Summon: How did the band get started?
Arpad: I would say it was a rather typical start. Back in the day, being friends for quite some time, and being on the same wavelength, especially music wise, it came to us as the most natural thing to do.
Summon: What kind of music do you play?
Arpad: We play a mixture of death/doom/black metal, with a whole lot of other influences as well (like classical and progressive music, movie soundtracks, for example). From the very beginning, one of our main endeavors was to create something that can not be easily tagged. We wanted to define our own style and sound, without following any guidelines or rules.
Summon: How has the fan response been?
Arpad: The response has mostly been pretty good, but there are always some exceptions, of
course.
Summon: Where did the band name come from?
Arpad: We wanted to come up with a name that fits to the overall atmosphere of our music and lyrics, and Anguish Sublime sounded like the best choice.
Summon: Introduce the band members and what they do in the band.
Arpad: Aleksandar Crnobrnja is the guitarist, keyboardist, main composer, producer, and he is the one who handles all the web presentations and the visual layout of our releases. My name is Árpád Takács, I write the lyrics and handle the vocal duties, and sometimes I contribute with musical ideas as well, but in quite small portions, Aleksandar takes care of that part of the creative work mainly. We work with a session bass player since ‘08, and his name is András Ispán.
Summon: Who writes the music? Lyrics?
Arpad: I guess you’ve got the answer to this question above. 🙂
Summon: And where do the lyric ideas come from?
Arpad: Well, basically anything that I find interesting may trigger my thoughts to write. A simple line from a movie, a book, or some personal experiences, emotions, internal struggles. Nature and mankind’s relationship to it does often serve as an inspiration for the lyrics as well.
Summon: What is your view in Satanism and Occultism?
Arpad: We are atheists, and being anti-religious comes hand in hand with that. We try to set our own moral values, and build a philosophy of our own, relying on spiritual freedom and common sense. We do not believe in fairy tales and supernatural beings but in scientific facts that have proven all the holy books being dead wrong about nearly everything. I can relate to the Occult purely as a form of entertainment, and not something that has any foundations in reality whatsoever. It’s just like reading a Lovecraft novel.
Summon: How many albums/CD’s have you released?
Arpad: We have a demo CD (Among The Raven Skies) put out in ‘04, and after a ten year long silence, last year we came back with an EP called Unveiling The Origin, and this year we have digitally released another EP titled Thornwinged, but there are plans to release it also on CD in the near future. We have done a Bathory cover (Under The Runes), in honor of the great legend Tomas Börje Forsberg aka Quorthon, and put it out only as a single on Youtube. We have just recently recorded another cover song, for a My Dying Bride tribute CD, and we have an entire album almost fully done, hopefully to be released next year.
Summon: Tell me about some the songs on the latest CD?
Arpad: The title track was written way back in ‘02, and it’s pretty much inspired by the old Borknagar/Bathory type of atmosphere. It’s interesting to see how people often miss the point with this song, mentioning Folk Metal elements in it. We do not follow the contemporary scene so much, and have absolutely nothing to do with bands like Korpiklaani, Arkona etc. I don’t say they’re bad or anything like that, we just simply don’t like the concept of this entire trend that is called Folk/Pagan Metal today. For us Bathory was and still is the definition of Pagan/Viking/Black Metal. The second song on the latest EP is called Rainfall Epiphany, and it is a pretty good representation of what Anguish Sublime is today. A whole array of styles forged into a very coherent composition, with lots of atmosphere going on, all packed in some pretty twisted arrangements. The last song on Thornwinged is entitled Heart Of The Void, and it originates from ‘97, it was written a whole year prior to the official start of Anguish Sublime, which makes it the oldest of all our songs. The music itself is a mid-tempo dark/ atmospheric Death Metal, with a long orchestral outro at the end of it.
Summon: Do you have any side projects?
Arpad: Aleksandar is focused only on AS these days, but I also do vocals, write lyrics and music for a Gothic/Doom/Death metal band called Tales Of Dark…, and have released two albums with them so far, and we are currently working on the new record.
Summon: Who are some of your musical influences?
Arpad: I’d say it’s mostly the bands from the underground Metal scene from the 90’s and 80’s, but lots of other different genres as well, like I’ve mentioned earlier, classical music, progressive, some weird ambient stuff, and even some pop music mostly from the 80’s.
Summon: Which current bands?
Arpad: To me personally, one of the most amazing discoveries was the first Ghost album some five years ago. They are one of the greatest bands on the contemporary scene in my opinion. But still I would not mention them as an influence that can be noticed in AS.
Summon: What is the band like when you play live?
Arpad: We didn’t play live since ‘07, so I could tell only how it was back then. We played some very good and energetic gigs between ‘04 and ‘07, and I really liked how the majority of our songs sounded live. We hope we’re going to hit the stage at some point again, if we manage to find a skillful and committed drummer.
Summon: Have you guys ever played in another country?
Arpad: No, never. Unfortunately.
Summon: How big of crowd shows up at shows usually?
Arpad: Well, it always depended on what kind of gig it was. If it was an underground festival type of a thing, it usually attracted more people, but when we played shows organized by ourselves, the number of metal-heads attending varied around 100.
Summon: How is the crowd response when you play?
Arpad: It was hectic, really. We had a hardcore fan base that followed us around, wherever we played, and made sure the most of the crowd get sucked into the pit 🙂 I remember a whole lot of energy and emotions being delivered both on stage and in the crowd.
Summon: What do you think of the US Black Metal/Death Metal scene?
Arpad: I am a big fan of the US Death Metal scene, especially the early bands from Tampa and New York , but I wouldn’t say that I’m really familiar with the Black Metal scene in the states. Absu is maybe the exception. I like their music and their entire concept a lot.
Summon: What do you think of the Overseas scenes?
Arpad: I don’t really follow that much any of the scenes lately (the signs of getting old.. hehe), I’m kind of stuck with my old favorite albums, but I’m trying to keep up with at least the major happenings in the underground, and find out about some new bands and support them if I like their music.
Summon: What are some of new favorite black metal/death metal bands?
Arpad: When it comes to Black Metal, I’m again stuck in the 90’s, especially with the Scandinavian scene, but I have discovered some pretty damn good newer Death Metal bands, like Morbus Chron, Slaughterday or Bölzer. They really offer something unusual and fresh, but keeping the old school approach at the same time.
Summon: When do you guys plan on writing any new material?
Arpad: We write almost constantly, and as a result of that, we have like 30-35 unreleased songs fully arranged and recorded in some demo versions throughout the years, and as soon as we manage to make a decent record deal, we’re going to put them out. There’s a plan to release a full length or an EP every year, so we could at least to some extent recoup what is missed in the past.
Summon: What does the future hold for the band?
Arpad: That remains to be seen. We certainly hope for the best 🙂
Thank you very much for the interview and for the support! We wish all the best, both to you and your readers! Cheers!
Contact them at:
https://www.facebook.com/AnguishSublime.
https://www.youtube.com/user/anguishsublime,
https://anguishsublime.bandcamp.com/
http://www.reverbnation.com/anguishsublime
https://soundcloud.com/anguishsublime
https://twitter.com/anguishsublime
https://myspace.com/anguishsublime
http://www.last.fm/music/Anguish+Sublime
