home base of Belgium has kept them a bit more in the underground circles than the likes of Emperor and Satyricon, but that isn't to say that Ancient Rites don't have a following.  In fact, their fanbase is quite strong all across Europe (and beyond) and last year's excellent Fatherland no doubt expanded it considerably.

Bassist/vocalist Gunther was kind enough to take some time and answer a few questions regarding Ancient Rites, his other musical endeavors, religion, and the current state of the world...

Let me start by saying that I like the album Fatherland a great deal, but it is also the only AR album I've been able to get a hold of so far.  Could you give me a brief summary of your other releases and your feelings about them now that some time has elapsed since their release? We have released one demo, one 7" EP, a split-LP and several split EP's. However the majority of the people only were introduced to A.R. after the release of our debut full-length album entitled "THE DIABOLIC SERENADES".  We recorded our first two albums in a very professional studio where usually classical orchestras record their symphonies or soundtracks are being made. We feel this only increases the originality of our sound. We were always assisted by sound engineer (and studio owner) Louis Jans of STUDIO 20 who is a classical musician himself. He understood perfectly the essence of our music. Metal and classical music fit perfectly together for both are bombastic and can have a very dark approach. Using two different musical forms to express similar dark visions/thoughts/dreams. Interesting experiments are tracks such as "FALLEN ANGEL" or "LAST RITES (ECHOES OF MELANCHOLY)" which we first recorded with our usual equipment, afterwards we replaced our modern instruments by medieval ones. The end result is how A.R. would have sounded during the middle ages. We realize many bands/fans prefer a more primitive and poor production when it comes to Black Metal and that is fine by us but we always followed our own path. We seek a heavy/tight sound in old Metal tradition. We are satisfied with our first two albums "THE DIABOLIC SERENADES" and "BLASFEMIA ETERNAL" considering the time/budget available and even believe in our very first releases for they have been important steps in our career; nevertheless "FATHERLAND" our latest album is our most professional effort this far. We progressed as musicians and there was a bigger budget available which had a positive influence on matters like sound/production. Since there was almost no time pressure more attention could be spent on details.  "FATHERLAND" was recorded in the brand new SPACELAB studios in Germany between 14.02 and 24.03 '98. Both our sound engineer Christian Moos and producer Oliver Phillipps are very talented classical musicians who are also active in the progressive Rock scene. They are perfectionists and checked every single note we played. Their demanding and very critical attitude certainly pushed us to higher musical levels. The fact they were not familiar with extreme Metal I felt as an advantage (despite the culture clash and stress!). This way we could be sure they would give us an original sound and maybe even come up with ideas extreme Metal producers would never think of. I was to be proven right, on "FATHERLAND" the fusion between Metal and Classical is more successful than ever before in our band's history. Oliver Phillips appeared as a session keyboard player. It is quite unusual that classical/ progressive musicians and extreme Metal musicians collaborate.

The artwork and layout for Fatherland is very well done (and also very readable, something a lot of bands seem to overlook).  Is there a symbolic significance to the tree being chopped down on the cover? The painting represents the daily hard struggle to survive during the middle ages. Many bands focus on phantasy "art" when they settle for “medieval” illustrations. We prefer a more sober but realistic approach. The cover can be interpreted different ways: some say it symbolizes the destruction of the Holy Oak and the prosecution of Paganists and heretics by the Christian authorities in medieval times. Unfortunately we might be facing a lawsuit because of this painting. Although there are made alterations the artwork is heavily inspired by a painting of a long deceased master and now it turns out that the rights are owned by an author’s organization. Of course they demand money, something we do not have as a band. Rather unpleasant situation that can cost us our last penny. Now it is the time for our label to prove what they are worth.

I thought it was cool that you went through and kind of explained each song in the CD booklet.  Even with this, have you had any problems with people misinterpreting the title 'Fatherland' and assuming you are some kind of ultra-right-wing group? Sure. There are many places we are not allowed to play. And often there are "politically correct" councils judging if our concerts can take place or not. They have people investigating our lyrics etc, although there is nothing there! Recently an A.R. gig could only take place after the promoters hired extra security with guard dogs and there had to be placed fences outside around the club. The mayor and club owners expected an attack of Arab immigrants because of the unholy character of our music and lyrics. Religious Islamic fundamentalism is also imported here in Europe by immigrants. And titles like "Fatherland" many (paranoid people) translate as plain Nazism while the only thing we say is that everyone should be aware of his/her own culture, history and roots. One can perfectly be proud of the own heritage while at the same time respecting other cultures/civilizations but often it seems to be under a taboo to have this attitude when a person is of European origin. Everyone should be able to cultivate their own roots.  Why is it considered politically incorrect when we do the same? So indeed we are under a lot of flak but all the boycotts and hardship can be an inspiration.

Are you working on a new album yet?  Do you have a title for it in mind yet?   Everyone came up with ideas (demos with riffs, programmed drums, orchestra etc) recorded on a hard disc or computer but all is still in a rather early stage. Most ideas will be thrown away, we are rather hard on ourselves: "not bad" is simply not good enough! We are our worst own critics sometimes. I already have many lyrical ideas but titles are the last stage.

