Matti Svatizky – Orphaned Land

First in Hungarian then in English

Bevezetés

Jó tíz évvel ezelőtt, mikor mentorommal, Kőszeghy Miklóssal készültünk az első közös tanulmányunk megírására nem volt kérdés, hogy a témánk az izraeli Orphaned Land 2004-es, monumentáls konceptlemeze lesz a téma. A Mabool az ószövetségi vízözön történet új köntösben történt feldolgozása, amelyhez némi háttérinformációért megkerestem magát a zenekart is. Akkor még Matti Svatizky volt a banda ritmusgitárosa, az e-mailben feltett kérdésekre végül tőle kaptam választ. Bár, ahogy említettem kb. tíz éves maga az interjú, de mégis, a metal zene mögötti kulturális referenciákat, metaforákat és allegóriákat kedvelő olvasóim számára talán érdekes lehet. Olvassátok szeretettel (egyelőre csak angolul)! 🙂

English introduction

It is ten years now when with my mentor, Miklós Kőszeghy, we were preapring our first manuscript written by the two of us. It was of no question that our topic would the monumental concept album of Israeli Orphaned Land, entitled Mabool and rewriting the story of Flood from the Old Testament. During our research I reached for the band for some background information. Matti Svatizky was the rythm guitarist of the band back then, who eventually answered my question via e-mail. As I mentioned above the interview itself is about ten years old, but the information it may be interesting for my Readers who tend to look inside metal and its cultural references, metaphorical and allegorical tendencies. As the interview was never published before for a wider audience, thus please, read it with pleasure! 🙂

Dr. Metal: First of all, I would like to ask You about the band: how have you come together? Have you considered about any preconception (musically and lyrically also) for your music?

Matti: The band was formed in 1991 in Israel by 5 kids who wanted to play some music together. We were 15 to 17 years old, all metal music fans who wanted to have some fun, and of course, behind it was first of all our great love to music and our will to create something of ourselves. We played some pretty conventional things at first, but after a year or two we realized the difficulty of standing out of the crowd in the sea of bands out there, and started to take a different and original direction, which is to combine metal music with our own native folk music, and also take the lyrics into a more spiritual direction.

Dr. Metal: What is the primal message of your music? What is your purpose of making this kind of religious music?

Matti: Well religion has many positive sides, but because of the multiplicity of religions and the different stories and messages they send, they become a separating element instead of an element that can bring people closer together. We think that the main core of all religions, especially the monotheistic ones, is quite the same, and when people understand that there are many similarities between what they believe in, they become more understanding and tolerant towards the other culture. Our main message is that people are basically the same, and there’s no need to fight over our beliefs.

Dr. Metal: Why are you working in the metal music era, why aren’t you work as civil activists or politicians to spread your message and aim your goals?

Matti: I think that in order to be a politician you have to be a certain person with certain characteristics that none of us have, or want to have. We are musicians, and we concentrate on our art first of all. If our art can deliver also a message in order to make the world a better place even a little bit, so it’s our gain. But the truth is that musicians and artists in general have much influence about what people thing and how they live their lives, sometimes even more than politicians do. Our message comes from a clean place, a thing that politicians sometimes cannot afford.

Dr. Metal: How could you descibe your and the band’s religious beliefs? How do you make this to take place in your music?

Matti: In general, you cannot call any of us a religious man. I think that Kobi, our vocalist, is the closest to religion among us. He believes in god and is interested in the bible a lot. He’s really inspired by it. The other guys are quite free with their thoughts, not bounding them to this religion or that. I could say about myself that I am agnostic. I have considered the question of the existence of god a lot, and I still often do. I think that coming to a conclusion about it will be lying to myself, because these are questions that no one can really answer. One religion says that Jesus walked on the water, and the other says that Jesus was a fraud and a heretic. I mean, who knows who’s right? I think that they’re both wrong, just my hunch about things.

Dr. Metal: Do you represent a kind of political or social critics in your lyrics (I mean any critics against the politics of Israel considering the diplomacy with the neighbouring countries, or against the social tendencies of the world)?

