Interview with Peter D. Maniak
and Viktor Nagy
(Angerseed)
Hail my old friends, Peter and Viktor, Hellcome to Archangel’s Lantern! First of all tell us briefly about the beginnings: how and when did you join the underground movement? What were your first stuff (tapes, vinyls) and very first live-shows?
Peter: Hi Georgius and we welcome the readers of Archangel’s Lantern! Thank you for the opportunity for the interview and I’d like to say sorry that I sent the answers with a delay - there are always plenty of backgrounds with the band which is always in change and in motion and the time isn’t endless unfortunately. But now I’ll answer everything and hopefully can say some interesting things.
Well, I wanted to be a musician since my childhood, this was my only wish and plan for life :) I never wanted to do anything else, just being a musician. Fortunately 30 years have gone and I still believe in this idea and do it with full energy and soul. I listened to the old Hungarian Rock/Metal music styles and the similar bands from abroad in my childhood (I still love them very much). The music became heavier and more aggressive so I became a fan of the Heavy/Speed/Thrash/Death/Black Metal genres. My first vinyls and tapes belonged to my Father mainly in old school Rock styles but at the age of 10 I started to buy vinyls and tapes by myself. Nowadays I’m not a big CD or vinyl collector but I have vinyls, CD-s and tapes too in a good number. I prefer collected magazines, e.g. I’ve got all the issues of the Hungarian HammerWorld Magazine (earlier Metal Hammer & Hungarica Magazine) and its pre-life magazines and of course another Fanzines are in my collection too. I love magazines!
My first live-show was an Omega gig (legendary Hungarian Rock band) when I was 8, one year later another legendary Hungarian Metal band (Pokolgép) was the opening act for Omega and I’ve become infected with Heavy Metal. When I was 11, I saw Helloween in my hometown on the Keeper… Pt.1. Tour and after this there wasn’t stop for me. I visited more than 1.000 concerts in my life along with my own shows.
Viktor: HELLCOME Georgius! Thanks for the interview opportunity! And welcome to all real, authentic, and self-identical artists, metalheads, readers, fans, organizers, fanatical animals,...etc. who enjoy, love, support and listen to these obscure and fucked up music styles! The world would surely be a much poorer place without us! Ha-ha!
Peter knows more about the old undergound, as he has more experience, and his musical world has grown out from these kind of metal / underground music styles, already in his youth. I started listening music with every style of mainstream music, so my life was completely different before my period of underground . I’m a child of a more modern era, so I totally look another way at these artistic, (anti)-cultural and counter-cultural phenomena. I have no nostalgic feelings and memories about the old days, and I don’t feel like being an integral part of any so-called underground movement. I have three main reasons for this. Well, it depends what you consider real movement of course...
First reason: Lone wolf syndrome. I’m a kind of loner, and I have an antisocial personality. It’s rather an inner attitude for me, towards the society. I’m something like „Fuck the world, I try to do and think everything according to my will!” Even in such an environment of musicians and people where you shouldn’t think that, cause in theory it’s made up of people with common visions and goals. In theory...
Second reason: The unified mirage. There are still many who argue that this movement has some kind of spiritual unity. And I think this is an illusion. If I experience such things, it raises further questions to me. At this point, I always ask myself: What does the extreme-metal underground movement mean? What does it really mean in such a modern age, where people can create micro-subcultures with self-customized world-view models? The underground is clearly consists of distinct subculture groups. There are different ways with different views, very often with warfare against each other. Today, I see that we are living in a hybrid era, where ideas and scenes have started to slip into each other. Totally chaos is emerging.
Third reason: Destitute of vision. I think this underground thing is different for everyone, it isn’t the same if you're a listener, or if you’re a performer. Or if you’re a mixture of those two. For many people, this whole underground thing means ONLY that, „being in love with similar styles, drinking together” and „to be glad with loud music in concerts”, not to gather inspirations or/plus ideas, and thereby maybe gain some spiritual experience through these eerie revelations. This is a problem. It’s unsatisfying to me. I’m not against entertaining, as this is a little part of the music world, and right, music is the main source, the first link between performer and recipient, but there is a deeper reason and I see that most people simply don’t care. Where is the real potential of the „movement” on the spiritual plane? Music style is just a tool, only a surface. If you have only the shape, where's the real content? This is net materialism, and arts in general -- for me at least, should carry a deeper meaning than that! So it’s frustrating sometimes, but I don’t care about this, their loss you know...
