Interview with ORKRIST
Interview with ORKRIST
What got you into music, and if you had not gotten into music what would you be doing today?
I need to correct you firstly . Me and my band are not professionals, don’t earn money with music. We all have normal jobs. Music is just our hobby and where we invest the earned money . Yes, every musician would like to earn money by music, but I see also some advantage when you are not paid only by music – you are not under pressure to produce stuff only because it is time and you need money. Pressure is an enemy of the creativity.
How we got into music? As every music fan who would like to try something by him/herself. Started to play, changed few bands, it took some time till I landed in a team with people thinking similarly and acting as one team.
What do you like to do when you are not playing music and how does that influence your creativity?
There are some duties which we simply need to manage – our jobs and care about our families. When I started with music, I had no duties and my life was: pub – woods – cottages with friends – concerts. Seems like an ideal musician life – in younger age and never ending time for playing with music. But … nobody is young forever.
Today I am happy if I have some free time to play with music – compose, put lyrics together, mix what we have recorded, manage the band. Our music is dark, melancholic, little touch of medieval atmosphere or fantasy, so logical the inspiration comes from books, movies, similarly oriented media. In the past these were also computer games (Diablo I, Warcraft II, Heretic, ..)
How long has your band been around? Also, please tell me about the dynamic of the band of what brought you all together.
We have 2 eras. I call it “the old era” (2000 – 2004), when we started, built our name, then split up and our personal lives brought us on different ways; and “the new era” (2018 - …) when we came back together, found out we are missing the music and touch with our fans. We did not expect much from the comeback, but did already 2 albums, 1 video, … and actually we seem to be more productive in the new era .
Dynamics in the band? There are simply some changes, even we were pretty long a stable party. Sometimes other life priorities, sometimes health issues which you do not fix anymore. So yes, we had changes as well. The recent one is a very visible one – the female singer, who was with us since the beginning. We have a new one, Ivett who joined our Slovak band from Hungary, and we are ready to bring new energy to the stage.
What keeps us together? We like the same music, we are a good team who can work together but have also great fun together. Every personal meeting, rehearsal or concert is a nice refresh in our daily routine .
Where are you based and how did that influence your music?
We are in Slovakia. Small country. I think there is not band in our country which is a well known name, like maybe our neighbors Poland with Behemoth.
And our new female singer is from Hungary, 200 kilometers from our city.
What does influence us I already partially mentioned – book, stories, mainly from the past or fantasy world, legends, fairytales. Partially as well the other bands that we listen. As I am so far doing the composing, it is definitely Summoning, Cradle of Filth, old Mystic Circle, Pazuzu, ….
How did you come up with the name of your band and what does it mean to you?
Orkrist (in English written “Orcrist”) is a sword name from Tolkien’s world (Hobbit), which I love (our 2nd album “Grond” from 2003 was very inspired by Tolkien). Our first drummer came with this name proposal and we did not have a better name ��. I like the fact it is short, the crowd can easily scream “or – krist, or – krist, ….” (easier than Impaled Nazarene, wat do you think ? �� ). Some people are confused because of the “krist” part, which in our language sounds like Christ, but that is nothing we care about / tend to point at.
Tell me about your most memorable shows.
We are a small band which played almost in every dirty hole in our country. I even did not believe such places exist. But sometime the smallest place brings a nice memory.
My funniest was a show in Hungary, where 9 people came. When we came on the stage (after local bands) even the sound engineer disappeared. But we managed somehow and the 9 people were amazed by the music and created an unforgettable atmosphere.
The other extreme was maybe concert with Nightwish. Imagine you play every weekend for 100 – 300 people and suddenly you stand in front of 2.000 and meet one of the bands of your dreams.
What is your favorite venue to play at, and do you have any places you want to play that you have not already?
It is not much about the venue, the memory comes always with people and atmosphere you have (as a musician of course I keep some factors in place – how was the back stage, how was the air and local crew hospitality – so I have some favorite clubs of course). In general I like more small club concerts, where you are closer to people than on a festival. From time to time I can see on social media some nice venues where my dream would be Castle Party in Poland, on a real castle. What I found very nice was also the 35th anniversary concert of Rotting Christ this year in Athens in a colosseum.
