Peter D. Maniak and Viktor Nagy (Angerseed)

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)

So I look at this whole phenomenon from another dimension. I try look at it from above, from a clear distance, much more objectively. That’s why I can’t categorize myself into any kind of movement, I have my own path, my own ideas.  But I acknowledge authentic artists and I support music close to my soul! It isn’t so important to me what is underground or what’s not, to me at least, honesty is more important.  If the soul of a band, and a musician is in place, then that music is good and real for me.

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?

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. 

Peter D. Maniak (photo by Gabriel Hudec)

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!

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. 

(photo by Lucas Carter)

What is your job in everyday life? Does someone study of you? 

 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) 

Sérgio W. Vilhena

Interview with Sérgio W. Vilhena 

(Expurgo, Preceptor)

Open for Napalm Death (photo by Iana Domingos)

Hail Sérgio! You are very welcome again to my own inferno, Archangel’s Lantern. First of all, tell the readers how and when did you join Brazilian old school Grindcore horde Expurgo, as a bass-player. 

Sérgio: Hello, Georgius! It's always a pleasure to tell a little bit about our stories to Archangel's Lantern, let’s go... They invited me in late 2014, we spent the beginning of 2015 rehearsing intensively and on March 21st  we did our first show together that can be seen on YouTube in that link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb4y8oXsi8c 

I had never played bass and never thought about it, my business was just the guitar. I always went to their shows and was impressed with all that energy between the band and the audience. And that was, besides the friendship, which motivated me to face the challenge.

I know that you are not a founding member of Expurgo, but share some important information about this band, please (a short biography, releases)

Sérgio: Expurgo began as Putrifocinctor in the late 90’s. In 2001 they changed the name to Expurgo (Purge) and since 2005 with the release of the first demo "Gray Waste" we’re always releasing something. 12 splits in the most diverse formats, compilations, live bootlegs on CD and DVD, the first full-length album (Burial Ground) was released in 2010 and now at the beginning of 2018 will be released the second full called "Deformed By Law."

Expurgo with Flesh Grinder released a split 7” vinyl through Cogumelo Records in April this year. What should we know about this massive cooperation?

Sérgio: So man, this split took too long time to be released, but it was a dream come true. A beautiful green vinyl 7" EP, very well done and with great songs on both sides. It was also cool to have released by Cogumelo Recs., a classic metal record label from our city, which released the early Sepultura’s stuff, Sarcófago and all those famous bands here in our region.

How were the shows with legendary Extreme Noise Terror in Brazil? You’ve played those shows with your other band, Preceptor.

Sérgio: The first show was at São Paulo. The show was in a big place, with a stage far from the audience and this distance bothered me a bit. I particularly prefer the energy of the little places to the shows with Expurgo. A few hours before the E.N.T. show, we were informed that Dean Jones had not been traveled to Brazil and that threw cold water over us. But a very cool thing happened and I can’t complain. Soon after the show ended, we crossed the street and entered in a small pub that had a nice equipment. We asked the owner if we could play on it and it was done. It was really fun and part of this "show"can be seen on YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YLH68Vs4Ns

At Belo Horizonte, all the shows were very brutal, including the Extreme Noise Terror that did a much better show than at São Paulo, in my opinion. When I am rested and well rehearsed, play with Preceptor and Expurgo on the same night is a lot of fun, but when it happens after hours on the road it is very, very tiresome and I end up not enjoying the shows well. But in the end it's all a big party full of friends and that's what matters.

Open for Extreme Noise Terror (photo by Estevam Romera)

I’ve seen on the facebook page of Expurgo that the band is working on its second full-length album called “Deformed by Law”, if I’m not mistaken. How many tracks do you plan to record for it? (Expurgo’s debut album, “Burial Ground” included 29 pieces of extremity.)