Angerseed (photo by Más Martinec)
I prefer CD-s over vinyls and tapes for daily use, as I unwrap, and listen to them often. That’s why the vinyl and tape are too vulnerable to me. I prefer 1st press CD-s from the original label, and always smell the booklet, and read the lyrics too. I love the original booklets! Although the real thing is still the vinyl, I sign it. Once, if my financial situation will allow me, I’ll buy a lot of vinyls. I know it’s some kind of „blasphemy”, but I don’t have any kind of vinyl, or tape player. I had some players back then, when I was young, I remember that. But I’m unfortunately a gearhead. I spent the significant part of my wage, to buy amplifiers or to develop something in the rehearsal room. So I have a more important place for my money. Anyway, I wouldn’t call myself a collector because I only like those materials, which ones are close to me. I'm pretty picky. My very first CD-s were modern extreme genres of music, if I remember it correctly. Deathspell Omega, Ulcerate and some complex stuffs like that, then I collected materials from the Swedish Black Metal Arts Dissection, Watain, Bathory. But I used to buy some materials as well from the mainstream line, like Slayer or Metallica...etc. If I find something special, I collect from the depths of the underground too, of course if I find something valuably inspiring.
As a listener, I don’t remember exactly what the first concert I saw, if you ask the very first. It wasn’t probably too interesting. I was too young kid, and this era had nothing to do with the underground. I remember it was some kind of local open-air mainstream bullshit. What I remember clearly from the side of extreme-style music concerts, is the Chromized Land festival in Debrecen organized by Peter. Then I was just in the audience. I first heard such kind of music there. It was around 2006.
What was/were your first band(s)? Which bands influenced you the most back in the day and why? Peter, when did you start to growl? (as far as I know, you played the guitar as well, share please a few thoughts about it).
Viktor, when did you start to play the guitar? Do you play the other musical instruments as well?
Viktor, when did you start to play the guitar? Do you play the other musical instruments as well?
Peter: I founded and created my first band when I was 16 (in 1992), it was called Desolation and of course it played Death Metal right in the beginning :) When it split up in 1994, I wanted to rebuild the band but I was invited in the forming Carbon Cage. This was a very professional band and became well-known in Hungary very fast (this band split up in 1998). This was the start of my real musical career. I played in 7-8 bands: Desolation, Carbon Cage (there were 2 important line-ups), Neochrome (2 important line-ups too), in Sectioned as a guest vocalist, and of course in Angerseed. And sometimes I was invited as a guest vocalist in more well-known popular Hungarian Rock/Metal bands which is always a great pleasure for me.
My influences… I have so many favourite bands and artists from every genre that I couldn’t list them all. I love the good and creative music from the 50’s ’till nowadays in hundreds of genres, every good music has a strong effect on me!
I started to growl when I was a teenager, I think every Underground Metal Fan tries to growl once in a lifetime :), I liked it so I became a vocalist and it was the best to my personality, I always wanted to tell a lot of things to the audiences. Yes, I played the guitar too in the first times but sincerely it was too difficult for me and the guitar was an obstacle on the stage too so I finished playing it. It was a mistake, ’cause if I hadn't finished playing the guitar, I could have controlled the musical evolution of my past bands better. But…this is how it happened.
Viktor: As my listening of metal music styles in general and in a more serious form started when I joined in my first band. Those people’s (my first metalhead friends) taste was my first real musical inspirational line in my life. Listening and making music have happened me at the same time. As this group was a little old-school black metal type of band in the veins of the first and the second wave of Norwegian, and Swedish Black Metal bands, those bands and projects are my first musical inspirations. All of them...These times left their marks on me and resonated to my soul so deeply, that they brought a transformation and resulted in a completely different person. Mayhem was the first brilliant band, that left the first serious scar on my skin with “Live in Leipzig” and “Dawn Of The Black Hearts”, I felt that strange and disgusting combination of rawness, and darkness and loneliness. Those events back then...The corporeal manifestation of real power through music. Black Metal, as a whole, is a very important fundament of my musical journey, and my attitude towards music. So... Mayhem was the first important impact, but I listened to everything else in parallel. Later by the time of course, I developed further my own world of musical taste, during my research of these tentacles. I you look at it from the right distance, you’ll see the body of the beast...
