Psychedelic # 13

Mood wasn’t just the very first doom metal combo in Hungary, but the band was – for me and for loads of other music – fans in my country – one of the greatest Hungarian bands in the whole nineties. Mood has made four good records (the amazing debut: „Vol 1.” Plus „Slow Down”, „Wombocosmic”, „Fourth Ride Of Doomanoids”) and has always been a fantastic live – band: on – stage, there was no better company – they were energetic, professional and pretty heavy live with their songs (in the Sabbath/COC/Trouble – vein) full of heart – breaking melodies. Mood doesn’t exist anymore. The band broke up in the end of 2001 due to personal and musical problems.
Mood was a popular band in the Hungarian rock/metal scene (they sold around 1500 copies of their latest two records, which is very – very good in Hungary), and both the rather conservative metal ’zines and the alternative press praised its name. But this band was shamefully underrated in the international scene. Some copies sold (too few to mention), some great reviews were written (too few had the opportunity to read them) – and that’s was it.
From the ashes of Mood, two bands have arised: Wall Of Sleep grabbed the heavier and gloomier side of this thing called „doom”, and the riff-driven, more up-tempo but still heavy Super Natural. Super Natural already made a small club-tour in Hungary and I guess the people who were there don’t hesitate to predict a bright future for those guys. Anything else you want to know you can read below…(GA)
- It was just a year ago, when Mood finally and surprisingly broke up. You were one of the basic members of the band. Are you satisfied with wath you’ve reached in the band’s seven years-long career, or was there anything you’ve wanted to get, but you couldn’t?
Yes, our last gig was on tue 14th of December, 2001. I wasn’t a former member of Mood, Sanyi (Füleki Sándor, guitarist) and Gábor (Holdampf Gábor, singer) formed the band, I came right after them. It was a good experience, like a real „school” for me I guess… I’ve learnt a lot in Mood, a lot about music as well as personal relationship. All in all: I’am very proud of these 7 years behind us. I didn’t regret that I played in that band, I don’t feel that it would’ve been just a waste of time. I feel that this band should’ve reached much more, but that’s all we could do…
- Was it a successfull period in your opinion?
In one hand, it was, but that’s very relative. Mood was an acknowledged band in Hungary, and there were people who’ve known us in other countries as well – some of them may liked us, too, and that’s a great thing. It would’ve been great to play more outside of Hungary, but we couldn’t make it. In the last couple of months the band has grown tired I guess both musically, both in the relationship-side, so now I can’t say anything but that it was good and nice, and it was enough as well.
- Were you absolutely sure about continuing your musical career, or was there a possibility for you to quit the whole music-businnes?
I wanted to continue and I knew where I wanted to go musically. I didn’t want to make any compromise musically, and so I didn’t make any. With Super Natural we play exactly the kind of music that I love, so I feel this band very close to me. I don’t have to make compromises with none. We’re forming our songs ’til all of us are satisfied with the result. Now we have nine songs and I don’t think there’s any filler. I love these songs!
- Tell us about the beginning of Super Natural, tell us about the other members of the band! I’ve just heard that your other guitarist suddenly quit the band, what was the problem? And I know that there are a lot of very heavy sounding band with just one guitarist – like Sabbath, Cathedral, Pantera, Kyuss, Unsane etc. – but are you exactly sure that the music of Super Natural doesn’t need a second axeman?
Three members played in Mood (the bassist Balázs, the drummer Tamás and me). Of course we had to solve some old conflicts to work in a good atmosphere. The three of us wrote 4-5 songs and after that, we started to search for a suitable singer, and we found Felföldi Péter, who fitted perfectly. Then Péter’s old friend, Fung András called us up, he wanted to join the band. We tried this line-up, and everything was all-right. We’ve made a 4-song promo with this line-up and played 9-10 shows this Autumn in Hungary. The main problem with András was the fact that he lived very far from us, so we could hardly rehearse or play live. Otherwise we’re in an easy situation, ’cause three of us live in the same city and our singer is living near to us so we can rehearse as much as we want. It’s not right when a member is thinking about the band as a difficult for his life after just six months. We’re doing it for our own happiness, and we can’t make any compromises. András accepted our decision, we’re not in a bad relationship I guess. We’ll play with one guitar for a while that’s for sure; we need a very perfect man to be a 5-piece band again… We’ve played live with this new line-up, and the songs sounded great, so that’s not a problem. And in the studio you can play as much melodies as you want.
- The music of Super Natural doesn’t differ that much from the world of Mood, but in the same time, that’s a different story. What are the main differences in your opinion?
I knew what kind of music I wanted to play; we play what we love – and what we can of course, so that’s why it’s not that far from Mood, it can’t be so different. But the main difference in my opinion is that this music is more riff-orientated and more dynamic, more energetic than Mood was. And the voice is totally different, our singer’s influences are absolutely not the same than Gábor’s were.
- Didn’t you want to try your abilities in a totally different musical world? Can we expect something like that from you in the future?
No! It wouldn’t be honest from me, and I feel no need to do that. I can do anything I want in Super Natural. You know, there are no compromisesJ. In the other hand, I think T’m not a real musician, ’cause I just can’t play everything, and to be honest, I don’t want it either.
- You’ve recorded your first promo live in a club, which is absolutely not the usual way to record a demo… Was it hard to record this way? And tell us about your goals with this promo.