Sérgio: Dude, I'm really looking forward to seeing this record ready. It's already in the factory and will be an album with 27 Grindcore crushing sounds full of influences from the good and old school Death Metal. Short songs, sticky riffs and heavy, lots of heavy riffs. The record was recorded at Brazil, mixed and mastered at Germany and we are very satisfied with the final result. It will be released in the first quarter by Black Hole Productions and I can’t wait to get my stereo's speakers melting.

Expurgo will play at Obscene Extreme Festival in July, next year in Czech Republic alongside with such legendary bands as Suffocation, Asphyx, General Surgery, etc. Do you plan to play at other fests in (Central) Europe as well? 

Sérgio: This will be another dream come true! As I am a Death Metal maniac, I can hardly believe that I will play with bands like Asphyx and Suffocation. Yes, we are scheduling some shows in Germany, Belgium, a small tour, and maybe we get something in Hungary, Slovakia or Austria. If you know anything, please let us know!

When did you start to play the guitar and the bass? Which musicians influenced you in the beginning? Name us your favourite guitarists and bass-players.

Sérgio: At my 14 years old, after classical guitar lessons with my grandma, I met the punk rock and saw that musical scores were not for me. I bought my first guitar and since then I have never stopped. The bass-guitar has now been with Expurgo, about 3 years ago. At the begin, I was totally influenced by the Death Metal bands here from Belo Horizonte like Sepultura, Sarcófago, Mutilator, these bands were part of our day to day and from an early age I knew that was what I wanted to play. I do not have a lot of "instrumental idols", I'm not technical at all and I value the feeling, but one of the guitarists who impressed me the most when I saw, it was Immolation's Robert Vigna, those crooked riffs and his intimacy with the guitar on stage is really impressive. Talking about the bass, I am an ogre (lol), and I could not fail to highlight Dan Lilker for the great job on Nuclear Assault and of course Brutal Truth.

Open for Extreme Noise Terror (photo by Estevam Romera)

Which are your favourite albums from Death Metal and Grindcore scenes?

Sérgio: Question of the most difficult!

Death Metal:

The IVth Crusade - Bolt Thrower (the best band in the world)

Altars of Madness - Morbid Angel

Where No Life Dwells - Unleashed

I guess any album from 1991 could be on this list ha ha ha

Grindcore:

Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses - Brutal Truth

From Enslavement to Obliteration - Napalm Death

World Downfall - Terrorizer  

Do you have any favourite authors/books? (Especially from Brazilian literature.) Any favourite actors/movies?

Sérgio: Brazilian writers: the great Ariano Suassuna and Graciliano Ramos.

Brazilian actor: Matheus Nachtergaele, he always makes some crazy and funny films.

Film: Tropa de Elite - Shows well the urban reality of the Brazilian police, corruption and the “favelas”.

Obrigado Sérgio, it was a pleasure to talk with you again. If there's anything you would like to add in the end of this interview, please feel free to do it.

Sérgio: Thanks a lot Georgius, and I thank you on behalf of everyone in Expurgo. We hope to meet you personally on our European tour in July and celebrate together! Stay grind, stay gore!!

Important links: 

Expurgo: facebook.com/ExpurgoGrind/

Preceptor: facebook.com/preceptorband/?fref=ts

                             Open for Extreme Noise Terror (photo by Estevam Romera)

Ronnie Ripper Olson

Ronnie Ripper Olson

(Turbocharged)

Hail brother Ronnie! You are very welcome to Archangel’s Lantern again! In the first instance I’d like to congratulate for the new Turbocharged album, called “Apocalyptic” and I must say, this release is one of my favourite in 2017. Would you be so kind to tell the readers the circumstances of the recording process and about your lyrics? (I know it would be hard for you, but try to say a few words about each track of the new album, please.)

- Hello again! Seem to become a habit to shoot the breeze here, don’t it? Thanks for the kind words about the album, we are pretty happy about the outcome but one never knows if anyone else will like it so it’s good to hear that you consider it worth the time! 