For my part, it wasn’t conscious, or pre-planned to enter into the dimension of strings. As a result of my belated major musical influences, I was able to handle such a materialistic, banal and simple-looking activity, like strumming and picking guitar strings, in the right place with a more solid character, personality core and more advanced spiritual visions. My change didn’t stop in this point. Change is eternal, so I try to focus to my very important purpose:
In this chaotic storm of physical and metaphysical phenomenon-changes, with the help of my instrumental play, I want to bring to the surface these small fragments from an ancient, pre-existent, deeply complex plane, what stands above everything, we can catch with our primitive organs. I think this view should be a very basic fundament of art, and a truly clean way to avoid to get stuck into the shallow marsh of stagnation. Answering to your basic subject, I first picked up the guitar in 1996, although this relatively long period doesn’t contain a continuous musical path. I started playing an acoustic guitar with old stuff from the '50s 60's to the 70's from every style. My musical openness comes from here and I can almost hear anything that I see as a source of inspiration. This attitude is very important. Besides the guitar, I can play drums, and bass guitar a little bit, but I’m interested in other instruments as well. Unfortunately I don’t have enough time for those.
About the vocals of Angerseed:
I think Peter doing that really professionally, and he brings out the maximum, from what his throat is capable of. He is very experienced singer in these styles. I’m satisfied with his work around the band, his creativity, and his artistic visions. He often uses exactly that kind of solid middle-range frequency with his voice, that’s between roaring and growling. This texture of vocal style is one of the most expressive and the same time aggressive amongst these music genres. But let’s see, what the future holds. Maybe later we will try even more techniques both with guitar work, and vocals.
Viktor Nagy (photo by Tamás Bócsi)
Now let’s talk about Angerseed. Peter tell us please all the important things about the first steps of the band back in time and your releases, current line-up. Share with us the conception of your lyrics. Viktor how it’s going the process of riff making?
Peter: Ahh, it’s a pretty difficult and long story J, I’d need a full book to describe the whole story in detail. We had a lot of changes among the members in the early times and unfortunately in recent times too. This is the typical symptom of the Underground life form, people can’t do it for too long, because of the hard circumstances or financial things or the human differences, etc. Fortunately I’ve got the fire to never give up but sincerely we met so many egoist/selfish/narrow-minded ex-members that you couldn’t imagine. A lot of ex-members can thank many things to the band but they never said ’Thanks’ and many of them tried to stab us in the back after getting kicked out or leaving the band although we never harmed them… Very sad and I feel pity towards them, this is their certificate of poverty. I always believed in my current members and helped them, the other things and their future depend(ed) on them.
Because of the changes and the intensive touring we have had only three releases so far: ’The First Seeds…’ EP in 2010, ’Dawn of a New Kingdom’ EP in 2012 and ’The Proclamation’ Full-length Album in 2016. The last two years were very busy with background work and other things so we created the new songs only in a slow tempo but from this year we’ll be faster: we are preparing ourselves for a new EP. According to the plans it will be available in August on the occasion of the X. Full Of Anger Underground Metal Festival and our 10th Birthday Party and next year we’ll record our new full length album.
The current line-up is: Viktor Nagy – Guitars (he is here since 2009), Márk Mészáros – Bass (since 2016), József Gáva – Drums (since 2017) and me, Peter D. Maniak on vocals. Anyway Joci is our new drummer, who we have known since 2015 but became an official member only last year, after 5 years of playing with some excellent session drummers (greetings to all of them!), mainly with Eugene Ryabchenko (Castrum, Afgrund, Locacry, etc.) who played for Vital Remains too and is now the drummer for Belphegor. Eugene plays on ’The Proclamation’ album too in his excellent form – we wish all the best to him in the future!
Now we are searching for a second guitarist and the line up will be complete, hopefully for a long time. We are very happy that we have our own drummer at last, he plays very well and he’s very creative. Anyway, this is the first interview I talk about him, so Welcome on board, Brother!
Now we are searching for a second guitarist and the line up will be complete, hopefully for a long time. We are very happy that we have our own drummer at last, he plays very well and he’s very creative. Anyway, this is the first interview I talk about him, so Welcome on board, Brother!
