GUTTED

This great underground band was a long while around us, but only with their recent album "Martyr Creation" they've started to open doors to new dimensions!!! The following is an interview with Sándor Hajnali, vocalist of the Hungarian Death Metal veterans GUTTED.



Let's start the interview with your recent impressions from Las Vegas Deathfest 2017. It was your first visit to the United States. How did you feel yourselves there? Share all your bright memories from this trip.
- It was a great honor to be part of this amazing festival and we were invited there! Still can't believe that Big Mike invited us and it was not me who looked for him! Unbelievable!!! We've never been in the US before. It was our 1st trip as individuals as well. We were there for 10 nights. It was like a holiday with my band. We played only one show, but that show killed it! The crowd was amazing. It was one of our best experiences so far. I can't find any words to describe how amazing it was.
Your 4th album "Martyr Creation" (2016) just blew me away with its super intense and full-speed ahead Death Metal alloy. It's brutal, it's melodic and dynamic as hell. How the songs for this masterpiece were born? Can you enlighten us more details about the GUTTED song-writing mode in general?
- Thanks for your great words, we really appreciate it! Our songs were written by our guitarist Gábor, except "Kings of Emptiness", it was written by the other guitarist András. All lyrics were written by me. Usually Gábor shows us full songs in the form of a demo song and everyone gives a bit to it. But the whole idea, song structure coming from him. More than 90% of the songs are written by him.
Gábor Drótos – your guitar player – was in charge for the killer sound production on "Martyr Creation". Does he produces and mixes other bands' materials too? Tell us more about his activity as a producer as well as about his classical music oriented side project.
- He works for other bands as well, but it is not easy for him, because he needs to do it besides his normal, daily job. He is not doing it for living. He started a few years ago and he is ready now to produce and mix full albums. He really knows the death metal sound. He knows how it should sound. It was easy working with him. He will do our next album, I suppose. But it is really far from here. He is a very talented artist. He can play many instruments. Piano, cello... and he writes his own classical music. He wrote and played our intro and outro on the album and he wrote the classical part of "Deeper than Hell" as well. He should do it for living! He deserves it!
For the release of "Martyr Creation" you've signed a deal with Spanish Xtreem Music. How do they actually treat GUTTED? Was it just a one album deal or they will be releasing all your forthcoming materials as well?
- I wrote to Dave, owner of the label, and sent him our demo songs. He really liked them and wanted to release our upcoming album. I always wanted to work with him, because I really admire his work thru the years. I'm happy that we are part of Xtreem Music. It was only for one album, but we will see what future brings.
An involvement of guests also took place on your latest record. Namely, Attila Csihar colored "Into Oblivion" with his vocal parts and Attila Vörös added a solo to "Fades Away", but the most interesting feature was your daughter's monologue in "Deeper than Hell". Awesome thing to be honest! You should be really proud of this fact. But was it conscious from the very beginning to add her monologue there or it just turned out that way? How was your family members' and relatives' reaction to it?
- Yes, I'm very proud of her work! She was 6 years old and didn't know anything about the meaning of the monologue. When Gábor sent me the song I thought that we should do some whispering on the classical parts of the song. He agreed, but when we recorded it as demo we were not satisfied with the result. He put some child voice effect to my whispering, but it was not what we expected. So together we decided that I will teach it to my daughter. She learned it very fast and she was very clever in the studio as well. The bigger part of my family cannot speak English so there was no war against me.
Lately the band seems to get more festival invites and that's good. Will you plan some kind of tour in support of "Martyr Creation"? Reveal us details about all the forthcoming live actions of the band.
- We have some confirmed gigs, but we will not play too much. It is not so easy to organize gigs beside our normal work. 10-12 shows per year are more than enough for us. There won't be more. This year is very special for GUTTED, because we are going to visit countries we've never been before. USA, UK, Poland, Spain and we will go back to the USA in 2018 to play at the Maryland Deathfest, but this time we will play more shows there, not only the festival one. At least 4-5 shows at the East Coast!
There's a unique GUTTED tape collection in progress by Hungarian Fekete Terror Productions. The four tapes will come out in a box and for die-hard fans it will include extra stuff like T-shirt and patch. Let's talk a bit about the resultant idea, the content of the cassettes plus the new cover designs.
- The idea itself came from Attila Dudás. He found me about this idea and I liked it from the beginning. I'm not a tape collector, but I know that some people still love this format. It will feature our demos from the very beginning and our first three full-length albums as well. We wanted to have some new artwork for this special release and Anvil Kvlt from Hungary made a brilliant new cover for it. We didn't want to release it with the old covers, because it's a very unique release. There won't be re-press!
Your bassist – Péter Lipák – has another band called EFFRONTERY. He plays there guitar. What's your opinion about their music and their new album called "Seven Years of Agony"?
- He is a very talented guitarist, but I'm not into the style they play. It is great music played by great musicians, but it is not my cup of tea.
How do you see the Hungarian Death Metal underground scene today? Was it changed to a better since you started playing in a band or? Which bands/releases would you recommend us to check out and pay attention to?
- It has been changed a lot, but still very small. I like the Hungarian underground scene, because it is very colorful. We have bands from every corner of the metal genre, we have great fanzines, some cool clubs and festivals. No need to cry. Don't complain, do it! I listen to every kind of rock and metal music so I have some faves from Hungary. I don't wanna list them, because I will miss someone for sure and I don't want that.
At the end, feel free to add all the important GUTTED information that I might not asked or pointed on, so the readers can have an up-to-date view about all your future plans. Thanks a lot!
- We talked about everything, I think. Thanks for your support and I hope we will return to Ukraine someday soon.


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