The Morrigan Story
The story begins in 1996, when Szentkirályi János and Kiss László created the Morrigan band, where also played Szentkirályi Róbert (cousin of Jani) on bass guitar, Nagy Ferenc on rhythm guitar and a guy on the drums (I can't recall his name); but this line-up didn't worked as they wanted.
Note - Click on the cover art to listen the full album on BandLab.
Laci asked me to draw the Morrigan logo and to bring some new lyrics. From the moment I have met Jani, we started a strong relationship and 17 new song were created easily. We regrouped the band with two other members, this way Morrigan got the following line-up:
Lantos József (Joccó) - Drums
Brândușan Daniel (Dane) - Bass Guitar
Szentkirályi János (Jani) - Lead and Rhythm Guitar
Bándi Levente (Levi) - Vocal
Hand drawn CD front cover
Hand drawn CD back cover
Hand drawn CD disc label
Dane, Joccó, Levi & Jani
Original design on a jacket
Joccó, Dane, Levi & Jani
Dane, Jani, Joccó & Levi
Our first recorded song was "Shadows Of Death" in Călin Boca's own studio; later came the "I Can't Understand" and the "Fuckin' Cops" songs. We did this quick recording for a demo tape, because we wanted to participate on the "SamRock" rock contest, but we blew our chance to be there (*).
Note - Click on the cover art to listen the songs recorded in the studio or in the garage on BandLab.
(*) To fulfill that dream, I have made a live concert variant of the three songs we recorded for the demo:
I Can't Understand
Fuckin' Cops
Shadows Of Death
Note - Click on the cover art to listen the live songs on BandLab.
In November, 1996 we played our first and only live representation in Jibou, a city near Zalău, where also played "The Chains" and the "Epic" bands. We made there some fans, but this wasn't enough to make the big start.
The stealing of our music instruments stopped us to finalize the demo project and we entered in a musical and a personal crisis. We tried to save what remained, but when Jani left the band, Morrigan was self destructed.
Maybe we were stopped from a big start, but sadly we will never know. So I made this tribute to the Morrigan band in hope to reborn our dreams and to make it real!
Album Guide: Morrigan - Rebellion
The Morrigan songs combines the devastating sound of Thrash Metal with the romance of the Hard Rock ballads. Nothing is more accurate than a heart-ripping song about our pain in love, or the anger about being helpless and/or living your life in loneliness.
Between 1996 and 1997 the Morrigan band have tried to survive the 'Garage-Days'. The 'Garage-Days' was that time when we played in the garage of Jani's father, where he had about 3 big cask full of red wine. So you can guess the hard times we had in that period. Some of these songs (Fuckin' Cops, Too Late, Suicidal Simone, I Can't Understand, Shadows Of Death, The Creator, Far Away, Crime's Label, Sins, Don't Fuck With My Bad Side, Maris and Pionierul) were written in those conditions, while other songs (like Confession, Helpless and The Dream) were written by me before Morrigan, between 1993-1995 and was included in the band's repertoire; the rest of the songs were finalised after the Morrigan crash, 1997-1999 (Agony, The Damned and Escape From Nowhere). These are simple songs, but hard as a rock!
After the band was terminated, all the songs remained just some good ideas, nothing more, so I was thinking to recreate all these songs in the memory of the Morrigan band, but the major problem was the lack of an existing studio. My first real chance was a music or sampler program called 'Dance e-Jay 2', but I only managed to do the drums and some of the bass lines, so this idea wasn't too good, and I dropped it. Then I saw a little program named 'Cakexp' (a minimal version of Cakewalk Express), an easy to use midi music editor and maker. I quickly learned how to use this program, and the recreation of the Morrigan songs became much more easier... But this program uses keyboard bank sounds and templates, so the electric guitar sound was far from a distorted guitar sound. Then, when I thought that I couldn't do better, a small, but powerful midi-song called 'wah' resolved all of my problems. This song contains a 'sysex bank' (it means a configuration or effect that can be loaded in a song) which transforms the cheap guitar sound in an almost original distorted guitar sound.
At this point, all the songs were finished, and the new guitar sound combined with the "Yamaha S-YXG 50" midi emulator, I was finally excited with this new and improved sound. The final step was to use two rhythm guitars, instead of one, to achieve a good quality, stereophonic sound. The only remaining part was to record my voice for each song, but for almost one year I never got the chance to fulfill this task. Then one day (one crazy day) I recorded all 18 songs in about 8-10 hours.
