Hungarian metal band Nest of Plagues performed in Bucharest, at Quantic Club, on October 18th. The band is currently on tour supporting Orphaned Land, together with Science of Disorder and Lone Survivors. This came as a perfect occasion to sit down with the band for a discussion about music, metal, inspiration and touring.
DinIntunerec: Hello! First of all, welcome to Bucharest! Let’s start with the very beginning. How did the band come to existence? Also, what was the big plan when you started?
Dániel Ivanics: Hello! Do you want the short answer or the long answer?
DinIntunerec: I’m eager to listen to the very long answer.
Dániel Ivanics: Basically, me and Máté Breier, the other guitarist who’s preparing for the show right now, did a band together many, many years ago and we wanted to… play heavier music and faster music. Fortunately, I knew a drummer. Balázs Fűr was my classmate and he was a drummer in another band, but also wanted to play fast music. So we asked him „How about we invite you to this band?”. He said yes, we had to fire the previous drummer and basically that was the start of a new band, but still with the same name. When we invited another guitarist, we came up with the band name Nest of Plagues. That is, I think, the start of this band.
At the beginning, honestly, the first few years, we didn’t really have a big plan, we just wanted to release an album together and do shows and eventually we wanted to do more music. When Evi (speaking of Evelin Kövecses) joined the band four years ago, all the plans came into really good plans and came to existence. Because she set us a road where we should go on this journey and how we should become a little bit more famous and a little bit more popular with this music. That is one of the reasons we did tours and all that stuff. Ha, ha, that is like a shorter, long version.
Dániel Ivanics: I just wanted to tell you the short version… because the long version has a part when we fired some guitarists.
DinIntunerec: Can you walk us through the main events regarding the history of the band?
Balázs Fűr: We had a lot of guitarists, yeah. Actually, Dáni, me and Máté are from the start. We are members from the start and Evi joined in 2019. Well, actually, early 2020. The main events, before Evi joined, were an EP release followed by a LP release which were mainly deathcore, death metal and groove metal inspired stuff. But we didn’t do anything besides music… No music videos, or actively marketing us on social media. All that started when Evi joined and since then we are taking it a lot more seriously, producing a lot more videos, content, everything.
Dániel Ivanics: We did win a talent show though, like early on. It’s really not that big of a thing, but it was a really good push for us… Personally, this gave me a lot of motivation to do more with this band. Because it seemed like a lot of people really like this music.
Evelin Kövecses: After I came in 2020, there was the Covid, right after I had the first two shows with the band. You know, they stopped everything and there were no concerts and nowhere to go so we just focused on writing the next album that was released in 2022. I guess that was the main event.
DinIntunerec: Why Nest of Plagues? What is the story behind the name of the band and in what way does it reflect your concept?
Dániel Ivanics: Originally, we wanted to change the name as well when we did this new band and around that time a Decapitated album was out. The Blood Mantra album… and there was a song on it called Nest which we really liked. Also, the images of nests and rats, plagues, ravens and all that stuff I really liked… So I came up with the idea to put the two words together. Máté came up with the idea to use the plague doctor as an image.
The concept behind it is that the plagues are generally the feelings and all the influences that happened to every people. I guess for me it’s like that, but I think a lot of this stuff happened to many other people. Basically the Nest would be us, that write about these feelings and these impulses that come into our life.
DinIntunerec: What were the main obstacles that you had to overcome until now?
Dániel Ivanics: Having difficulties with guitarists and firing a few…
Evelin Kövecses: I think that being in a band is like always facing obstacles like one right after another. What it counts, however, is how you overcome them. There will always be something, you just have to do in spite of everything. It’s really hard industry.
DinIntunerec: How does the creative process go in your case? Who writes the music and the lyrics or is it a group effort?
Balázs Fűr: It’s a group effort. It starts usually with Máté writing some guitar riffs then I do the drums to it. Or, maybe, switch up the concept of the song like how the parts come after each other and then when that’s finished, he writes the lyrics. Also, for final touch-ups there are some scenes and some elements in the backtracks like bass drops or stuff like that which makes it more colorful let’s say.
Evelin Kövecses: And during the isolation period I wrote a lot of piano and lyrics for three songs. I really like to play with piano sounds and like chords and stuff just to, you know, add a little bit of spice to the whole mix.