Matti: We are Israelis, and we love our home and want to live here for the rest of our lives. Israel is a country like all others, it can sometime do right and sometimes wrong. I can’t say that I agree with Israel’s diplomacy all the time, but I definitely don’t think that Israel is an evil country that chases the weak minority on purpose. However, in our lyrics, we tend to not enter directly these political issues. There are many wrongs in the world, but with Orphaned Land we tend to focus more about only a part of them, and we succeed on bringing people closer together.

Dr. Metal: Why have you chosen the story of the flood for your 2004’s CD? What is the deeper message of this CD (linking back to question 5.)?

Matti: The flood is a great symbolic story, and it is also very universal. It exists in many cultures in different variations, and one cannot not wonder if there is a connection between all those stories. The story has a great moral value, and it speaks about cleansing the world of evil, so only the good will remain. We chose to bring our own variation of the story, from a unique and a different perspective. It is kind of a modern flood, like it is happening all over again but in a different time and this time the heroes are not Noah and his sons, but others.

Dr. Metal: I would ask you about the symbols of the lyrics of Mabool: I can see, that the Three in the story are the representants of the Abrahamic religions. Why have you chosen them the symbols they bear (like the snake of magic, the eagle and the lion of wisdom)?

Matti: Well, all three religions contain elements of those three characteristics, but for each religion, in our eyes, one characteristic just stands out a little bit more out, so it was chosen to represent this religion. I guess that each characteristic could have been might as well be chosen for different religion and it would still make a lot of sense nonetheless.

Dr. Metal: Who is the seventh whose seven descendant was divided into three? And who is that seventh descendant (I guess Noah)?

Matti: Well seven is a typological number. Many people consider it as a good luck charm, and the bible uses it a lot in many cases. There is also a reference to Iron Maiden’s album, “Seventh son of a seventh son”, and album which is in our eyes a milestone in metal music and we are all devoted Iron Maiden fans. But the 7th descendant is not Noah, because our story, though inspired by original story, does not involve Noah. The seventh descendant has been divided into 3 persons, who are the 3 heroes of the story, each representing another monotheistic religion.

Dr. Metal: In the lyrics of Mabool you never mention Noah by name, why?

Matti: Well, like I said, Noah is not actually in there, even though his story is the influence behind our story.

Dr. Metal: Why have you decided to cite some passages from the Vulgata in Latin?

Matti: In all our albums we sing in more than one language. Our primary language is English, but we also use Hebrew, Arabic, Yemenite, and yes, Latin. Because we use a style of music which involves instruments and melodies from many cultures, we also involve the native language of the cultures as well. Latin is often related to Christianity and the New Testament, so it was only appropriate to use it as well.

Dr. Metal: If my informations are good the song Norra el Norra is a kind of cover of an old Egyptian folk song. How does it fit to the concept of Mabool?

Matti: Well you’re partially right. The melody of this song is taken from an Egyptian song called “Samra ya Samra”, but the lyrics are Hebrew lyrics which have a Jewish religious context. In the concept of Mabool, this song is coming in the part where the heroes are entering the ark, and the song is a praise song they sing to god.

Dr. Metal: Do you plan to make an other conceptual and mytholgycal-religious cd in the future? What could the theme of it?

Matti: Since Mabool we have already released one more album called “The neverending way of Orwarrior”, which is a concept story album as well, and it tells about the warrior of light. It is also a spiritual story, but it is much more abstract in its context than Mabool. The warrior of light is an abstract figure and the idea behind him is that he can represent each and anyone of us.

Dr. Metal: Are you interested in biblical archeology? Do you care about the Biblical disciplines during writing of lyrics?

Matti: Biblical archeology is kind of cool I think. You get all kind of perspective about the truth behind things, about what really happened on those times, about which of the story happened and which might have not happened. Archeology in general is a very important subject which sheds new lights about many things.

Dr. Metal: Do you receive any critics for your lyrics at Israel or at any part of the muslim and Christian world?

Matti: In most of the times we receive positive reactions from people. People see that our intentions are good and that we mean no harm, and judge as to the positive sides. However, there are always people that will look for the reason to fight, and they will find it. All we want to do is bring people closer together and bring some medicine into this sick world. We sometimes succeed, sometime don’t, it’s up to people to choose what side they are taking and how they look at things.

A tanulmány, melyhez felhasználtam az interjút itt érhető el. / The study where I used this interview could be accessed here (but it is only in Hungarian).