The recording of the latest album was pretty much just a shoot-from-the-hip recording and we just didn’t think too much this time. We wanted to make a fucking brutal album in our own way and our only preferences was to keep up the speed and try to get the sound we had in our heads for the moment. Every recording is a process of its own and we always tend to do it slightly differently from time to time and this one was spontaneous and efficient and not too much planning went into the recipe. I have no idea how to address each song but let’s give it a try:

Angelcripple:

This one was an obvious opening track with its full speed ahead approach, one might call it a homage to an old Swedish band that released their debut album back in 1990 but which one is for anyone to guess, I won’t make it THAT easy on you! The lyrics are simply a mockery of the idea of an afterlife in heaven, like what if you arrive there totally handicapped and spend eternity drooling on yourself?

Siamese Sons of God:

This one has no deeper meaning than just the two faced morals of religion, the one face that promises eternal bliss if you dedicate your life to its teachings and the other face that craves you to die for it in order to get accepted in heaven. I always have a sarcastic and critical angle in my lyrics and this is a prime example. The music is also pretty much a textbook example of how we do things, there’s punk and there’s metal coming at you all the way through.

Apocalyptic:

The world ends and we have our own theory of how it unfolds. Of course with an anti-religious twist with the priest trying to grasp the last pages of his torn up bible while he draws his last breath and they blow out of his hands. The music is a bit more “melodic” than our usual tracks even though I hate that expression, we pushed our boundaries a bit on this one.

Religious and Infected:

This one speaks for itself I guess and it’s d-beat in its purest form. You can smell Motörhead in this one and it’s because this time we didn’t try to get away from that. Where most bands have to strive to sound like them we have to try to NOT sound like them too much and in this little number we just went for the gold without trying anything at all. The lyrics are quite graphic in how you have to crawl for your masters and take a dicking and still won’t find the bliss. It’s quite funny actually.

Alpha Blasphemer:

The odd track of the album. This one has a touch of “We are the road crew” but with lyrics declaring that we are not cut out to live in the shadow of a false god. It has passages with harmonies and shit like that and it’s a good step outside the box at gigs as well as on the album I think. It’s also the first official video from this album that we released on December 24:th last year, fittingly enough.

Halo of Thorns:

The German thrash song of the album! We both speeded up this one and slowed it down before we found the golden middle pace for the album. There is one demo version in our vault that is fucking frenetic but we realized that it fell apart along the way, my arm almost fell off when we recorded it, ha ha! Now when we play it live it probably hold that speed anyway but for the album we wanted it to have more punch in the riffing than just to play it as fast as possible so we adjusted it accordingly. The lyrics are again about the mischief of practicing religion and the loss of character in the process. All our lyrics are about this so I am starting to sound boring already before reaching halfway through the songs, ha ha!

Relieve Thyself onto Me:

This is porn, plain and simple. Perversion is nothing new in the house of god and here we go through some scenarios of what is likely to go on behind their locked doors. The song itself goes from heavy to fast in 0,1 millisecond and it keeps you on edge I hope.

Deathmarch:

This one is probably the most death metallic song of the album, its bulldozing mid-paced tempo and its dragging riffing makes it pretty damn heavy and its an intentional revisit to the old days of Swedeath. I can only speak for myself but we have reached the point where everything I ever did along the way reflects in what I am doing today, this bears traces of the old Vomitory days and takes you back 25 years in time (hopefully). Again, we never force anything, this is just how it turned out in the recording and now we play it like this. The lyrics are about a hostile takeover to make Scandinavia free from organised religion again. Not the common Viking crap but just to clean it out of here. It’s a nice vision of something that will never come but one must keep the dreams alive, ey? 

Cold Day in Paradise:

This one was a touch nut to crack! We were supposed to play it in mid-tempo with double bassdrums almost throughout the whole song but after messing around with it we just peeled off the fancy ideas and went blastbeats and punk on its ass! It’s quite different than our usual stuff since it has d-beat, fast 2-beat, blasts and almost some classic Dissection harmonies in the mix. The lyrics do what they always do and it’s simply a dark day for religious nuts in the context.