When you do an album, do you have it pretty much done when you enter the studio or do you come up with a lot of ideas while recording? In the old days, we had everything completely ready before entering the studio, nowadays there is much more room to experiment due to various reasons: there is a larger studio budget available, we have become better musicians and work with demanding producers who do many suggestions. Often parts are altered at the last moment and details are being added or changed, all this can change the entire "character" of a song. When this change is for the better, we are willing to throw away old ideas. Egos shouldn't be in the way of progress.

If you are working on new material, how is it turning out in comparison to previous AR?   The track we currently are working on could have been on "Fatherland", similar atmosphere to "Mother Europe". Another track is very extreme and contains old school Black Metal parts while another song is more progressive, some riffs are very brutal, and other melodies are quite melancholic. Again a lot of variety will be offered on the next album. It is our aim to progress without betraying the essence of A.R.; nevertheless we wish to avoid stagnation.

From what I've read, your first label (After Dark) gave you a lot of problems.  Could you tell me about that and how you came to hook up with Mascot? AFTER DARK turned out to be a total rip off and eventually ceased to exist leaving no penny for the band that had invested its own money in the recordings, artwork and photo sessions. In 1995, a deal was signed with Dutch MASCOT RECORDS.

Will Mascot be releasing the next album as well? We are not very pleased with their distribution in certain countries (like the USA) and lack of promotion outside of Northern Europe. Officially we have to release one more album for MASCOT RECORDS, though. We have to talk first.

Have you had a chance to do much touring (or traveling on your own) to foreign countries? What are some of the more interesting places you've been and experiences you've had abroad?   We have toured throughout Europe and the U.K. many times. Life on the road is like an adventure, very unpredictable: one day all is going perfectly, the next nothing seems to work. Once we were stranded in England with all our equipment and without any money, food or a place to stay. Even that one we turned into an interesting experience, often larger than life, and continued touring in an alternative way in order to gain money to get back home. It is kind of strange to see we draw larger crowds nowadays while in the past only very few individuals were interested in our work. Guess this new Black Metal explosion must have got a lot to do with it. Since (especially in the beginning) we received way more appreciation outside our own country, we preferred to concentrate abroad. Nowadays our status also improved within Belgian borders. Most of the bands we toured with we already knew personally, which of course improved life on the road together. When mutual respect is shown we get along with everyone, no infantile rock star attitudes. We toured as headliners several times but also with major acts such as DEICIDE, CRADLE OF FILTH, MORBID ANGEL, METALLICA, MERCYFUL FATE, MOTÖRHEAD, S.O.D., MANOWAR etc. Highlights in our career were playing the legendary Marquee in London, the famous Thorns club at Athens, the very first big extreme Metal fest in Lisbon (sponsored by Coca Cola and the mayor!) and appearing on mega Metal festivals such as DYNAMO OPEN AIR or GRASPOP to mention a few. It is fascinating to see how crowds differ from country to country, city to city even. Whenever there is some free time available (after the sound check for instance) I leave the venue to taste a bit of the local culture. I’m thrilled when I have the chance to visit museums, monuments or ancient/medieval remains. All this keeps touring interesting. It often is hard and stressful, but there’s a certain charm involved too. Intensity, positive or negative, is what we seek.

Would you agree that the move toward a global community has resulted in a general deterioration in individual cultures?  On the whole, do you think it is a bad trend, or do the positive elements (increased communication, ease of travel, etc) make for some kind of balance? I travel a lot and I wouldn't like every place to look or be the same. Personally, I prefer every culture to remain authentic, surely economical and spiritual evolution is necessary but one's roots or the typical local character should not be erased. There should be mutual respect between the different cultures but it remains a fact that everyone is a child of his own environment and there is nothing wrong with cultivating that. On the other hand, one shouldn't take that too far either, it is a pity that because of religious fanaticism, whole communities that once had such splendid civilizations and a glorious past today stagnate. Think of Iran: today a country in the grip of religious fanatics, an economical fiasco, once represented the mighty Persian Empire! Holding too fanatically on to the wrong aspects can lead to catastrophes as well. Difficult and interesting question, Dan! Nothing is black or white in life, always two sides to a coin! I applaud the fact travelling is more easy nowadays, but I regret the deterioration in cultures it often brings when people start to be ashamed of their own traditions and replace them by foreign life codes. I support civilizations holding on to their traditions but at the same time this very same "quality" kills innocent people when some blind persons take it too far. Dilemma!

You seem to be very knowledgeable about many of the other metal bands out there.  How much time do you spend listening to music and keeping up on the scene?  Is it hard to find time to do that and keep your own musical projects going full-time? It is difficult to keep track because actually too many records are released and unfortunately often by bands who seem to care more about their make up instead of the musical aspect. But sometimes a young band suddenly surprises me positively. I listen to music constantly, except when I'm reading or watching a movie. While answering this interview I have a self-compiled tape on the background which contains all kinds of styles ranging from the most quiet beautiful music to the most extreme noise. I like variety, I am an open minded person despite the fact I'm a Metalhead. When I'm working on my own musical projects, I avoid listening to bands working in a similar style. When working on A.R. I never listen to Metal, while recording DANSE MACABRE, I avoid Goth Rock/Industrial/Wave and when I'm active with DIVISION 99 I don't listen Punk/Oi! because I am afraid subconsciously one could get influenced.