DinIntunerec: Do you commit yourself only to making music and playing live or do you also have regular jobs?
Evelin Kövecses: We also have regular jobs, but we are not very committed. (laughing)
DinIntunerec: To the music or to the jobs?(laughing)
Evelin Kövecses: To the jobs, ha ha. Well, now… I work in the music industry so I try to work with music as much as I can.
Dániel Ivanics: I teach vocals so I had bands where I also got salary. Like… paid gigs and it was really good.
Balázs Fűr: Me and Máté work in IT so that we have money for the stuff that we need to play. The music is not covering our bills.
DinIntunerec: I know, in Romania it’s a struggle for underground bands, also. So, how can you manage both? Is it difficult to split up between your daily job and the music and maybe free time and personal lives?
Evelin Kövecses: Free time?! We don’t have free time. (laughing)
Balázs Fűr: Yeah, actually in this recent months, when we were releasing the album and also preparing for this tour it was very tough to manage both. I think we had no free time, actually.
DinIntunerec: Tell us a bit about the album To Kill a God. Can you explain the concept behind it?
Dániel Ivanics: Well, I can mainly talk about the lyrical part. So, lyrically it’s about my mental disease called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD. I was diagnosed with it around the time we started to write To Kill a God. Basically, the whole album is about how I managed to live with this disorder. It’s a really honest album I think and I really like it because especially by the end of the song To Kill a God you reach a point where you actually manage to live with this disorder quite a fulfilling life. I think it’s hopeful even though, the name suggests something else. So, that is the concept behind it.
DinIntunerec: You’ve signed with WormHoleDeath Records, how did it happen and what are your expectations about this collaboration?
Evelin Kövecses: We were just reaching out to them to see if they would release our album. Because we know that they work with I think two or three Hungarian bands. The guy just wrote back that he loves our music and he would like us to send a copy of To Kill a God because he loves it so much. Then we just started talking and he was open to the collaboration. Our expectations are to spread the music. It will be released in Japan and the USA too, not only in Europe so I don’t know, maybe we can go and reach a higher audience.
DinIntunerec: Less than two weeks ago you released a new album, Hellsolation, another conceptual. Tell us a bit about this latest release, Dáni.
Dániel Ivanics: Okay, so let me start at the beginning. Lyrically, it’s about a series of novels that I’m writing. They’re like cosmic horror type of novels that I really got into because I started reading H.P. Lovecraft and I really love his work and every song on the album is basically about a novel that I write. Actually, the main idea behind it is still about mental disorders, but the mental isolation that goes with having this. I try to tell a story about it like how you could reach out even though you always feel lonely… How to feel not lonely at all even though it sometimes feels hopeless… Another thing that I want to mention is that Evi wrote three songs. One is about the place where we all come from or our forefathers, ancestors came from.
It’s a place called Szolnok and anyway there was a friend of us who lived there, but sadly he’s not with us anymore because he killed himself due to a lot of things that we don’t actually know. He had a mental disorder as well, and he was really alone and he also was really in an isolated place and that inspired a lot in the creation of the lyrics for this album. I’m really happy about the fact that Evi wrote these honest songs in this album. I really like those songs and all of the songs, basically.
DinIntunerec: Your lyrics reflect on modern social diseases like social anxiety, depression and the feeling of loneliness that people can collectively feel yet the message is somehow optimistic and there is some joy to be found in your music. What is the aim of all this?
Dániel Ivanics: So you did your homework and paid attention to the lyrics. Like I said, in short, we are trying to bring joy and color into a world that is full of darkness and anger. Because there is a lot more joy and color in it. Hopefulness… I think is what we’re trying to aim even though there’s a lot of, like you said, modern social diseases. Even though it’s a cliche, if you really try to ask for help you will get help! That’s something that I myself had to learn and it’s a tough lesson but there really is help for people if they try to look for it.
DinIntunerec: What inspires you to write music?
Dániel Ivanics: Good question. This kind of music is where I really can feel honest about the anger and the… I guess… the sadness that I feel with the world. I can reach a really good place with it and I feel more joyful and more happy.
Balázs Fűr: I think for me it’s more like a creative thing that you do and I just enjoy it. I enjoyed this music back when I was a kid and I don’t enjoy listening to it as much now, but I enjoy creating some new stuff and trying out new concepts. Trying to blend genres together and see what comes out.
