Hello Ádám, thanks a lot for accepting this interview. First of all, can you tell us some words about the history of Winterheart, the members, discography?
Hi, thanks for the invitation and the opportunity. Well, Winterheart was started by me as a one man band, in 2007, when I started to think about music in a way of creating songs and concepts and albums, so I established Winterheart as my self-expression, but after a few years I decided that I want to play live. That being said, in 2012 I found a drummer and a bassist and started to record the first album which was previously written by me. The first concert was in the summer of 2012 and that year we also released this album called “My journey to suicide”, it contains 7 songs and as the title says it’s about a journey, how a man (actually myself) goes through the journey which ends up taking his own life. It’s kind of discussing the past, present and gives a vision for the future. It was self-released with 50 copies and it was a good introduction for the band because we received some great feedback. Two years later there were some changes in the band, we got a new bassist and a session live guitarist and we released our second album called “Facing what I am becoming”, it was also self-released because of obvious reasons, we are talking about underground and it’s pretty difficult to find a label. It was kind of an experimental album, we used elements from post-rock and progressive drumming, as a result the opinions about the album were quite mixed because sometimes people don’t accept changes easily and not everyone is open-minded about music. After that we also had some member changes and now we have the final set up which I think is the best, we are 4, I am playing guitar and doing the vocals, there is Zsolt playing the second guitar, Gábor at the bass and Balázs, he is a crazy drummer of course (he actually plays in Romanian Clitgore, so you can imagine, real machine). On our latest album we still had the original drummer, that album is called Nothingness, it was released in 2016 and it is highly our strongest material in my opinion. Music-wise it perfectly represents what Winterheart is, and thanks to the fact that we went to a studio, it is quite good quality-wise too.
Great introduction! Now, can you give us more details regarding your musical approach, in the terms of styles, influences and lyrics?
Well, that’s a good question because I like to believe that music is all about self-expression, emotions, thoughts and so on. Our music is ourselves; we are a suicidal band so we obviously don’t play music about happiness. I like writing songs about my depression, my suicidal thoughts because this is who I am; I strongly believe that negative emotions are more powerful than positive ones and they worth to be singed about and talked about. Just to feel them in every cell of your body. We write the songs without any plans, we don’t write songs like “Ok, this sounds good, let’s write something similar to this”, we just get drunk and actually write the songs, so it will always be like self-influenced, improvised and stuff, I believe this is the best way to express who you are because you don’t plan the music, you just feel it. What I take quite serious is that every album of ours has a concept; it’s like a book which has its chapters. For example, as I said, our first album is about a journey, like steps to suicide, the second is about facing who you are, what you became and what are the consequences of finding yourself, and the latest one, Nothingness, is about this state of mind which you approach after you just realized who you are and there’s no escape, no chance to save yourself. Obviously, our lyrics are suicidal and depressive but they are completely honest, I cannot imagine anything more personal than my lyrics, they are not manufactured or edited, they are just honest.
What about your live appearance, do you have some kind of ritual or something?
I like to think about concerts as rituals, it’s not just the music; you have to add visual performance as well. We normally play with red lights behind us, coming from the bottom, we have hanging ropes and it’s not just a show, it’s part of the spirit. We play the music from our hearts and we usually don’t communicate with the audience, we let our music tell the story.
How is the metal scene in Budapest, or why not, in the whole Hungary?
It used to be better, especially if I talk about black metal because this is what I know, there are less and less bands every year, less dedicated persons and audience. In Budapest there are some good bands, but actually the best bands from Hungary are from Szeged, that’s a city in the South Region, they have very good Black Metal bands there, they are quite crazy and very dedicated, they have their own festival called “Inner Awakening Festival” with amazing bands, like this year there were Dysangelium and other cult bands. Anyway, I don’t know how it’s in Romania, but there are less people attending concerts and less bands, but luckily there are some dedicated people who organize concerts even if they lose money and people who make webzines, magazines, newspapers, distros and so on. It’s a very small scene but it’s very connected, the support to each other is pretty good I would say. We also have a mini festival we organize by ourselves called “Engulfing the Void”, there are like 3 or 4 bands playing every year and it’s probably the only event in Hungary which contains Depressive Suicidal Black Metal bands or this kind of atmosphere. For example, this year we had Psychonaut 4 and Nocturnal Depression, we played with Forgotten Tomb as well during this festival and Selbstentleibung from Austria. For the next year we invited some Polish and Czech bands, we will play there as well. In conclusion, it’s not about money or fame, it’s just dedication. You can’t always simply wait for others to do something and complain why there’s no change or no concerts or something, you take the steps.
What about your future plans, do you consider playing in Romania?
Yes, actually we are already in contact with Titus to have some shows in Romania. I was just visiting Dark Bombasting Evening and I met a lot of nice people. I always wanted to play in Romania because it’s close and I am curious and I just want to know the scene. So we will definitely play if we would have the possibility, we want to promote our new album, Nothingness, because we are quite proud of it. Meanwhile, we are working on the new material, which will also have a concept, as always, we will try to answer the question “What’s existing after emptiness, beyond emptiness, beyond everything?”, it’s going to be a very sick album, total madness, total crazy.
Thank you very much for your detailed and kind answers, do you have a few words for the Romanian Black Metal fans?
Definitely, support the scene and listen to our album, it really is a strong material. Thanks for your support as well and see you at our concerts, merci!
Photo credit: Goflowolfog Photography.
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