Lately, it seems like a lot of bands in the black metal scene are taking their sound in a much more modern direction (Dødheimsgard, Satyricon, Kovenant, etc.).  What do you think about this trend? I understand that bands wish to progress as long as it is not a turn of 90 degrees. METALLICA for instance should have changed name ages ago. I cannot comment on the latest DODHEIMSGARD, SATYRICON or KOVENANT since I did not hear the records you mentioned. In our band, only drummer Walter and keyboard player Domingo listen to these kind of bands. I was a bit surprised by the new look of KOVENANT (very much MARILYN MANSON indeed), but then again bands like C.O.F., DIMMU BORGIR or KOVENANT often appeal to the same (MARILYN MANSON or Gothic orientated) audience that like theatrical decadent imagery. I'm only familiar with the first two SATYRICON albums and when it comes to KOVENANT drummer Hellhammer, I prefer his work with MAYHEM and ARCTURUS which are more my taste. It is difficult for a band to remain interesting, too much stagnation is negative but so is too much change, a thin line it is, my friend. Besides what other bands do is not of my concern/business. Good luck to every one of them, but we walk our own path. Actually I'm mostly interested in the pioneers of the style when it comes to Black or Death or Heavy Metal. I couldn't care less for a Swedish band that tries to sound like German 80's Power Metal (which I found disgusting anyway at that time, too!), nor do I care for a German version of C.O.F. or a Mexican band claiming to be Norwegian. The originals have my sympathy, the clones leave me indifferent.

What is the current status of Danse Macabre? A band that is embraced by open minded Black Metal fans but not known enough in the real Goth world since our label only promoted D.M. a bit in the Metal press. Nevertheless, we already played several headline dates and the project turned into a real trans-european act consisting of musicians from Serbia, Germany, Austria, Greece, Holland, Finland and Flanders. We are currently working on a new album for a different label. MASCOT told us they didn't really know how to deal with our style or how to sell it.

What inspired you to start D.M. in the first place?   Musically, bands like JOY DIVISION, BAUHAUS, FAD GADGET or SISTERS OF MERCY, KILLING JOKE, RED ZEBRA inspired me to work on that musical field. I discovered these groups already in the late 70's/early 80's. Nostalgia playing tricks? More recent bands I like in that style are CURRENT '93, DEATH IN JUNE, BLOOD AXIS, SOPOR AETURNUS, ATARAXIA. However D.M. does not sound like any of these artists. From a lyrical point of view D.M. enables me to express different emotions and feelings which do not fit to the A.R. concept.

I know some people in the goth scene (just like the metal scene) can be pretty narrow-minded.  Have you had any problems being accepted with DM in the goth circles?   Actually, my friend, I do not give a damn. Nor did I give it much thought. I know this sounds quite big headed but I started playing in bands to express myself musically/lyrically and I never lost too much sleep on what others might think of it. That is why I can take critics so well. Recently I read a review in this American magazine that takes the piss out of B.M. so also we didn't escape their pen. They wrote A.R. probably wears pink ballet trousers during rehearsals, that our drummer is retarded and that I probably sing with my trousers down. I found it really amusing. Once Kerrang! wrote they didn't like our way of dressing! Never knew it was a fashion magazine! Haha! Honestly, I couldn't care less. So when a 13 year old "vampire" appears backstage after a D.M. gig and tries to impress me with a "dark" grim or the lead singer of a famous Goth act tells me I should sing with a deeper "grunt" (like if his band is brutal!) I hope you believe me when I tell you it honestly does not matter one bit to me. I don't try to convince anyone of anything. I just do my thing you know. Nothing more, nothing less. I mind my own business; live and let live, I expect a similar attitude from other people. What matters at the end of the day is that I, myself, believe in what I do. Of course it is nice when people appreciate one's efforts but I do not want to sell my soul (only to the devil ahah!) to achieve that. I know exactly what an audience expects but when I do not believe in it I cannot play the game! I refuse to be jus another "romantic vampire" with plastic teeth and painted fingernails (although that sells the best) nor do I wish to impress ten-year-olds by taking photos with huge plastic swords in snowy forests. This stubborn approach often worked against us, but at least I can look at myself in the mirror and say I always truly believed in what we stand for. Come to think of it: D.M. has a mixed audience, I see Metalheads next to Gothic people, I see normally dressed persons in the crowd. All fine by me. Everyone who relates is welcome, the appearance does not matter. Same goes for A.R. gigs as far as I am concerned. Also with A.R. we do not attract one typical crowd.

I saw in an interview from '98 that you mentioned a project you were working on with Mortiis.  Is that still in the works?  If so, what is the material going to be like? The mastertapes are in Greece in the possession of the vocalist of WAMPYR SHADOW WOLF who was involved in that project, too. I guess in the future we continue working on it. Music was like a soundtrack. Typical MORTIIS actually which is only natural since he contributed most of the music.