József Gáva (Gekko Pub)
Our lyrics are not too easy to describe… abstract and visionary lyrics turn against the world which keeps going in the wrong direction. The lyrics usually use the inner suffering viewpoint of a person and show the confusion and the frustrated disappointment which is generated by the continuous loss of the real values of our society. Most of our lyrics are about these topics but of course this is only a rough-and-ready description. You have to read the lyrics and find out what they mean for you! Those who ordered our ’The Proclamation’ album in a special Box layout, got a detailed description of the story of the album which has a solid concept. If someone was interested in it, send me a mail and I’ll send it to every Fan who might be interested!
Viktor: When I joined to the band, there were some complete songs already, but we have thoroughly reshaped the rhythmic patterns and the guitars. Then the band's new musical style was born. It became more brutal stuff for sure. “Dawn Of A New Kingdom” was a relatively raw material. On The Proclamation album we have developed this harshness into a slightly more melodic, and atmospheric form. It makes no sense to do the same twice, without any progression.
The lyrics are pretty profane, and straightforward, not obscured by different ideologies, though they are relatively artistic. Modernization crisis processes are described and a decline of a historical and civilization construction is conceptualized with little esotericism. Revelation... They are about wasting and death. Materialism and emptiness. About the endless struggle of nihil and intelligence. About an internal war...
I can’t say about the making of new material too much. For now we are working on little fragments, song structures, and harmonies, so now we are in the phase of pre-production. It's hard to write music that you're proud of. It's getting harder and harder as time goes by. Metal music is started to run out from possibilities of originality. This sounds a little cliché, but I think there is a truth in it. Moreover maintain the band consume a lot of financial-and life energy, and the songs are first born in my soul, so it’s a slower process to precisely materialize them, because it needs inspiration, and calm mind. The good way, if a song has a special meaning to its maker. If someone is forced to work just to have some random shit songs, that’s a dead end. That’s one of the main problems with this fucking modern world, everything comes out straight from a conveyor belt, without any validity. This is the death of art. But as for me, I’ll try to do my best to make quality materials in the future.
Márk Mészáros (photo by Lucas Carter)
How would you characterize the local scene of Debrecen? (back in the day and now)? Which bands/shops would you recommend to the readers?
Peter, please tell us more about your fest, called Full of Anger. (anyways thanks a lot for inviting my past band, Domhring to your festivals, it was really great to play with you on common stage).
Peter: As everywhere, the Underground life and scene was very big and strong here too, with many good bands and a lot of club shows/Festivals. But in the last decade it has changed and instead of the 400-500 Underground Fans who visited the shows, now it’s only 150-200 for a bigger event but we never give up organizing shows! We don’t know about any new Undergound bands in the last years so the state is not so excellent, we hope for a good turn in these figures.
The Full Of Anger Underground Metal Festival replaced my older Festival-serie called ’The Chromized Land Fesztivál’ which was held by me and my former band between 2002 and 2008. In 2009 I renamed it to the current name and we did 2-3 shows every year (but only one show had a number a year), so now the 23th event is coming but as a number it will have only the number X. This will be also Angerseed’s 10th Birthday Party so it must be a huge celebration!
You and your past band Domhring and also your first band Castrum participated more times in the Festivals, those were really great times to share the stage with you!
Viktor: I feel there is no scene in Debrecen. I don’t know about a really good Black or Death Metal band here, except us.:) There are very few active bands in Hungary in these styles. Of course the country is small too. If you start a band here and take it to a relatively good level, you will automatically find yourself in the forefront we are so few ha-ha!
I suggest if anyone comes here to Debrecen, just visit the Rock-Ness record shop, and buy some materials, to keep the old-school flame alive! Original stuff will always be the best! The seller Bohner László is a great guy!
If you want to buy some instruments, I can suggest you the Hangszerarzenál shop, they have a lot of good stuffs.
(photo by Tamás Bócsi)
Angerseed is a very active horde with live shows. Let’s talk about your latest live-performances last Summer and Autumn. Anyway you played 3-4 times in our hometown on the Death Metal Assault and UzhgoreRot as well. How did you feel in Uzhhorod/Ungvár? As far as I know you will continue your Transylvania/Romania tour very soon. What should we know about these massive shows?