Evelin Kövecses: For me it’s like a need to give out these emotions that I have deep inside. It was really hard for me to write those three songs’ lyrics because I had to reach a part inside of me that I didn’t want to meet at all. When I wrote them I was completely alone and for each lyrics I had to spend like a long weekend alone in my house. I was really sad and I was drinking alone and I was just writing these lyrics and I hated it and I hated myself… But when I finished I was happy that I could work it out. It was like being released from this trauma that I had. For me it is like this, yeah.
DinIntunerec: Sonically, your latest release is a boundary breaker in terms of musical style. You expand from your usual metalcore style to groove metal with elements of alternative metal. Are you purposely trying to push boundaries or are you just experimenting?
Balázs Fűr: It’s actually both, but we are purposely trying to differ from just metalcore because we found out that’s gay. We just feel these core music has some boundaries. So, we try to introduce some more classical elements of metal into it. Just expand our genre, let’s say, The purpose of this is to reach out to more people. Metalcore and deathcore get to a point where they become kind of boring. We try to mix it with other stuff but we still have a lot of core elements in our music. So I think now it’s a good balance on this Hellsolation album. A good balance between the genres. In the future, probably even less core will be on it and more classic rock stuff or industrial metal, or maybe experimenting with some country elements.
The good thing is that we released three LPs and one EP so far and we found our vibe and our sound, let’s say. We just have experiment with other genres and see if it works and that’s quite interesting and fun to do.
Dániel Ivanics: I only wanted to mention like as a vocalist for me these kind of boundary breakings are good because I got interested in a lot of different styles of vocals. Not just clean singing per se, but like a lot of different extreme type of vocals. With this type of music I can do a lot more with my voice. Core and metalcore have their limits even in vocals and this music is something that I grew up on.
DinIntunerec: What is the most vivid memory related to life on the road or live shows something cool or something funny or disturbing that made the lasting impression on you?
Evelin Kövecses: Yesterday, our show was cancelled. That was bad. It was in Sofia, Bulgaria. We traveled 24 hours and in the tour book it said that it will take 12 hours. So,’ we were pretty late because, you know, the night liner cannot go that fast so I don’t know how fast are we going but it was 24 hours to get to Sofia and they said that we are so late that we cannot play..
Balázs Fűr: Yeah, it was quite bad. But… heh, shall I say something funny or positive about touring? Well… we were with Fleshgod Apocalypse last year and it was a lot more fun than this tour so far. There were a lot of interesting things to do. We played in Spain and those guys, let’s say they are not very well prepared for the technical requirements of metal. The sound guys were eating pizza during the soundcheck…They didn’t even speak English so there were some funny situations… Also there was another night when there was a backdrop and somebody accidentally opened the file manager while the band was on stage.
But… now that I am pondering the matters, we really like to come here in Romania. I don’t know, but the Romanian guys actually like us so we like to come here. We were here multiple times, we played at Metalhead Meeting. Well, we always have these funny stuff in our merch like rainbow condoms. At Metalhead Meeting, we made some rainbow condoms and the Romanians, I don’t know, the teenagers probably, just bought all of them.
DinIntunerec: How do you see the future of metal, generally speaking? Lately, there are more and more bands, but apart from quantity do you think there is quality too?
Balázs Fűr: Difficult question. The metal scene is becoming more pop oriented or so I think. There are more mainstream bands and the most popular ones are having a lot of pop music influences… like Bring Me the Horizon. A lot of them are female-fronted bands as well… We are trying to find our way. Actually, we are putting in pop elements as well because it has an effect on us. But on the other hand, there are some bands like Lorna Shore that recently got very popular. I love them. But I’m not sure if bands like Lorna Shore are going to be famous forever, because you can’t really do this all the time… This kind of music, I mean… Eventually, you have to do something new. We’ll see what will happen.
DinIntunerec: Any final words or a message for the audience and for our readers?
Evelin Kövecses: Come to Romania and play here because it’s really nice here and people are really nice! Quantic is an amazing venue with a very professional team. And the audience is very lively and supportive, by the way, thank you for that!
DinIntunerec: Well, we are glad that you like it here! Thank you for your time! See you on stage!