In the same interview, you also said that Christianity is losing its strength in Northern Europe.  Do you foresee a time when it will no longer be the predominate religion there?  Do you think it will be replaced by a larger number of smaller, more individual belief systems or some other large religion? Many immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East moved to Europe and they strongly hold on to their Islamic religion. Recently many refugees from Kosovo entered Europe and they also are Islamic. More mosques are being built in Europe. I know many Arabs personally and they surprise me by how fundamentalist they often still are. In families I know who used to be rather well integrated in Western society, I suddenly see the men wear robes and women cover their hair and face again. I find it also rather peculiar that the USA and the NATO usually chose the Islamic side in conflicts. I think Islam will become the biggest religion since fundamentalism is increasing in countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Algeria, Iran where religious fundamentalist terrorists murder tourists from the West and even their own people they consider less fanatic. Bad indications. I believe everyone is entitled to an own opinion/belief but one should not be despotic about it.

What long-term impact do you think the highly materialistic consumer culture that has developed in the last half of the 20th century will have on society?   Lack of humanity. Wrong values prevailing. Materialistic wealth will overshadow intellectual wealth.

Have you been to the U.S.?  If so, what did you make of it?  If not, would you like to visit here? Our drummer is considering to relocate to the States since he has a house with his American girlfriend in Virginia. He's the US connoisseur! I've been all over Europe, Asia, Africa but not America. Being the eternal traveler, sure I'd like to visit the US one day. I'd like to see the impressive nature (from mountains, to canyons to the desert) and immense nature parks. Musically, especially the New York scene has influenced my teenage years a lot with bands such as DEAD BOYS, RAMONES, ELECTRIC CHAIRS, NEW YORK DOLLS, JOHNNY THUNDERS AND THE HEARTBREAKERS, RICHARD HELL AND THE VOIDOIDS, SUICIDE. Even in pop: MINK DEVILLE, BLONDIE, PATTI SMITH, LOU REED, and TELEVISION. I like the N.Y. accent! Going to N.Y. would be a good opportunity to visit my old pal Dan Lilker of S.O.D.!

Do you have any long-term goals for AR or do you tend toward just taking things one day at a time? We continue our struggle, giving the best we can, but always expecting the least. All these years in the music industry have taught me all is unpredictable: one day god, the next day forgotten. All depends on how much money record companies, promoters or managers invest in a band to create a hype. Quality, authenticity or dedication mean nothing. How else to explain that a band who caught the essence of B.M. like MAYHEM never got the recognition they deserved while so many clowns who discovered B.M. overnight made it big? ARCTURUS made intelligent and original music but the band hardly got noticed, instead press and audience go crazy over Skandinavian bands trying to sound like HELLOWEEN! Goals, my dear friend, we gave up long time ago. We put our hearts and souls into the music we create. That should be enough.  No mess, no fuss, no circus.

Thanks again for taking the time to do this interview for me.  Good luck with all of your future endeavors and I can't wait to hear your next release! The pleasure was completely mine.

www.ancientrites.be

[jdelrivero]

Paleodictyon #geology #ichnofosil #hexagon #sedimentology #ichnofossil #tracefossil #paleodictyon #minolta505si #feb2000 (en Playa La Salvaje)

[theplaguezine]

SEAR BLISS

Interview with András Nagy by Daniel Hinds

(conducted February 2000)

Sear Bliss is one of the coolest bands to emerge from the dark/black metal scene in the past few years.  Mixing up elements of black, death and doom metal with acoustic guitar and mournful trumpet, the band really defines their own sound.  1998 saw the release of the epic The Haunting and the band has been busy readying a follow-up for release sometime this year, as soon as a solid deal is signed.

Bassist/vocalist András Nagy (pictured above with drummer Zoltán) reveals the story behind this dark and creative outfit...

Can you tell me a little about how you personally first got interested in playing bass? Well, I first got interested in bass when I was 14. Then I bought a bass guitar and started rehearsing with some of my friends. I had a couple of bands back then but nothing serious. Anyway, I started playing guitar when I was ten years old. Later, I discovered that bass is my instrument. When things turned serious with Sear Bliss, I went to a professional bass teacher to have some lessons. By the way, I have always been into low tones and I really love the grounding sound of the bass guitar. That's why I chose the bass.

When did you first get into metal?  What were some of your early favorite bands/albums? Probably it may seem impossible but I'm a metal fan since the age of 9. You know, I always had elder friends in the school and when they showed me Inside the Electric Circus from WASP, suddenly everything changed in me and I got hooked on metal. Of course, I didn't understand the meaning of it then but it changed my life. That is still one of my dearest albums anyway. Besides WASP, my early favourites were: Metallica (Master Of Puppets is one of the best album ever), Iron Maiden (Powerslave mostly), Running Wild, and some heavier like Sodom, Destruction, Kreator, Deathrow, etc..... I still like them very much.

