The Moon and The Nightspirit is a pagan-folk band established in 2003, based in Hungary. Their charming music has bewitched hundreds of thousands fans internationally. The band will soon tour across central Europe, having gigs in Poland, Germany (including Wacken Winter Nights) and Czech Republic.

Hello Gergely! Looking forward to meet with you guys in Prague! What would you tell about TMATN to people to convince them to check it out live? What is your style? What is so attractive about your performances?

Hi Petra, we are also looking forward to play in Prague again. As you mentioned in your introduction The Moon and the Nightspirit is a pagan-folk band from Hungary. We play acoustic music and we invite the listener into a journey to moss grown forests, ancient tales and legends.

How did you divide the roles among the bandmembers? Who is the creative spirit in your band? How is the instrumentation?

The create part of the band consist of Ágnes and Mihály. They are multi-instrumentalists, write and record all the songs, Ágnes paints all the cover art for the album and Mihály writes all lyrics. On the albums you can hear many instruments like acoustic guitar, violin, male/female vocals, drums, bass guitar, jew‘s harp, morin khuur, piano, harp, calimba, flutes etc. On the live shows Ágnes sings and plays the violin, Mihály also sings and plays acoustic guitar, Gábor plays the drums and I play the bass guitar. The rest of the instruments we play from sampler. I’m also responsible for managing the band and for the booking of the shows.

TMATN has also stunning cover arts. Can you tell us more about them? Who creates the graphics? Where the inspiration comes from?

Ágnes paints are the cover arts for our albums. All of the pictures are inspired by the music itself. When the new songs are ready Ágnes starts to paint the pictures for the CD cover and booklet based on her feelings listening to the songs.

How was your way to today´s popularity? What was the key situation?

We started by signing a deal with the Portugeese record label Equilibrium music. We released 3 albums under their wings and we managed to gain some fame in the pagan-folk scene during this period. We progressed step-by-step and manage to play more and more club shows and festival concerts. We released our 4th album as a self-release and in 2014 we signed a long term contract with the German record label Prophecy Productions. Until now we have 6 full length albums, the last one called Metanoia came out in 2017. We are proud that we had the possibility to play in many countries in Europe and we also played in USA and South-Korea so far.

What all is involved in managing the band? Why did you decide to do everything on your own? Did you ever have an external management? How was your experience in general?

First of all it requires dedication and sometimes a bit of patience. Actually I enjoy to manage the things around the band and to organize shows. As I mentioned for the album release and promotion we have a record label but we don’t have an external manager nor an exclusive booking agency for booking shows. As I do this part myself this way I can have a better control of what happens with us and I can take care of every details without depending on somebody. I like when I have a plan in mind and I can manage to make it happen. Of course when I organize a tour I can still work with local promoters or even booking agencies for a given event or series of events but I don’t have good experince with exclusive deals with booking agencies. If you have an exclusive deal – so all of your show must be done through the agency and the agency is big maybe they can achive better deals than if you organize yourself but you will be only one of the many bands they have and the communication can be quite slow in this case. Also you don’t have much influence on how things happen.

What do you desire to give to your listeners through your art? Why does it makes sense for you to dedicate yourself to this creation?

Our music is a bit melancholic, sometimes quite dark, yet very intimate and deep acoustic music with a strong nature-inspired atmosphere. It has several layers that you might not hear by the first listening so there are always some new details you can discover even after you listened to our music several times. I’m not a song-writer in the band but I know the Ágnes and Mihály are always looking for a better way to express themselves by music. It’s like they are painting soundscapes based on the images in their minds with the use of music.

What would you like to achieve in the future? Do you have ambitions to grow your fame as band, or are there another aspects that really keep you going and make you look forward to something?

There is always a room for improvement but we are getting closer to the state what we always wanted to achieve as a band. We are not there yet but I think we are on the right path. We have plans to play in some countries where we never played before – for example a tour in South – America would be really good – we will see if we can manage to do it. Also musically I think Ágnes and Mihály still have a lot of inspiration and would not like to stop the musical journey they started with the band.

Soon you will meet your fans in Poland, Germany and Czech Republic. Is there something you would like to tell them, maybe to attract them to attend those events? 🙂

We always have a great audience in these countries you mentioned and we are really looking forward to this tour and to meet you guys on our gigs. We encourage everyone to come to our shows – you won’t regret it – and you can be a part of a musical journey which will take you away for a while from the problems of everyday life.

In Prague, you will baptize new CD of the band Nemuer as its patrons. Are you looking forward to this ritual? How do your release celebrations look like?

As we don’t have this habit in Hungary, this will be a new experience for us and we are looking forward to it. We don’t exactly know what to do but as I understand the new cd has to blessed during the ceremony. We plan to use pálinka (Hungarian home made spirit) for this purpose, it will serve as „pagan holy water.“ 😀

 

Thanks a lot for the interview!

Thank you! See you in Prague!

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