Sacred Cadaver:

The “Hang the pope” of this album! This song was actually just under a minute at first but in the last moments we decided to rebuild it and make more of it and it came out almost 2 minutes! It’s fast and it’s not meant for radio, let’s put it like that. The lyrics state that everyone is an idiot for believing that the savior will emerge from his tomb and that if he did we would just nail that fucker up again like the myth says.

Resurrection Incomplete:

Come to think of it, I don’t know which song is the most classic Death metal on this album, if it’s this one or “Deathmarch”. This one could have been on any given demo of Nihilist back in the days (big words, I know, but you get the point). It’s d-beat in its prime and there’s a lot of vocals on this one, everything is twice the normal amount and the lyrics are about the fucked up story of their messiah being buried and the masses waiting for his return. It sounds boring as hell when I drag all the info like this but it’s a whole different thing when you are actually following the lyrics while listening to the album.

Scandinavian Darkness:

Coming in the wrong order, this could be called “Deathmarch part 1” and again it’s about cleaning out the filth from our northern corner of the world (meaning ALL religion) and taking back logic common sense to the streets. “There’s no fucking God here, there’s only darkness”, plain and simple! The riffing is a bit special in this one but since I wasn’t the one behind them I can’t say much about the ideas behind them, just that it’s a cool song to play and it has its moments for sure.

I like so much your rehearsal-track “Crosshating Punks” and Turbocharged made an excellent video for this one in 2016. Share some thoughts about that video and about the pre-production of “Religious and Infected” demo-clip as well, which you recorded in December last year. Do you have any plans to make a new video in the near future? 

- Aaah, here we come to a dead giveaway that I was too damn slow to respond to this interview, we did actually release a video after you wrote this question… Well, our videos is more than just clips, it’s part of the progress in my urge to learn both production and edit, both camera and software, and I always bug the others to make another one and another one! The “Crosshating punks” clip was just done out of restlessness and old clips, it was bits and pieces that we didn’t use for the “Area 666” video actually so the clips were years old when I cut it together. I put on as much CGI as I could to hide the fact that nothing synced and the lyrics plastered over the images was to hide that my vocals didn’t add up to anything good visually! The “Religious and Infected” clip we did for me to try out my new camera and to make some sign of life and to show that we are not being lazy. It turned out way better than I hoped for and was a good practice run with the camera. There are at least three more videos planned from this album but only time can decide when we pull it off.

How passed off the Turbocharged tour with Serbian Infest this September? (Unfortunately I missed it, but hope to see you live very soon). When and where will be your next live performances?

- Touring with Infest is always a blast and this tour, our second one together, was not different. Being stuck in a fart-drenched van with some crazy Serbian bastards for two weeks is something everyone should experience before claiming to be alive, that’s for sure! Some things didn’t turn out as planned but that was out of our reach to fix so it was all good, we did our best/worst and delivered sonic terror upon whoever decided to come and it was fucking great. Meeting new friends and getting a stronger backbone on stage is what it’s all about and our mission was executed with maximum results.

I like a lot the awesome sound of your bass. Which bass-players influenced you back in the time? Do you have any favourite bass-players?

Ha ha, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it: Lemmy, Tom Angelripper and Cronos all the way! Their three bands are what made me who I am today, there’s no way around that. I didn’t even know the difference between guitar and bass when I decided I would play bass, I was looking through a catalogue and didn’t know if I should choose “the 4-string or the 6-string bass”, ha ha! So stupid! I did however find my way and never looked back. I do have a guitar at home but I never once thought of playing it in a band, I am a bass-player to the core. And my influences has always been the same, I just happened to make something personal out of the mix of their styles and now I don’t think very much of what to play, I just blast off and hope for the best. 