Peter: We don’t have too many shows a year, between 20 and 25 on average but we can call this amount an active form in the Hungarian Underground scene I think. However there are many bands who have over 100 shows every year… I can’t understand how they can do this because organizing and playing 20-25 shows a year can be very-very exhausting because of the not so easy Underground background work without an effective Booking Agency. In the last two years we had many very memorable shows in Hungary and abroad too, I could talk about them for more days but we love every show we played! We played in Ungvár 3 times and it’s a great pleasure to play there every time! Cornelius of Castrum is a very good old Friend of us and he is a True Metal Warrior. Thanks for those shows to him! We hope we can return to the UzhGoreRot Festival or the Death Metal Assault events soon, it would be so fine, the crowd is always crazy and the feeling is priceless! So we had a lot of very good shows last year too but we also started a Tour in Romania, mainly in the Transylvanian towns, the first part of it contained 5 shows. This Spring we continue it and the last act will be in the Autumn 2018. The shows were really nice, and we love to play in those towns. Check the new dates, they will be published soon and of course we’ll play everywhere in the following years where we can.
Viktor: Death Metal Assault and UzhgoreRot are good festivals, it’s always a pleasure to come back here to Ungvár. I like the atmosphere of the concerts, and there are good audiences here. Kornél is a skillful organizer. Greetings to him and to all of you!
Please name your favourite bands/albums (5-10). Have you got any special hobbies alongside music? Which books/movies are your favourites?
Peter: I can name them only in 3 groups with the best 3 albums in every category but it's almost impossible to make a favourite list:
Hungarian Rock: Edda Művek I. (1980), Korál I. (1980), Omega – Kisstadion '79 Live (1979).
Heavy Metal from abroad: Helloween – Keeper Pt.III. - The Legacy (2005), Iron Maiden – Somewhere in Time (1986), Helloween – Any other records with Andi Deris:).
Death Metal: Morbid Angel – Altars of Madness (1989), Obituary – Slowly We Rot (1989), Deicide – I. (1990).
But this is very short this way, I have hundreds of favourite albums in every genre!
Peter D. Maniak (Under dark Moon Fest)
Viktor: Hard to choose the favorites, because there are so many quality music out there that I cold list more than hundred materials. So I share with you some of my inspirations:
Deathspell Omega: Paracletus
Dissection: Storm of the Light’s Bane
Shining: The Eerie Cold
Anaal Nathrakh: In the Constellation of The Black Widow
Mayhem: Misteriis Dom Sathanas
Bathory: Blood, Fire, Death
Watain: Lawless Darkness
The Devil’s Blood: The Thousandfold Epicentre
Craft: Void
Satyricon: Rebel Extravaganza
Bloodbath: Grand Morbid Funeral
Ulcerate: Everything is Fire
Teitanblood: Death
Celtic Frost: Monotheist
Suffocation: Suffocation
Morbid Angel: Altars of Madness
Vital Remains: Icons of Evil
Darkthrone: Like a Blaze In The Northern Sky
and many more ...
Every fucking little thing interests me. I don’t have any particular hobby right now. But usually I like to DIY. I like origami and modelling. I’m a horror and sci-fi fanatic too. I read a lot about human subjects: Arts, philosophy, theology, culture..etc. Favourite book? I read texts from the internet mainly, with a very chaotic method. I don’t have soul energy for books beside my 3 shift factory job. Working in a factory is a slow suicide, but at least a very „metal” job...ha-ha
Viktor Nagy (photo by Gabriel Hudec)
Archangel’s Lantern is eternally dedicated to the memory of Jon Andreas Nödtveidt. (It was a honour for me to play Dissection’s mighty ”Night’s Blood” live with Andartar in January, 2010, thanks a lot for that Viktor!) Share some of your thoughts with the readers about Jon Andreas Nödtveidt, please.
Viktor: You’re welcome Georgius! All those who created something very ambitious in their lives, and had an impact on many minds in this pathetic existence, they wrote themselves into history, and as long they remain immortal, as somebody will remember them, or something commemorates for their work. Jon Nödtveidt isn’t an exception. I’m not in a position to evaluate him, in his deeper human quality, because I didn’t know him personally, so I rather want to make an opinion based on other considerations. First he was a great musician, composer and songwriter, in a very progressive musical era. He composed the cornerstones of Black-Death metal hybrid styles. This is alchemy, a group of such conjunctions, which rarely occurs in a human's life. He was more than himself. He was famous, successful and fanatic, the epitome of „one of a kind” and rebellious personality type.
