To this day, I don’t understand the life path of Autumn Nostalgie. I’ll tell you why. It is true that in 2008 respectable music was made with the Fekete Erdő band, but there was silence for a very long time, even though Autumn Nostalgie existed. All of a sudden there was a boom and the amazing songs came towards us. There is no such thing as being able to break out of “nothing” like that. Are you very, very critical of yourself and because of this you managed to develop your startup to grandiose heights? Man, seriously, everyone really needs your music!
Thank you for the nice words. As you said, the preparations took a very long time so that something could be created from this nothingness. Autumn Nostalgie first surfaced in 2009. That’s when the name of the band was first mentioned in an attic room one street away from us, and thus began a rather long, now more than ten-year journey, until Esse Est Percipi was released in 2020. I could say that I consciously dragged things around the band for so long, but it wasn’t like that. I didn’t originally plan it that way. The songs kept coming, but none of them were good enough. As soon as I finished a composition, it went into the sink. There was always something missing. While a song was being prepared, I felt that this song would have what I was looking for, but by the time it was finished, it had disappeared. It was very difficult to add this extra thing so that it would remain in the final result, the finished song. Only one song was made at the very beginning, which was included in Esse Est Percipi. Gray Horizons was made entirely around 2010. The vocals, however, were only recorded in 2020. That’s when the lyrics were born too.
At that time, what did you experiment with the most? How did you want to see and hear your black nostalgia? What values did you want to achieve? Where did you want it to touch everyone?
I didn’t care then or now about who it touches. I’m not writing the song for someone, but I’m trying to create a different state through music. In the process of evoking the feeling of nostalgia, a person loses his connection with reality and for a long time he is out of the present and gets into a much purer existence. Kierkegaard wrote about this in Either-Or in his work. According to him, “living in memory is the most perfect life imaginable, memory is more satisfying than any other reality and as reliable as any reality. A life situation that we only remember has entered eternity once and for all, and it no longer has any worldly interest.” This kind of remembering only works in the shadow of death, when a person is overwhelmed by the feeling of passing. In such cases, he looks for something to grab onto, the source of joy, which he can only find in the past. Although the given memory is beautified, since in its reality it was just as full of suffering, the memory has the characteristic that the person is alone there. There is no other person to share reality with. Perfect solitude, where everything is dead and frozen.
Among the words of praise from the fans, what struck me was the large number of South American fanatics. Do you think there is a reason for this? How surprised were you?
For some reason, this music really touches them. Anyway, South Americans welcome everything with twice as much enthusiasm as anyone else in the world. It is enough to listen to a few stories when Mayhem performs there, or the famous Guatemalan Nargaroth concert in 2010. They experience their fandom at the highest level and are not interested in anything except what is happening on stage. I am sure that it is a great experience to perform there.
The style of your music is primarily Atmospheric / Post-Black Metal. I would call this simply the most advanced Black Metal subgenre of today. Here, everything meets at the same time and it really needs the sense, touch, and knowledge that will make it viable! How to start something similar? To what extent is meticulous planning and precision necessary?
This is the closest style that could be used to define our music. Even though Autumn Nostalgie belongs here too, the whole scene is very divided and there are very few bands to appreciate. My biggest problem with this Post-Black Metal thing is that it’s born of today and mixed with the mentality of today. It has become a fun style, which if you listen to it, you feel good, you can forget about yourself and get into an amused, relaxed mood. We distance ourselves completely from this kind of attitude. As I wrote before on Ópiumbarlang website, Post-Black Metal, which is interesting to me, is a mixture of neofolk and black metal. It has enough seriousness and rebellion. Such bands still existed when this style became attractive to me in 2009.
In 2021, József Nagy joined as a permanent drummer. Why did he want to enter and what did he like about your music? How did he want to play the drums and how did you want to hear his drumming in the songs :)?
Yes, he joined as a drummer in 2021, but from the summer of 2022 we will be working with a different drummer. Adrián Gőgh (Ignominious, Enema Shower) took over the rhythm section. Unfortunately, we parted ways with Joci, he was a member of the band for less than a year. When the band was formed, I asked him to take over the drums, since we were almost childhood friends. He played the drums for Ataraxia, and then came Adrián, who also contributed to the joint split.
It is very good for a band if their streaming sites attract a lot of visitors and sell a lot of publications. You had this at the beginning. You are outstanding, I dare to say that. How many times have you been surprised by the results so far? What can be achieved with such good reverberations?
It all came crashing down on me/us very suddenly. I never thought that the Esse Est Percipi album would get such a big response. It has been released in crazy quantities on CD, cassette and vinyl, thanks to several labels. After the album was released on the Atmospheric Black Metal Albums Youtube channel, at the beginning, offers from publishers came almost daily. In the end, I decided on Japan’s Zero Dimensional Records. Fortunately, I never had to knock myself. Before EEP was released to the public, I planned to release it myself in a limited edition of 100 CDs. I also contacted a company who would have done the work when Zero Dimensional Records wrote me. After that came Northern Silence Productions, who specifically wanted to release the first album on vinyl. It was also released on cassette by Goatroom from Colombia.
I will tell you a very good proof. The Hungarian texts were translated precisely by several people, which is no small feat and determination. Is there anything else we might not know about who has said or done something surprising through your fandom?