Tell us about Hangöver! (How did you got in touch with its members? Which tracks did you write for them?) (Sorin, Romania)

- Hey Sorin! Oooooh, I’m not sure I even remember how I got in touch with them… I met Hellbastard at a Gehennah gig in 2003 for the first time and he told me he had a band which was “heavily influenced” by us and from there on we stayed in touch. I actually never wrote a song for them, they just got the “Pornwatcher” lyrics from me since I reckoned I would never use them myself. They made a brilliant tune for them and it was probably the first time I was part of something outside my own bands when it comes to writing anything. I think they drank more than they actually were a band so I can’t tell much about them!

I'm a faithful follower of the underground scene (Scandinavian, specially), since the early 90's. Currently, several bands are inside the scene, but... how do you see now the underground scene in general? Any band that you like especially? (Paco, Spain)

- Well Paco, the underground is far different now than it was back in those days but I don’t see it as a good or bad thing, times change and so do we. My problem with the scene is that there was a huge thing with people dropping out because “it got too commercial” back in the early 90-es and now all of a sudden a lot of those bands are back. I can’t see how you can “live for this” and still have no problem leaving for 20 years and then return like nothing happened. I might sound bitter and all but let’s face it: Some of us has been doing this every day since then and consider this scene to be a part of our DNA and we never backed down. Now these old bands come back and even if they deserve all our respect for what they once were and did, they didn’t move a muscle for 20 odd years and now they are touring the world again while others have spent every waken moment trying to get a break. Fame is of course not everything and the money aspect is just pure comedy but a struggling band deserves at least to break even in the end and that is really rare these days. We don’t have a problem paying out of our own pockets to get out there but since we are not rich it keeps us back and for every tour we have to cut down on something else (and there are families with kids involved here). There never was gold at the end of the underground rainbow of course but this retro wave is stealing the spotlight from the bands that struggle here and now. As for the quality of the music, it’s as good as ever if you only know where to look for good bands. Most of them don’t even know how good they are and they are playing local gigs in lack of global acknowledgment, still striving on pure passion. A band is supposed to be able to focus on that and it’s up to us supporters to find them and to spread the word. With today’s technology it’s easy to record and put some tracks up on Bandcamp or YouTube and most bands do, but the downside is that the constant stream of bands drown itself in white noise, kinda. I think I am losing my point here now, I don’t know where I am going anymore, ha ha! The bottom-line is that the scene is alive and kicking and you just have to look for the good stuff, it IS out there! Young bands and old bands deserve the same attention, or else we are pulling the plug on ourselves and risk sinking with the ship whether we like it or not. The bands I like are the same as anyone else from the old scene and newer bands always make an impact as they come along. To mention a few you should check out if you didn’t already: Violentor (Italy), Infest (Serbia), Axecutor (Bulgaria), Pyre (Russia), Chainsaw (Greece), Dreadful Fate (Sweden), etc, etc, etc… Too many to mention but if you start digging in these names you will find more good shit for sure! So yes, the scene is alive and glorious as long as we are, folks! 

This past September was out the latest album of your band Turbocharged, but you also have another project Ronnie Ripper's Private War. Do you have some new material written for RRPW? Could you tell us something? (Paco, Spain)

- This is a tough one since there were a shitload of stuff written almost ten years ago that still haven’t seen the light of day but there are no real plans for making it official either. I played a few gigs with some cool Danish people under this name and they have been talking about making an album out of it just for fun with both real recordings of old songs as well as never released stuff but we are all busy with other things so I don’t know if this will ever become a reality. One should also remember that the recordings were done in my living room just for my own amusement and were intended for the band back then and it kinda took on a life of its own. The CD was released purely because the guy wrote to me one evening when I was mixing some stuff and I sent him a sample. He decided that it was worth releasing and the rest is a very obscure history. This is one of those mysteries that will answer itself as time goes by, there are no plans for anymore gigs either so your guess is as good as mine what will happen to RRPW. Turbocharged is my only priority and I could never keep up two bands/projects at the same time, I simply don’t have two 100%’s to give. Sorry that I don’t have a proper answer for you, Paco!

