Here at CackBlabbath we are massive fans of Romanian band Negură Bunget. Blending elements of Black Metal with the traditional sounds of their native lands their music has an awesome haunting, atmospheric quality that transports you to their spiritual Transylvanian home.
One of my gig highlights of 2011 was seeing Negura Bunget playing on a beach in Romania in the early hours of the morning. The place, the crashing waves and the band’s music all combining to create an unforgettable experience. I spoke to main man Negru for the latest news, including the recent lineup changes, the split form Code666 and the epic Transylvanian Trilogy…
Negura Bunget are a difficult band to label, how would you describe your music?
I’d say we are a Black Metal band conceptually, with a musical expression that’s a bit innovative. It’s not that important how you label your music, it’s how audience relates to it. That’s all that matters to us.
Where does the name come from, it’s not a phrase that even many Romanians are familiar with?
A powerful dark presence of an intense nature, connected with the local nature and with its spirit, ascending and descending, shaping through the clouds of the present. You can sometimes feel it is there, but you cannot grab it. Only your clean mind and soul can came close of its presence. From the very beginning we shaped ourselves into relating with it, so that is now part of us. That’s what we understand Negură Bunget. The two words come from the Tracian substrate of the Romanian language, which is the oldest, containing about 80 words. So very few people are familiar with these words and their meaning.
Apart from the obvious use of traditional instruments, how would you say Romania has influenced the music you make?
The local realities influenced us more on the conceptual level, which is what turns then into music. We haven’t tried to incorporate traditional local music into our own, but offer a different expression on the local history and spirituality. This has been a defining element for us as a band since the very beginning.
When the Om lineup split up was there ever any doubt in your mind that you would carry on, and keep the Negura Bunget name?
There was not that much of a doubt whether we should continue, as it was if we were able to keep things at the same level, and take it even further. Once we were sure we can do that, there were no doubts at all this is the way we have to follow.
Was it difficult to find musicians with the ability and creativity to join the band, their predecessors were a difficult act to follow?
It was not an easy job, for sure. But difficult situation only make you wiser if you can handle them. So we searched a lot, and I think we found the right people.
Singing in Romanian definitely adds something to the bands sound, does that ever cause you issues with labels or promoters in an industry obsessed with English, or has it let you establish your own niche?
We thought a lot about doing English lyrics. But it is hard to have them done even in Romanian. We always look for subtle nuances and specific descriptions, and sometimes the realities Romanian words describe are not even present in another language. Doing lyrics in English would simply be a totally different experience, which I’m afraid would not come so close to the spirit we always seeks to embody in our music. I can’t say we had much problems because if this decision, as most of the people understand this is a defining character, not just something we do to be different. Overall it might have been harder for us to get where we are, but we never enjoy taking the easy road.
After the success of Virsele Pamintului the departure of Corb and Spin came as a surprise to many, was this planned?
Of course it was not planned. It just happened like that… It was a very intense period, and I think they were not prepared to get so fast and so deep into it, and just couldn’t cope with everything that was going on. It’s not something easy, not even for me, although I’ve been doing it for 15 years.
Poarta de Dincolo marks the end of your 10 year association with Code 666, why have you decided to make that move?
It was just time to evolve. We worked well with Code666 all this years, and they helped us a lot, but with Prophecy we can take things to the next level. We are now working on the musical and visual trilogy focused on the Transilvanian lands, which is by far the most important project we developed.
The tracks on Poarta seem to be a development of the Virstele sound, were they tracks that didn’t make the final version of Virstele, or is this the direction the band’s music will be taking in future?
Not really, we composed all the tracks of the MCD precisely to be feature on it. Each material offers us a chance to express certain ideas and concepts… so it’s hard to say what will follow after that. I’d rather say we’ll do something different again, keeping of course some key identity elements.
Negura has given you the chance to play all over the world, how have audiences elsewhere compared to your “home” crowds in Romania?
I don’t think there are big differences between countries… it’s more of the context. We experienced all kinds of audiences in the same country, and even here in Romania. So what counts more are little details… place of the concert, the organizer, promotion… If you put dedication in making a good concert, it’s likely it will go out well even if it’s in a remote are, where not many gigs happen. Same way you can do a gig in a very famous place, where gigs happen all the time, but without a good promotion it can turn out really bad. All in all we experienced some really good crows pretty much all over the places we played in, same as we experienced some not so great ones, especially in terms of numbers.
When you played Leeds Deathfest, the reaction from the “death metal” crowd to Pamint was amazing, I don’t think many could believe what they were hearing. Do you get many confused looks when you play to a crowd who may not be familiar with your music?
We don’t play so often for crowds that are not familiar with our music, although that’s a very cool experience. It’s nice too see people surprised, hearing something they are not expecting… Usually things work out well in the end though, same as they did at Deathfest.
So what’s next for the band ? Any plans to come back over to the UK in the near future?
We are now in the middle of our 15 years anniversary tour, entitled Transilvanian Legacy, preparing for some dates in Romania in December, followed short after by Germany, Belgium, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland… and then to conclude around the end of the year in Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. 2012 will keep us busy again… we have Paganfest in Merch, 24 dates in Europe along Eluveitie, Primordial and Solstafir, then our first US and Canada tour in April/May, which include a special performance at Maryland Deathfest (another interesting experience… he he). In summer we’ll do some festivals, and then for the second part of the year we just postponed our Australian Tour. Beside the concerts we are already working on some new materials. This time it will be a full musical and visual project, which will spread over 3 albums… The Transilvanian Trilogy. First part, entitled TĂU (your) should be ready in 2012. We played a few gigs in UK in September, but I’m sure we’ll make it back there soon enough!
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