We’ve recorded it in our hometown, Gödöllo in this club called Trafo (big thanks goes to the stuff for the help). We didn’t mess with it a lot, we’ve just put our microphones down, then we played our songs like we did it in every gig. We’ve recorded the songs to a mini-disc, then Peti sang the songs through a PC in our rehearsal-room. We’ve mastered the stuff in a PC as well. Considering the way of the recordings, I think it sounds good. We’ve just got a mail in the last couple of days, an American guy downloaded the songs from our Website and he thought we spent a shitload of money to get this sound! It was for nothing really… This demo is mainly for the record labels and fanzines, but anyone can download it from our website or from the Website of the ThunderGroove webzine. The goal is to find a suitable record company and to record a whole album for them in 2003. I hope it will happen, but we will see…
-The vocals are the highlights of the songs I think. I know that Felföldi Péter doesn’t really listen to the heavier-sounding bands, so wasn’t it hard to him, to find his place in the band?
I think Péter is the perfect man for us. He is a brilliant singer, a great guy, and he is very enthusiastic about the whole thing. He is more open-minded as a listener than myself, but that’s just fine. He could bring down the right melody usually at the very first try. So I don’t think there will be any problem with him in the future, but I’ve learn the rule about never say never, or forever… There won’t be any problem ’til we can realize our ideas together.
-You are not writing any lyrics, but I’m sure you have an opinion about them… Are the lyrics important for you at all?
To be honest, I’m listening to any band mostly because of their music and not their lyrics. Of course the lyrics are an important part, too. Peti’s lyrics are exactly how he is, and he is totally fineJ He’s got his depths and a good sense of humour with a bit of irony… his lyrics are the same.
-You’ve played with the rythm-section in Mood, so I guess you don’t feel a big change in this band. Or do you feel any change in your way of play or in the songwriting process?
It may sounds strange, but the things are very different in this band! We don’t have to harmonize our activities for a week to do a rehearse or play a show nowJ To be serious, me and our drummer Tomi wrote the basics of the songs. Sometimes its 4-5 days of rehearsing, sometimes it’s just ten minutes. All we need is to catch the right feeling. After we’ve got the bone-structure of a song, we purified the parts with Balázs, we made the right tempo and the melodies together, and in the end of the process, Peti sang his melodies over the music. The last phase is the writing of the lyrics by Péter. My playing style is changing as well. I have to play different now, when we are a one-guitar band. I have to play more precise now, ’cause I can’t „hide” behind the other guitar, but I can play with much more freedom now, I can stretch the strings harder and stuff like that, I can play more with the dynamics. I love the two-guitarists line-up as well, but the two players have to work very precise together – like the godlike duo in Trouble.
-How can you describe the music of Super Natural to someone who has never heard anything from this band?
Wow… try to tell someone a footballmatch…I dunno… I thought that we are a doomy band, but lately I found out that we aren’t…and we ain’t a stoner band either. Maybe some kind of hard, mid-tempo, riff-based music with cool vocals. But hey, not every song of ours is a midtempo themeJ! It’s only rock’n’roll.
-What kind of bands are your main influences and what about the other members of the band? Is your taste different compared to theirs? Can you name any band today that you feel close to Super Natural’s way of musical thinking?
It may helps to describe the band as well… My all-time favorite bands are Trouble, COC, Floodgate, Pantera, Slayer, Down, Zakk Wylde bands, Brand New Sin, old Judas Priest and of course the almighty Black Sabbath! The other guys love those bands as well, but they are more open-minded as listeners. I guess Brand New Sin stands close to us today, I think they’ve got the same way of musical thinking, and their influences could be the same as ours.
-What is your main goal with this band? Have you got any long-term plans?
We haven’t got any big goals, we’d rather dream instead… It would be great to find a suitable record label, to play a lot of concerts all around the world, and it would be more fans our music than just the four of usJ! It’s hard to plan even on a short-term. Now we are sending CD’s to record labels, fanzines and stuff like that. Maybe we’ll play this year outside Hungary, too. We want to record a whole album this year, but we need money for that… we can’t make an album just by ourselves, we need a record company behind us. If we can’t find a record company, then we will record another demo, and start the whole thing again from the beginning.
-What do you think: is there a doom-stoner scene in Hungary today? I remember you always said in the old Mood interviews, that there’s no such scene…but now you’ve played in the Slow Rock Fest with four other bands (IHM, Polly Is Dead, Bearfood, Convoy) and there are Wall Of Sleep and Sun Valley too…so I think seven bands for our small country is more than enough to talk about a scene.
There is even more bands who play in the same ground like Propeller, or even my favorite Hungarian combo: Neck Sprain (from the extreme metal scene-G.A.) So indeed there are bands and the scene is evolving, but we have to hold together this small, but eager movement a little bit more. An evening like this Slow Rock Festival is a good start for the cause, and we’re already planning to bring some bands from other countries to Hungary. Besides that, we’re making this netzine called ThunderGroove with my friend Radics Károly, which is also a good forum for all people who love this kind of music. We’ve got plenty of plans, now all we need is do something for the cause!
-Okay, that was it. Any informations you have to tell to the readers of Psychedelic?
Thanks a lot for the interview! It’s an honour for us, to a young band to be featured on the pages of the Bible of Doom Music! Anyone interested in the band can download our songs from the Internet, or can write me a letter to the address below –we post the CD’s free, ’till we got any. Thanks a lot!

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