Years later, I have discovered another cool program called GutarPro, which allows you to import midi songs and transform the keyboard bank sound to a more organic sound. Again, this opened a whole new world, and I managed to rework all songs, but used the already recorded vocals.
So, all these songs made a 15-20 year journey through my head, and from some basic ideas, these were fully re-created to honor the memory of the Morrigan band and those who played in it!!!
Fuckin' Cops (Levi, Jani & Joccó)
This song was originally written in a simple manner, where each line of the song contained one word with similar vowels, but later (because the one-worded lines didn't fit so well) it was transcribed to verses and the chorus part was modified to a simple line.
The instrumental part came from rearranged improvisations from the time of 'Garage-Days'. Later I added all the police dialogue, car chase and helicopter effects. This was the third song recorded for the demo tape that we tried to release.
Too Late (Jani & Levi)
This song is about a time in Jani's life, when he tried to accept the failed marriage of his parents, and his soul was tormented by the fact that his father leave them for another person; then he decided to manifest all that anger in one song. This is how the 'Too Late' ideea was born. We wrote the lyrics together, but the instrumental part was hard to do, because Jani (who is a big Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Satriani fan) tried to overcomplicate the guitar parts, so there were two main lines for one song. In the end I used my combination to this songs and I think it sounds better.
Helpless (Levi)
This song describes a part of my life when I tried to find myself. I was young (18-19) and naiv and all the failure regarding one girl exploded in this special song for me.
The first verse is about the battle to survive in this harsh world, in the second part I talk about her and in the third verse I blame her for all the pain I suffered while we were together.
This was the only song that I wrote all by myself before Morrigan, but Jani liked it very much.
Confession (To Michelle) (Levi, Jani, Joccó & Dane)
This was one of my first songs that I wrote before Morrigan. The interesting part is that while the lyrics remained unchanged (except the "I'm break down-Fallin' down" part), the instrumental part suffered several changes until the day I met Jani. He was playing on his guitar while I sang this song and in a matter of a few minutes the basic of the song was created.
Much later, Jocco and Dane put their marks on the final form of the song.
Although this song was not written for someone specific, I dedicated it to Michelle (who was a girlfriend from the 'Garage-Days') for the special times we were together.
Suicidal Simone (Levi, Jani & Joccó)
Simona was the sister of a friend in the army; although I never met this girl, we corresponded for a short time. I liked her nonconformist style and her black humor about "this world sucks" and "this life sucks". As she said, she never "stop thinkin' of suicide"; that's why I called her 'Suicidal Simone'. I don't know if she is still alive, but I guess she is, because she was 18 then (in 1995) and this might be a part of that craziness we call youth.
The instrumental part was made by Jani, then processed by all of us.
I Can't Understand (István, Levi, Jani & Joccó)
I don't know why Jani was so obsessed about war (might have been influenced by a romanian band called Altar), because all the lyrics he wrote before Morrigan had 'war' as the centerpiece. He wrote the text in collaboration with one of his friends, István, but the instrumental part is a collective result of the Morrigan band.
Later I added the war effects.
This was the second song we wanted to be on that demo tape.
Shadows Of Death (Csabi L, Levi, Jani & Joccó)
This was another of the Jani's war-songs. I rewrote the lyrics by inserting some lines from a friend's creation (Csabi L was a classmate who was also an indirect co-writer of "The Damned" song).
The instrumental part is so powerful and simple, it can rip your heart apart like a nasty bitch.
This was the first song recorded for the demo tape and, as our friends said, this was the center piece of the Morrigan band.
Agony (Levi)
This is a Morrigan after song, and this is directly related to Michelle and another girl. It is about a specific, sensitive time (before I broke up with Michelle) and I tried to manage myself with this other girl (I knew her long before Michelle).
This song talks about the battle between good and bad (that's inside of everyone) and sometimes, in such moments, it seems that the only way to escape is suicide; but in reality, things are not that dark, it's only the mind that poisons our own thoughts.
The Creator (Levi & Jani)
The idea of the lyrics for this song came in one night (couldn't sleep, so my mind was all over), then the second day I completed it. The instrumental part was made much later, and in the final version I added that intro part with the rhythm section.
So, this is a song about the power of creation that contains both of our sides: good and bad.