Did you play in any bands prior to Sear Bliss? As I told you, I played in a couple of bands before but they were nothing serious. I formed Sear Bliss in 1993 and I was quite young then, so it was and still is my main band.

How did Sear Bliss first come together? In a very spooky night and a very eerie autumn... haha, I like these cliches. Actually, it happened in 1993 when I decided to form Sear Bliss with the aim to create something fresh and a bit outside the norm. The line up was ready quite quickly, as I had some musician friends. So, we started rehearsing like hell and we wrote a couple of songs. We have shown no sign of existence til 1995 when we recorded our first and only demo, entitled The Pagan Winter.

'Sear Bliss' is a great band name.  How did you come up with it?  Is there any special meaning behind it? I'm glad you like it. Thank you. Actually, I can't remember exactly how I come up with it. I often read poetry and I was inspired by a poem of Charles Baudleaire when I found out this name. I wanted something unique, not the average shit, you know. I was sick of the many boring and brainless band names at that time.

On the main page of your web-site, it says "Atmospheric Black Metal."  Is this how you would describe Sear Bliss' music? No. It was probably the idea of the web masters. I'm going to tell them to change it. I'm not into labeling our music as atmospheric black metal. I would describe it as a very dark and sorrowful music - similar to black metal. Our music is more complex in some ways. I mean, we use acoustic guitars, trumpets, etc. and we try to play intelligent music in the metal genre. It's a mixture of the feelings and emotions of the different personalities found in Sear Bliss. Anyway, it's up to the people to describe it.

Can you describe to me the typical process you guys go through when writing songs? We write our songs at home mostly. My ideas for a song are born when I'm alone. I play it for the other guys and each of us put his own ideas into the song. The process is very democratic in Sear Bliss. Each of us has got the right to put something into the song. We rehearse the parts and try to get a whole song together. Sometimes it takes quite a lot of time. By the way, a lot of things inspire us during the process of writing.

On The Haunting, you had a few people outside the band write or co-write some of the lyrics. How did you hook up with them? They are close friends of ours. They knew our music and the songs very well, so they created some lyrics for us that we liked and thought would fit well to the songs, so we used their ideas. We like these lyrics. The names of those who contributed to the lyrics are: Attila Halasz, he is a great friend of mine for a long time. He taught me to speak English and he helped a lot to Sear Bliss when we started. Anyway, he lives in Australia. Laszlo Fodor is a friend of ours and he is the editor of Stygian Shadows 'zine and David Bowers is a Sear Bliss fan from the States and we are in contact for years now.

The use of trumpet is very inspired and really adds to your sound.  What made you guys decide to take this rather bold step in the first place?  Can we expect more trumpet in the future? The idea of using trumpet in this rather violent type of music came to my mind when I formed the band. Actually we wanted to try fresh things and to be original and exciting, that's why we include this instrument. Actually, with the softening sound of the trumpet we try to find the right balance between anger and desire, the two main components of Sear Bliss' music. A lot of bands use violins and cellos but I think the brasses are a lot more powerful. Some people think it's nonsense to use a trumpet in this music but when they listen to our albums or come to our gigs, their point of view changes. Yes, you can expect more trumpet in future, definitely. We will give more creativity and space to this instrument.

It has been a couple of years since The Haunting was released.  Have there been any line-up changes during that time? Yes, there have been some changes, as we have a new guitar player and a new keyboard player now. Two years have passed since "The Haunting" and it turned out that some of us weren't dedicated to the band totally, therefore the changes were needed.

Have you started work yet on the new album? Absolutely. With full force. Actually, we have written the whole album. We are ready and eager to record it.  The fact is that our contract is fulfilled and we are looking for a good label. Fortunately, we got some offers, so I hope we can record the album soon. We will make an advance recording in February and hopefully we will record the album in spring. It will contain 7 songs and probably it is going to be our most powerful material.

How is it sounding in comparison to your previous works? The songs are more violent and fierce, but we keep the moody parts played with the acoustic guitars and the trumpet. We want to eliminate the faults we had in the sound last time. So, we are striving for a more dynamic production. Music-wise it is going to be more improved and it will have a deeper meaning but let's talk of it when we hold the CD in our hand.

Who will you have produce the new album?  Where will it be recorded? We will record it in Hungary this time, in a very professional studio and we will have a very good producer, so we hope the production will live up to our expectations. The advance recording in February will take place in a smaller but quite good studio in our town anyway.

The Haunting was recorded in Holland.  What made you decide to record there? Actually, our label advised that we should record there. It was a very good studio but our label fucked up the sound. We spent almost two weeks there to record everything and to make a rough mix which sounded quite good. Then we went home and let the sound engineer do the final mixing. When he finished, our label wanted to re-mix the whole thing because they were not satisfied with the sound. They did the remix without any sense for sound engineering and this is the result. We were quite angry because the production they did is quite shit but what can we do? We were not pleased with this label anyway. It was great fun to record in Holland, but this time we won't let anyone fuck the production up. We want to control everything by ourselves.

