Interview with Gábor Dancs, guitarist of Deimhal and Pete Devine of Pete’s Rock News and Views
PD: How would you describe yourself or your band as an artist?
Gabor/Deimhal: We are a black metal band that doesn’t compromise with any outsiders preferences, or expectations of us. We do everything the way we see fit and we play the music so as we forge it. What else there is to say? We are passionate in what we are doing and thanks to mostly Mika and then the rest, we are very productive and will continue to be so.
PD: Can you tell us briefly about your background – i.e. where you’re from, how you came to make music, etc.
Gábor/Deimhal: The band is based in Finland, however I myself am coming from Hungary. I moved to Finland in 2006.
I come from a musician family, my mom being a teacher of music (and math), father singing rock operas and rock oratorios, sisters playing on various instruments. I started my music studies at the age of 7 on piano and tenor horn, that is a pre-instrument for trombone. I studied music for about 13 years in music school and conservatory, played in brass groups and orchestras for so many years.. i picked up my older sisters guitar at around the age of 14 and it opened up a whole new world. By the age of 16 I had already a black metal band in my hometown called “Rest In Peace”..
PD: Who and what inspires you to make music, both in terms of musical and other influences? What do you like to write about in your songs?
Gábor/Deimhal: Well as of now my band inspires me writing new music. This is a group of professional musicians that have put some serious stuff on the table already with other bands and projects. They don’t need to be instructed how to add themselves into the tracks. Mika wrote so far the majority of our music, but now we also have Jukka on guitar who also turned out to be very productive in composing. Since in my other band we don’t play guitar solos and guitar melodies, I really enjoy now composing them as well. This new-old task inspires me as well.
PD: What are your aspirations as an artist?
Gábor/Deimhal: For now we are composing and recording demos and will release in the near future more stuff. Maybe another EP, but if our hopes come through and we end up being supported by a label, a full length record would quite possible the next year. I guess the ultimate goal is to play live anyway and once we start playing shows, we will go as far as we can!
PD: What is the proudest moment in your music career so far?
Gàbor/Deimhal: I guess the other memebers could list a whole bunch of awesome achievements, but perhaps in my music carrier one amazing night that I’ll always remember was when my other band Resolution 13 won the regional first price on Emergenza festival (2018?) out of 80 bands. Then Doug Blair handed over his business card to us.. that was an awesome moment.
PD: Promoting one’s music is such a challenge these days, especially with so many new artists emerging
from bedrooms in the day of the home studio. How is that going?
Gàbor/Deimhal: I think Deimhal had hell of a good start actually. We took care of the PR ourselves with no support from anywhere and our EP ended up on the Black Metal Promotion YouTube channel and gaining a lots of views in the first days; our song “Vengeance Of The Night Crows” made it to such playlists on Spotify, like “Extreme Metal”. We thought it’s pretty cool. Definitely some reward to us!
PD: And how do you book and promote your live shows and tours? Any performances coming up?
Gàbor/Deimhal: We don’t play live shows yet, but like I said before, we aim to be a crushing live band.
PD: What do you think about downloading music online? What about streaming sites like Spotify?
Gàbor/Deimhal: Well, on our level we won’t complain yet.. we knew how this is gonna go and still we do the music, cause that’s who we are and what we love to do. We hope maybe one day we break even with PR, maybe we gain even enough to print CDs, but we’ll need your support, dear readers! 🙂 Bandcamp is good place to start at 😉
PD: What song do you wish you’d written and why?
Gàbor/Deimhal: There are plenty, but for one: Arcane Lifeforce Mysteria from Dimmu Borgir. There was just so much music and inspiration for me in that one when i was a teen. I heard classic black metal bands before too, but I think Spiritual Black Dimensions caught me at first listening and opened up the gates to the darkness.
PD: Is there anything you don’t like about the music industry, which you would change if you could?
Gàbor/Deimhal: That’s a difficult one cause i wouldn’t know where to start.
PD: So, what are you working on at the moment?
Gàbor/Deimhal: As the “The Grand Gathering” EP was released, Mika and Jukka started the composing immediately and I guess everyone just puts down ideas at home and showing them to each other at the moment, starting to form them into song structures. I’m sure we’ll have something awesome to publish quite soon, so stay tuned!
PD: Where can we learn more about you and buy your music/merch online?
Gàbor/Deimhal: We try to update our social media sites diligently, where you can also find biography and other information about the band. At the moment we don’t have any additional products/merch yet, but that will change in the future as well. You can buy our music digitally from all major services, but through our bandcamp page, the money goes directly to the band, which supports our work the best.
Deimhal links:
Band/Artist location – Finland
Facebook – You Tube – Bandcamp – Twitter – Instagram –
Apple – Spotify – Amazon – Deezer – TikTok – Last Fm –
Check our page for Deimhal
