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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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