I rather care take about the place as a fan who is coming to a concert of other bands, need to feel good there.
If you could play any show with any lineup, who would be on the ticket?
Hard to say. We played with Nightwish, which I loved (old albums), we played with Eluveitie, which I find great as well. I can not imagine anything better where we would fit. My favorite band is Summoning and they don’t play live, so not going to dream that way.
Instead of bands I would rather refer to places (your previous question).
What is some advice that you would give to someone who is just getting into playing in a band and some advice that you would give to your younger self?
Not sure if I would be the right person to give advices. Why: 1.) we are not professionals who made it to shows abroad and to earn money by music and 2.) we grew up in different times with different possibilities, lower competition and less diversity in the music.
Important is to play and to create some rememberable visual footprint. Not many people remember after the concert the music, they rather remember what did they eyes catch: that was the band with flute and female voice, that was the band with 2 hot female vocalists or that was the band with lot of toilet paper. So, you need to be somehow unique. (and yes, music should be there as well �� )
Of your songs which one means the most to you and why?
I would not put some of the songs higher. What makes me proud is that our albums are diverse and I am getting feedbacks like “I can listen to your album 100 times and it does not make me bored”. And every fan has a different favorite track. On one album you find a black metal song, heavy metal one, then some instrumental piece or medieval intermezzo, then a slow song, …. so there is hopefully something to choose from.
Which songs are your favorite to play and which get requested the most?
I personally like to play mostly Desire in the Grace of the Night. It is one of our most brutal songs, and if does give me energy and simultaneously it absorbs my energy. I like to put in this song everything, no matter how I feel, how tired I am.
Requested? This is very diverse again. Probably a classic one is our first song at all – Nocturnal Rite, which is for our fans a classic peace. They also like Dreams of life beyond my Shire beloved, which is a cover version of an old pop/rock song from our country. We changed it little bit into a Nightwish style and created own lyrics.
But again it depends, many fans like different songs.
What is the creative process for the band, and what inspires you to write your music?
We touched this already and this is mostly around books, some fairytales, the nature or some sad situations in life. I am responsible for composing and do keyboards, vocal lines, flute, drums and partially guitars. Of course every instrument can adjust that little bit so it makes sense from the instrument perspective (as I do everything on a keyboard).
I would wish to have it more open in the future, as we are a team of people and I am sure everybody can come with a partial idea, which can be taken further by somebody else.
What kinds of messages do you like to get across in your music?
I don’t put much messages into the lyrics, but focus on the music. The music is dark, brutal and romantic at the same time. I want people to feel little touch of fantasy, being in a unreal world and forget about the real one, to travel little bit in ancient times.
Do you have any new singles, videos, or albums out that you would like to tell me and your fans about?
We have 4 albums:
Reginae Mysterium 2002 – our first one. Every first album of a band has some magic, and that beginners’ innocence. Maybe our most diverse album.
Grond 2003 – was inspired by Tolkien, so the album is mostly fantasy oriented. Has many keyboard intermezzos, could be interesting for fans of dungeon music.
Artifacts of Life 2020 – our comeback album, similarly as the 1st album, very diverse. I like it’s dark atmosphere, combination of covert artwork, the sound color and the music itself. My favorite one.
LUEA 2023 – our last album. Listen maybe to Prince of Melancholy song/see the video on Youtube. Very melodic album, maybe less that dark, people say it is our best one. Hard for me to say.
(last 2 albums have more modern sound and from that perspective the old albums might be not that attractive)
What are your plans for the future, and do you have anything that you want to spotlight that is coming up?
We are currently preparing for our autumn concerts in new line up and would like to make our visual performance more attractive. In parallel we are slowly recording a new album, which comes out in the first half of 2025. Before maybe some video clip. Let’s see
How can your fans best keep up to date with you, any socials you want people to check out?
Traditional ways please – follow Facebook or Instagram accounts to get every fresh update.
As this is the last question, I would like to thank to everybody who could read this till the end. Greetings from a small country, Slovakia and let’s hope to meet you once on a concert. We appreciate your support.
https://www.facebook.com/orkristofficial
https://www.instagram.com/orkristband
Orkrist - Prince of Melancholy (2023)
Orkrist - Dobry Festival 2022, Presov