So far, all your releases have been through II Moons/Mascot.  How did you initially hook up with the label?  Are you satisfied with their work so far?  Will you continue working with them in the future? When we released our demo The Pagan Winter in 1995 we sent it to a lot of labels. That demo was quite popular in the underground scene, we sold 900 copies of it without any promotion and we got very good responses and reviews. Things went quickly and we got some offers from a couple of labels and Mascot seemed the most serious one, so we signed to them. As I told before, we are no longer at Mascot and we are looking for a better and more trustable label, so we will not continue working with them. All in all, we are satisfied with their work and they helped a lot in the early times which is good, but on the other hand they were dishonest sometimes and we don't like that, so the change was needed.

How is the scene in Hungary?  Are you in touch with many other bands or not? It's getting strong now, there are many good bands over here, playing serious music and wanting the world know that "yes" there is high quality original metal music in Hungary. I hope more and more Hungarian bands will get international recognition soon. We are not in touch with many bands. We are now used to working on our own.

Looking at the concert dates on your web-site, it appears you played a number of shows all over Europe in 1997.  Any special memories from that tour that you'd like to share?  Who all did you play with? Yeah, it was a very good and memorable tour. We played with Marduk and Tsatthoggua and it was a great opportunity for us. We have a lot of special memories, I wish I could return to those days. Marduk is a really great band and it was a nice surprise that they are such cool guys. As far as the shows are concerned, people were surprised by our music. You know our music is quite different than Marduk's. It was unusual for the crowd to see a trumpet player. It was good to see that Sear Bliss is not unknown abroad. Especially people in Holland and Italy have shown big interest for our music. I really enjoyed the whole tour. The guys from Marduk were great and it was good to meet some exciting people, to see different countries. Travelling a lot and playing each night is quite a big challenge, but I enjoyed it anyway. We had an opportunity to tour with Ancient to support The Haunting but unfortunately we had to cancel it due to my studying at a university. I regret it but I hope we can tour again after the release of our new album.

How have the albums sold so far?  What countries do you have the largest followings in? Unfortunately we don't know too much of the sales because of the dishonesty of our label. I don't know exact numbers but we know that almost 10,000 copies have been sold from the first album Phantoms, which is very good for a debut album. The Haunting was sold a bit lesser and The Pagan Winter mini-CD, too. Sale wise Holland, Germany and Greece were the best countries but I think we have the most enthusiastic following in Hungary.

All of your CDs have very beautiful, epic album covers.  Is it the same artist (Kris Verwimp) that did all of them or not?  How did you hook up with him? Yes, Kris did all of our cover artworks and we are very satisfied with his works. I think our covers are perfect visualizations of our music and Kris is able to paint what we want to see. We always tell him our ideas and draw some drafts, he listens to the songs and reads the lyrics to have a clue of what we want to express. Anyway, our label offered him and I was really astonished when I first saw the artwork for Phantoms. We met Kris in Holland when we toured and he is a nice guy. We want to continue working with him in the future.

Do you follow the metal scene at large?  What is your opinion about how the black metal scene as a whole has developed over the past ten years? Of course I follow the scene, as I'm interested in it very much. As far as the development of the black metal scene is concerned, I think it's got both the negative and positive side of it. I mean, it was good that suddenly a lot of great albums were released, but on the other hand, there were too many poor productions released. Many young bands without knowing how to play even one single note on their instrument. That fact surely destroyed the scene. I see that there are not too many black metal bands nowadays than a couple of years ago and the style is not so popular or trendy and that's good because the weak bands passed away and mostly the stronger and original bands stayed, there are not that many average ones. Black metal is existing for a long time and will be here forever.

The lyrics to "Land of Silence" are very interesting.  It seems to reflect a yearning for times of old, before so-called 'progress' destroyed the bond between humans and nature.  It also has something of an optimistic feeling, that there is hope.  Is this even close to what you were trying to express?  Please tell me what thoughts and feelings inspired this track. Yes, what you told is perfectly right but actually there was a real inspiration for this song.  After the first World War, the mighty Transylvania (along with other great territories) was stolen from Hungary. Transylvania now belongs to Romania because some fuckers decided that a beat country has to lose more. Transylvania is almost as big as the whole of Hungary now. It was a very mournful moment in the history of Hungary. I'm of Transylvanian origin, so it means a lot for me. My grandparents had to escape over the border to come to Hungary because the Romanians tried and are still trying to destroy everything which has got something to do with Hungary. These mournful things inspired this song. Transylvania is an incredibly beautiful place, full of enormous mountains and forests. If you read the lyrics now, aware of the things I mentioned, you can find these inspirations. Of course, these lyrics can be described the way you did figuratively.

What are your personal thoughts on religion vs. spirituality? Actually, I hate any kind of religion. Every religion is worthless when it becomes organized. So for me the image of any god means nothing. Religions destroy the personal freedom, individuality and spirituality too. Those who need religion are weak in some ways, I think.

Do you have any special interests outside of music? Sure. I have a lot of interests. For example I'm interested in movies, mostly David Lynch movies. I love sci-fi too. 2001 is definitely the best one ever created. I'm into motor bikes, too, and I'm interested in some sports, but these are just daily hobbies.