His religious-based suicide speaks for itself, and acceptable for those, who are into the dark-occult lore, and not stuck down into this materialistic plane. He was an idol for me, who wrote himself among those, who sacrificed themselves for „R’n’R”. This is the most that a person can do in this lifestyle. He left us in his prime, thrown away everything to witch a superficial man clinging with all his ten nails. Hail!
What foods, drinks are your recommendations from local cuisine? Which places should visit the tourists in Debrecen?
Peter: I could recommend traditional Hungarian foods and drinks, you can find a lot of these on the Internet. We are very good in making delicious and fine foods and drinks! Of course I can recommend to visit the main sights here: ’Nagyerdő’ (Great Forest), ’Nagytemplom’ (Great Church) which is the symbol of the town, our beautiful main square and the renewed centre, Debrecen has become very nice in recent years, the few things which I don’t like are that the centre is too small and we don’t have any hills or rivers L And of course visit our very cheap and great Rock/Metal Pubs and the Full Of Anger Festival!
Viktor: I can give a few suggestions from the lowland’s gastronomy:
Goulash soup, Roasted pork with sour cream, Paw soup, Slambuc, Beef goulash, Duck thigh roasted in grease, served with wine-steamed cabbage & grilled topinambour, Sour cherry strudel. They are traditional lowland foods. Try to drink a good wine after/before that. Something from Tokaj, for example Furmint or Aszú. We have good wines. Or drink a bottle of Szatmári szilvapálinka, just try to get home soon after that:)
For sightseeing purposes we have parks, museums, churches, a zoo, coffee houses, wine taverns, university : Nagyerdei park (Great Forest), Hortobágy National Park, Debrecen Zoo and Botanical Garden, Déri Museum, Reformed College Museum, Puszta Animal Park, MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts, AGORA scientific center, Debrecen Plaza...etc.
Peter: I live for the band and work not too much a year, it’s not so easy but I have to concentrate only on the band. In the last days I finished and English course and took an intermediate language exam. I’m sure it will be successful, ’cause I have been learning English since the beginning of the 90’s, I was just too lazy to take the exam so far J. But this course made my knowledge stronger and it was fine for me, in the musical business English knowledge is a very important thing. If you want to be somebody in the musical life, you must have a manager and label or booking agency or set up your own company or be without work and try to make everything for the band. Anyway we got more contracts from good labels in the last two years but we are still waiting for the best option, we’d also like to release the last album abroad and then we’ll see what happens.
Viktor: After I graduated from technical high school, I decided I wouldn’t go to college. I've been working officially for 6 years, in a printing industry since then.
Nagyon szépen köszönöm /thank you very much, my friends! Send your Anger message to the readers of Archangel’s Lantern.
Peter: Mi is nagyon szépen köszönjük a lehetőséget Neked még egyszer, nagyon jó móka volt válaszolni a kérdéseidre! / We thank you for the opportunity once more, I had a great time answering the questions!
Our message to the Fans: always be yourselves, always believe in yourselves, never be the slave of this blind and brainwashed society! Choose your way and don’t care about the existence of the stupid ones! And of course raise the Flag of the glorious Death Metal high and listen to Angerseed J! Greetings to every Underground Fan!
Viktor: Thank you for the opportunity! Fuck the world! Keep the Flame alive! Learn to experience, and walk with your eyes wide open!Hail!
Peter D Maniak and Viktor Nagy (photo by Gabriel Hudec)
Important links of Angerseed:
Youtube: youtube.com/user/ANGERSEEDofficial
Facebook: facebook.com/Angerseed
Bandcamp: angerseedofficial.bandcamp.com
SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/angerseedofficial
ReverbNation: reverbnation.com/angerseedofficial
E-mail: angerseed@gmail.com
Phone: +36-20/467-7019
DISCOGRAPHY:
The First Seeds (Before the Reign of Anger) – EP (CD, 2010)
Dawn of a New Kingdom – EP (CD, 2012)
The Proclamation – Full-Length (CD, 2016)