I am listening quite a lot to your cover songs from Venom: “Witching Hour”, Sodom: “Ausgebombt” and Motörhead: “Killed by Death”, etc. because in my humble opinion they sound amazing. Are there any plans for a new cover or covers in the future?

- We don’t really put time and effort into covers these days since we have more than enough own songs to fill an hour on stage but we did play “Witching Hour” the last couple of gigs. It was a step outside the current frame but we had fun doing it. We do have some tribute stuff ahead of us, a line of EP’s in the style of bands but there will be no covers, just our own take on the special styles of the bands in question. Covers are a good way to “taste the poison”, to feel how the old classics were written and executed and they usually leave small traces in your muscle memory for your own stuff but being a cover band is not the way to go.

(Turbocharged live in Graz, 21.IX.2017, photo by Niki Bacher)

I’m so thankful for the retrospective interview with you about old Swedish days. I’ve forgotten to ask you, what is/are your favourite release(s) out of the Swedish productions of the 90's by the golden hand of Master Tomas Skogsberg?

- Thanks yourself for sending great questions, it was fun to take that trip down memory lane for sure! It’s hard to just pick a few classics from his portfolio but I must make it easy and go with the four first albums I heard from there: Entombed: “Left Hand Path”, Dismember: “Like An Ever Flowing Stream”, Grave: “Into the Grave” and Tiamat: “Sumerian Cry”. Those were the albums that set the sound of a whole scene and which are still the how-to-do-it manuals for Death metal.

I’ve seen a Swedish comedy film “The Adventures of Picasso” (“Picassos äventyr”) a couple days ago and as for me it’s just a brilliant sarcastic one. What is your opinion about that old movie? Do you have any favourite Swedish actors and movies?

- Ha ha, this was unexpected! I don’t know if I ever saw that movie though, I can’t recall any scenes from it… Swedish movie history has some golden gems for sure, all the way from comedy to criminal mysteries, but I doubt that most of it ever reached the world. The BECK-series are an awesome line of criminal drama/tension that might have become international. “Sällskapsresan” is another franchise that started out great and turned into shitty sludge along the way but I think the jokes in those are a bit too Swedish for anyone to like them outside our strip of land. One old fave movie of mine which is pretty obscure and not too well made is “The ninja mission”, I think I was the only one who liked it back in the days actually, ha ha! “Bron”(The bridge) is another quite new series that I liked a lot and it’s half Danish which is not negative in my book! I suck at giving tips about Swedish movies, I usually stick to slasher movies and the likes there of and we didn’t have many of those made here.

Tack så mycket/Thank you very much, Bror Ronnie! It was an honour to talk with you again. At the end of this interview, please send some thoughts from the Scandinavian Darkness.

- Thanks yourself, once again! Also thanks to Paco and Sorin for giving me the time of day, I hope you guys found something interesting in my attempts to answer! What else can I say than: See you in our next mutual part of Archangel’s Lantern, we know there will be more, don’t we brother? Keep your eyes open for more shit to come out of the Turbocharged camp, there are things brewing under the surface, itching to go public! Forever metal!

Important links of Turbocharged: 

Facebook: facebook.com/turbochargedswe/?fref=ts

YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCHfKE9PYgfFBQ6ocdtu03Ug

Go Fuck Yourself Productions: facebook.com/GFYProd/?fref=ts

Ronnie Ripper's Private War: 
Facebook: facebook.com/ronnierippersprivatewar/?fref=ts


Ronnie Ripper's YouTube: youtube.com/user/RonnieRipper 

(Questions compiled by Georgius, 

Paco (Spain) and Sorin (Romania, Sadistik Witchfukk 'zine)