Has anyone in the band worked on any side-projects or is everyone pretty focused on Sear Bliss? Sear Bliss is definitely the most important for us; it is our main band, however some of us are involved in other bands, too. Our drummer is playing with a jazz band but it's only a project and he helps them as a session drummer. I got a side project which I do with our former keyboard player. It's a very dark and terrifying music. Quite horrible and chaotic, haha. Anyway, we plan to record a demo in the next couple of month.

Do you have any long-term goals for Sear Bliss? Of course we have. Now the most important is to record and release our new album firstly. Then we will have a couple gigs in the next months and we would like to tour as soon as possible. By the way, we have a strange plan for the summer. We were asked by a quite famous Hungarian director to do a very special performance. They want Sear Bliss to be featured in a Brecht opera on stage. He directs the opera with our music and it's quite strange as we don't write music for this opus, but he directs it to our songs. The money for the budget is almost there, so the rehearsals will start in April and the performances will take place in the summer as a tour in Hungary's theaters. It's definitely a unique plan and a great challenge for us. We don't know what to expect but we will see, haha. People will be surprised for sure.

www.searbliss.hu

[theplaguezine]

SENTENCED

Interview with Sami Lopakka by Daniel Hinds

(conducted February 2000)

Finland has unleashed a number of potent acts on the metal scene in recent years, from Nightwish to Babylon Whores to Children of Bodom to name just a few, but Sentenced have been there for over ten years and were key to really making a name for the scene in the minds of international fans.  Evolving from a brutal form of death metal into their current state of melodic, suicidal metal, the band has only gotten better with age.  Surprisingly, they have also only had one major line-up shift in all that time, which was the departure of original bassist/vocalist Taneli Jarva following the Amok release.  His vocal replacement, Ville Laihiala, brought a much moodier, cleaner style to the band and the match was perfect for their new sound.

After the excellent Down and awe-inspiring Frozen, the band began to receive some much-deserved recognition, ending up with a gold record in their homeland for the latter and a great deal of airplay.  Just this past month, the band's latest opus, Crimson, was released to usher in the year 2000 in style.  Guitarist Sami Lopakka gives us the details behind this album and other activities related to the Northernmost Killers...

How has the response to Crimson been so far? Well, the album has only been out for a week here in Europe, but so far the critics have been very good all over.  It was the Album of the Month in many magazines, including Metal Hammer of Germany, one of the biggest ones.  We just heard that after one week, it is #1 on the charts in Finland.  So, it has been really good, but we still have to wait for a while to get the real reaction from real people.

What are your feelings about the album? We are totally satisfied with the album.  It turned out just the way that we wanted it to be and we worked on it for almost a year, from the first note to this final result.  So it was pretty satisfying to get it done finally and the result we got finally from all these 4 studios that we were in while recording this.  It's a relief that it is now ready and everything went fine, so we have nothing to complain about - no regrets about it.  Now we're just waiting to get people's reaction and getting to play these songs live.

I understand you were more involved with the production on Crimson?  Were you at all nervous about doing the production on this album yourselves?   Not really, because we've been around for almost-- not almost, we've been around for ten years and we trust ourselves that much that maybe we can have our own opinions about something and maybe we finally know what we are doing.  On the other hand, we also had this kind of co-producer who was with us all the time and he was taking care of all the technical side that the studio has, so we could concentrate completely on the music and the playing itself.

Do you think you will go that route next time too? It's too early to say.  It could be we will work the same way next time as we did on Crimson, but I just couldn't say yet.  We keep changing music-wise, so we also keep changing production-wise.

Why did you decide to sequence the tracks so that each song led directly into the next? I think the songs have kind of a relation to each other and it's not very interesting to put one song and then four seconds or five seconds of nothing and then the next song.  We just wanted to do something different and with these songs, it was pretty easy to do it because they fit together quite easily.  On the other hand, the songs are really quite different from each other, so the atmosphere keeps changing.  In the mastering, it was possible to make a whole package of all the songs, and we just took that possibility.

How was "Killing Me, Killing You" chosen for the first single? It was kind of a hard choice for us, because there are like four or five songs that could have been the one, so we had to ask some people that are close to us and also Hiili, the co-producer, and some other people what they think.  But in the end it was pretty obvious because you need to have this four-minute edit of the song for the radio stations and for that song, it was really easy to cut it in pieces and make this edit, and it's also a catchy song, so maybe it was a commercial choice as well.

I understand you did a video for the song, too.  Can you describe it a bit? Yeah, we went to northern Norway for the video, to a place that is almost the northernmost place that you can go on Earth by car this time of year.  We were shooting it on the shores of the Arctic Sea and it was very cold there.  We had to take little breaks all the time, just to keep our fingers moving.  I think you can actually see from the video how cold it is.  This freezing atmosphere gives another aspect to the song itself, so it was an interesting process.  It's kind of hard to explain a video in words, so maybe you should just check it out if you have the possibility.

I don't know if they would ever play it over here. Yeah, I know the situation over there. (laughs)

Who directed it? It was a Finnish guy and I don't think he has done anything international yet.  He is rising in the business, but he is very talented and the video seems a lot more expensive than it really is, so he will be known worldwide someday.

