Hi András. We have a long history, because the first interview we did was in 2005…
Really? Wow. That is a long time ago.

How are you doing?
Actually I am pretty busy, partly because of the new album and actually you are the first one to interview me but there are a lot to come. The album will be out next month and it was a tremendous amount of work. Not only writing the album, but also to record it. It took so long, it took much longer than usual. And there were some difficulties as well. We are not a huge band and we are used to do things with a lot of efforts. We like challenges and there were a lot of challenges during these recordings, but the only thing that matters is the result. Also we have made a video – actually two videos – we are preparing for live shows now. We all have jobs and families and things, so in short: we have been busy, but it is a very exciting period now.

Indeed, I can understand. It took six years since the previous album ‘Letters From The Edge’, but these were strange times with the pandemic. When did you actually start writing this new album ‘Heavenly Down’?
The thing was… we did not want such a huge gap between these two albums. Actually we started writing music four years ago, but the thing is that the guitar player, who was heavily involved in the writing process, he left two years ago. Attila Kovács left the band and we had to restart the whole writing process, because he was involved in each song and that was a lot of work. He was one of the main song writers, so we decided to restart the whole process. There were one or two songs written by me. Of course we kept them. We polished them and they are featured on the album, but the rest of the songs were written after his departure. The other thing was that two of my kids are born after the last album, in 2019 and 2021. They are still small and also I have a responsible job. So it meant that I cannot focus on the music as much as I want, but of course we were touring and we had a lot of live shows and the band was active, but for us, writing an album, is really a huge effort. One more factor is that both guitar players are living in Budapest which is far from us. We don’t like working in the modern way, sending files to each other… Of course, sometimes we do, but I still don’t like it. I still believe in an atmosphere which is created together in the rehearsal room.

I applaud that. Like you said, there are two pretty new guitarists. Was it difficult to find someone in the place of your active buddy Attila?
It was not so easy, because many things changed during the years and we are an old band. When we started Sear Bliss, it was completely different. The city where we live – Szombathely – was full of musicians and bands. There were even festivals, labels, studios, everything… We are old school people and it seems that it is not fashionable nowadays. So you cannot really find anyone for this kind of music. Of course we had to look for a musician in the capital city, which is a lot easier. That is how we found Zoltán Vigh who was playing in Bornholm, which is a band from Hungary. The other guy who is pretty new, Márton Kertész, he is coming from the progressive metal scene, but he is really into black metal and he’s got a project called Rivers Ablaze and he asked me to do the vocals, because he loved the first Sear Bliss album ‘Phantoms’ and I liked what we did. So we had some cooperation and when Attila left, it was obvious to ask him, because he is a cool guy and a very good guitar player. He can play anything, he is a much better musician than us and he even wrote a song for the new album, which is ‘The Upper World’, the first single with a lyric video. That song was completely written by him. That is how we found the members. Sometimes it is very difficult to rehearse, because we still live in this city with three of us and we have the rehearsal room here. Actually I am here right now as well. By night being here and just writing music and things like that. It is too bad that we are living far from each other, but that is the way how it is now. It is not easy, but it is okay.

I saw where your city is situated on the map. It is closer to Austria.
Yes, it is at the border actually, ten kilometres from Austria and actually I live in a small village which is even closer, it is five kilometres from the border. I can tell you that the city played a huge role in the life of Sear Bliss and why we became what we are, because it was a pretty exiting period in Hungary in the early nineties. After the iron curtain fell, it was such a bright future that we had in front of us and especially the Western border, it was even more… suddenly you could travel to Austria, because prior to that it was once a year or even less. We were not allowed to travel and when this happened, we discovered metal bands in Austria and metal shops and everything and it was much different. There was some kind of vibe, a very positive vibe and that is why a lot of bands started to form in the city at that time, in the early nineties. It was extremely exiting. I still like living here. It is a small city, but it has a very unusual atmosphere.

I can imagine, because the first time I went on holidays in Hungary was in 1993. Indeed there were many records shops and cheaper than in Belgium. I bought a lot of vinyl there.
(laughs) That’s good! That was the time when we formed the band. That’s what I was talking about as well. It was such a huge change. Before that, for us, it was almost impossible to own an instrument, because you could not really buy an instrument, because it was rare or it was too expensive. So when we started listening to heavy metal – I did in 1987 – it was so magical because it was so far and unreachable for us. Therefore our will to create something was a lot stronger than it maybe was in other countries. Now it is different – and of course it is much better – because now kids can ask their parents to buy an instrument, because now it is not so difficult, but in our childhood it was incredible. Unbelievable it was and therefore when we finally had the possibility to own an instrument and when we were holding it in our hands, it was like magic. Therefore we really welcomed that thing and the good thing is that we still remember this and we are still enthusiastic.

And it is a very good album. The music breathes. Maybe that is because you meet in person when creating the songs. I like it that there is a moment of tranquillity with the instrumental ‘Forgotten Deities’…
You like that? Oh that is really cool! I really did not know what to expect. I thought that people would not really understand that, but it is actually an important middle part of the album for me. The story behind the song is that I was asked to write music for a short movie and I wrote that song. It was more or less what you can hear on the album. It was a little bit different, but more or less the same. For some reason the guy did not accept it. I think it was too mysterious for him or for that short movie and he just gave it back to me. I was honestly surprised, because I thought that he would like it, but for me it was a very deep emotional expression, so I decided to use it on this album, because it really fits into the atmosphere, even though it is a different instrumentation.

There will be fans from former times, but I think you can gather new fans with it as well, because this is music which is made way too seldom these days…
That is good to hear and I think that the good thing is, that the record label Hammerheart, they are really pushing this. In the past we always had some problems with poor promotion or not enough support or anything, but this time it really seems to be a good cooperation. They are really behind us and that is good. I think with a stronger promotion, maybe more people can discover this album.