The lyrics have been translated into several languages. It happened that they wrote to me to help with the translations, because they could not translate a word into Russian, for example. The member who wrote said that he runs an “Autumn Nostalgie fan club” (whatever that means) where they deal with interpreting the lyrics. It is interesting that the lyrics captured the audience so much and they don’t just listen to the music. They also want to understand what is expressed in music. Although the lyrics won’t help with that, because really everything is expressed only symbolically and metaphorically, something beyond itself.
I made a lot of new acquaintances through music, I made new connections. Actually, the fact that the music that I started more than ten years ago has reached so many places and received so much positive feedback is a very surprising thing in itself. Perhaps the most memorable moment is our Barther Metal Open Air performance last year. We played in Germany’s northernmost city next to the Baltic Sea. It was already surprising that they walked around the festival in Autumn Nostalgie T-shirts, but when we started the concert, they almost shouted the lyrics along with us. At the end of the concert, I told the others how surprising it is that there are still Hungarians here. It turned out that they were Germans, they only knew the Hungarian lyrics.
Now let’s talk about your split release, which will be released in June, which you share together with the band Hænesy. As far as I know, not 2, but 4 songs were planned! You can really be very critical of yourself 🙂 ! Why did you throw out the other two?
There were indeed more songs planned for the split. Another “Sarepta” was written last year, but I was not satisfied with it, so I discarded it. The song was already ready for the album, but in the end I didn’t use it. Something was missing from it, it didn’t really convey what I imagined. This selection process is not new for me, it has happened many times that I have thrown out ready-made songs.
Something else that might be interesting on the disc is that the 2-2 songs are not in the usual position, since Hænesy is the first and fourth track. And you are in the middle for the part 2-3. :)? What made it so? Why is it good that you assembled the Hænesy part “interrupted”?
Hænesy and I thought it was a good idea to put the songs in this order, because that way the album has an arc. The first song is a typical strong start that grabs the listener, and the last Hænesy song, as the title suggests, is a closing one. In the middle, the two AN songs are a transition from beginning to end. It extends the mood created by the first and last song. Although there was a little pressure from the label to put the order of songs in a different way, we didn’t give in. We had a definite vision.
Two publishers are behind the split: Purity Through Fire, Northern Silence Productions. The CD version will be released on the second of June, but I’m interested in the vinyl, which will be released later. Please talk about it! Will there be a difference compared to the CD? To what extent can this publication be a next step?
There will be no deviation from the CD. The layout will be the same as on the CD. We still don’t know exactly when the album will be released. Currently, it takes a lot of time for the publisher to produce. It is expected to be released this fall, but nothing is certain.
The Hænesy band is also very interesting and valuable. Would you tell me what you liked about them that you wanted to share with them 🙂 ?
Definitely the sound of the guitars. They mixed it very well and it resulted in an unusual sound in their music. The second song (Sinking Deep for a Hidden God) from their Garabontzia album caught my attention first. I listened to that album several times and really liked it. I also wrote to them asking if they might be interested in a joint publication. We started working on the songs in a short time, which ended up going well.
By the way, when were these 2 songs made? What should we know about it? How different is it to write a song suitable for a split disc than for an LP?
Some parts of Hüperion were recorded in 2021. Then it took shape somewhere by the end of 2022. Sarepta was completed in March this year. Hænesy and we worked completely independently, we did not interfere in each other’s affairs. We sent each other details a couple of times about how things were going, but we went our own way and at our own pace. Perhaps it is more difficult to write a song for an LP because you have to use several songs to create the unified image that the record carries. Here, it was enough to create with two songs each.
You weren’t seen doing concerts for a long time. Fortunately, you can see a lot these days, because many people want to hear the floating of feelings. Are you used to the atmosphere of concerts? What did it make of you? Maybe you regret that you didn’t manage to perform so many times before?
I don’t regret it at all. Even now, if there is no performance, that wouldn’t bother me either. This was not the primary consideration. If our music had never been on stage, we would not have been bitter. It all started when we received a lot of requests and we didn’t want to refuse them. There were already concert dates, but there was no band yet. That’s how I gathered those acquaintances in whom I saw a willingness to get involved in all of this. Apart from our drummer, none of us had any stage experience. It was also a bit scary when our fourth concert was in Barth in front of hundreds of people. Even now, the minutes before the performance are accompanied by great fear, but then (usually) things tend to be fine. When we start, everyone is calm and collected. You have to get used to all this.
Maybe they seem like big words, but do you think it’s possible for you to become a cult band like Darkthrone?
Well, quite big words. No, I do not think so.
How distant is the next album? How much change is possible? What have you planned?
It’s not too far. We already have ideas and we can start recording the new album this fall. The preparations and rehearsals for the concerts consume quite a bit of my time for the band, so everything goes slower. In addition to this, you also have to make time for a lot of other things. From another point of view, even if there are song ideas, it is still very questionable whether they will be preserved in the end and whether they will be heard on the album.
How withdrawn are you? Would you like to talk about yourself?
I don’t really want to talk about myself. Everyone has the opportunity to get to know me through music. Anything beyond that is irrelevant. It’s only important to me.
Thank you for the opportunity. I wish you good luck!
Thank you for the opportunity!
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