The cover art on Crimson is very striking.  Did Niklas come up with the entire concept himself or did you suggest some of the ideas? Yeah, we were working together, but he did all the art.  He was giving us different motifs and different kind of stuff for each page and the cover and we just picked out what we wanted.  It was very easy this way.  He always put the new designs on the Internet, on his home page, then we could check it out right then and decide what we wanted to change and what we don't want to change.  But in the end, we really have to give him all the credit about the cover.

I understand you played a ten-year anniversary show in your hometown around Christmas.  How did that go? It was very good, we were surprised how good it was.  The place here in Oulu was packed, we had almost a thousand people and we had little special things planned for it, like we played songs that we hadn't played for many years.  We did songs from almost every album that we ever did, it was pretty interesting.  It was the first time in five years and I think probably the last, too.  It went very good but it just didn't feel right.  The people were excited though, so what the hell?

You also did a show on New Year's Eve.  What was that like? That wasn't as good.  I think this whole millennium thing was like over-advertised.  We had 700 people in there, but if I compare it to the anniversary show, it was nothing special.  The whole new year was just another day that fucking sucked.  It had no meaning to me personally and I think maybe it had some effect on the show itself, as well.  We just took care of it and got drunk like hell.

The theme of love comes up a lot in your lyrics.  With all the potential for pain, do you feel like love is a worthy goal to be pursued? Yeah, I think so.  In the end, there are not many positive sides in life, but love is one of them and you should aim at it no matter the cost.  Even the pain that comes with it is better than nothing, or boredom.

One of my favorite lines is in the song "Farewell," where you wrote "...The enchantment lies in the moment of good-byes..."  Can you explain a little bit about what inspired this line? That one was written by Ville, the vocalist [d'oh!!--ed.] but I can relate to him pretty good.  This kind of thinking is so natural for us.  All the depression and all the negative things in life, in some way they are romantic to us.  Any time we write music, we write the music first and then write lyrics from the feeling that we get from the music.  When the music is quite sad, it always turns out that the lyrics are that way, too.  Having romantic views over death or good-byes, it's just something that has strong emotion and it's interesting to deal with these kinds of things in our lyrics.

Another line I like is at the end of "Grave Sweet Grave:"  "...the dawn shall steal my dreams no more..."  Do you think there is some kind of connection between death and dreams? No, not really.  The song starts with the words, 'I have seen my funeral in a thousand dreams' and the last line is kind of hoping that this time it wouldn't be a dream.  About death in general, I really hope there is no afterlife or another life waiting for us.  I hope this life is enough and we suffer enough. (laughs)

When Frozen was re-issued in the digi-pack, why was the track order re-arranged? Well, this whole thing was not something we were comfortable with, releasing the whole album again with these 4 cover tracks, but we had these covers and the idea was to put them out with Frozen again.  We wanted to make the digipak of Frozen a little bit different, more than just to have a couple of extra songs that aren't even our songs.  There's no special reason, just that we wanted to have something different.

Did ever consider just releasing a MCD instead or was the whole thing the record company's idea? Yeah, more or less.  There are two sides to music - the artistic side and the business side - and you just have to find a way to make it satisfactory for everyone.

Was it difficult choosing the tracks for the Greatest Kills collection? Yeah, it kind of was.  Already when that came out, we had quite a bit of songs and of course there some obvious choices, like "Nepenthe" and "Noose" and "Awaiting the Winter Frost," but then we had to leave so many songs out that we would have liked to have been there.  You just have to limit it to something and it was kind of difficult, but it turned out okay and all the songs there represent some time in our history.

Do you keep up much on what is happening in the metal scene at large? I'm not very much following it and the one reason for that is that I don't have much time.  This band is already taking so much of our time, we don't have any more time to give to music.  When we are rehearsing for three hours and I come home, the first thing in mind is not music.  I've had so many disappointments when checking out all the new bands, usually the all are just full of crap, like 98% are a total waste of time - a waste of time that I don't have.  So I just wait and let the music find me.  If I'm interested in some band, I believe that sooner or later, it will find me and I don't have to look for it all the time.

Do the guys in the band hang out much outside of actual band activities? Eh, not much, but we hang out sometime during the weeks.  We all live near Oulu here in northern Finland, so we see each other whenever we go to a bar or so on.  So, maybe a couple of times a month outside the band.

Is there any chance of a US tour this year for Sentenced? We are making decisions right now and we decided that in the spring, we will do a lot of Finnish shows and all the big European festivals and the Finnish festivals in the summer.  After that, we are doing both, like a full European tour headlining and also it seems that we're coming to the States finally, in September or so.  We'll tour with Iced Earth for 3 weeks or so.

Great!  Are you looking forward to that? Yeah, we are.  We've been getting so much response from there.  We've got this e-mail address that people can send any of their comments or questions to, and we receive a lot of messages from the States and they all are asking, 'Why aren't you coming?' and 'Why haven't you come already?' and 'When are you coming?'  It seems that at least some people over there even like our music, so maybe there is even a reason to come.

www.sentenced.org