Far Away (Levi, Jani & Joccó)
Jani was moved by the death of Simona's mother (she was Jani's ex-girlfriend - she is not that "Suicidal Simone"), so he wrote some lyrics about that car accident. I didn't liked the lyrics, so I wrote a different version where I narrated the event as I was Simona (in fact, Simona's mother wasn't drove that car), and I tried to describe the emotional connection between them.
The first steps of the instrumental part was made with improvisations of Jani and Jocco, then it was finalized with collective help.
Crime's Label (Levi, Jani & Joccó)
For this song Jani brought the lyrics from (that's what he said) a known hungarian poet, but his translation was poor, so I made some adjustments to it. The instrumental was his idea and it was modified with Joccó's help.
This song is about our duality in all things we make, but as we know the easiest and most attractive is the bad side, because is the most liked by the majority (and it's also in our nature). The good side is the hard way, but the most rewarding and there are not much people that is living by it.
The Dream (Levi & Jani)
This is one of my songs that a wrote it before Morrigan, and talks about of our fear of death. The lyrics shows an imaginary 'this is the end?' like story full of our fears and phobias, about our need of the physical world and all the pain we love.
The instrumental part was made by Jani and Joccó, with a little help from me. Later I added the intro and outro parts with the effects.
Sins (Vasi, Jani & Levi)
The song's lyrics were written by Jani's neighbour, Vasy; later I made small adjustment to it.
The instrumental is a work of Jani, but he didn't liked it too much; I loved the simple and rhythmical parts, so the song wasn't changed.
This is about the unfair world where we live, where 'everybody steal from everywhere' and 'somebody kill, but nobody hear', we just forget that not the world is wrong, but our actions are.
Don't Fuck With My Bad Side* (Levi & Echinox)
I wrote the lyrics long before the band, and later we put some instrumentals, but this song was never finalized.
Some time after the termination of the band, I sang in another band called Echinox where this song got its final form. The lyrics spike about the way we fall in love, then come the failure and because of this, how we reject everybody around us.
The general idea of the song is that even if we fall, we must stand up and continue our life.
The Damned (Csabi L, Laci & Levi)
This song is a work of three classmates.
The original lyrics was written by Csabi L about the fight with his mother, then Laci got an idea and made a full story about a boy that leaves his home and from a thief he became a murderer, and after the war, he is sentenced to death for his genocides. But Laci didn't finalized the lyrics and gave it to me, so I wrote the third verse and did some adjustments to the other two verses.
The instrumental part is my own creation.
Escape From Nowhere (Levi & Jani)
This song was written after I met Jani, but somehow we never got the time to work on it. After the termination of the band, I wrote the lyrics and made major adjustment on the instrumental parts.
This song is about our tendencies to treat everything bad hysterically. But what if we could see all these through some eyeglasses tinted in black humour?
Maris (Bonus Track) (Levi, Jani & Action)
The idea for this song came after I went on a trip with some friends, and there was a guy called Action (or Buddha) and he sang a song with three chords and one word: Maris (it's a hungarian name translated as Mary or Mariah). Later I wrote with Jani some harsh lyrics about this imaginary Maris.
The instrumental part we made used the same chords, but later I made this punk-rock version and I think it's the best way to describe that bitch.
Pionierul (Bonus Track) (Csabi B, Jani & Levi)
The making of this song (this is actually a cover) was inspired by my big brother, Csabi B and is related to the past of our beloved country: the Golden Era of communism.
The instrumental part is a work of Jani with simple and heart beating rhythm.
The lyrics spokes about how proud we were to be pioneers of the Communist Party.
The Morrigan Band is now a forgotten part of the past, and while for me this was one of the many challenges in life, I treat it as a living part of my life that I loved from start to finish.
So these songs are dedicated to anyone that helped and sustained us.
Thanks And Trademark
We would like to thank to our parents, friends, girlfriends, enemies, neighbours and bitches, because they have supported that fucking noise we made!
"Rock until the end!"
WARNING: All rights of the producer and the owner of the recorded work reserved. Unauthorised copying, public performance, broadcasting, hiring or rental of this recording prohibited.
"Morrigan", "Morrigan's Rebellion", the Morrigan logos, all of the presented songs and lyrics, the "Black Horse Studio" name and his logo are trademark of "Rafal Works"
The original art of "The Morrigan" by Jessica Galbreth was used/modified without permission.
