1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the band?
Sea of Consciousness is the brainchild of guitarist Daniel Sirotski and drummer István Timmermans.
They have been playing since 2014 together and were trying to come up with a grand concept that Sea of Consciousness is now. The band Sea of Consciousness has been brought to life since 2019 and were trying to find the missing band-members. After multiple line-up changes we finally found vocalist Bionda Honings in 2022. Her vocals were the final missing link to finally develop our style further. Then we found guitarist Stefan Gerritsen and bassist Jeroen Koorn in 2023 and we completed our line-up and debut-album.
2.Recently you have released your first full length, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical style that you went for on the recording?
The music is a huge mix of progressive technical metal with influences from death, black, thrash and heavy metal. We don’t believe in genre boxes and instead are trying to create our own genre that doesn’t let itself be defined by a narrow musical style.
We write music from the heart and the quality of the song is the most important. We try to think what a song needs instead of a fixed idea and/or ego.
The main songwriter, Daniel Sirotski, takes musical inspiration from every direction and tries to mold it all into one style. The reason is also because we, as a band, don’t want to be limited.
3.Some of the band members where previously a part of 'Inferus Dei', what was the cause of breaking up the previous band and forming the new group?
Guitarist Daniel Sirotski and drummer István Timmermans decided to break up the band because the musical vision had changed dramatically. Inferus Dei was the first attempt to flesh out the huge concept that Daniel and István had. After some time they decided that the attempt wasn’t what they wanted and looked at it as a learning school.
4.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band has explored so far with the music?
Mostly about life’s struggles covered in a spiritual/mystical veil. Writing music is for us a way to deal with reality and trauma in general. So it heals us in a way, and therefore, we hope that it will heal other listeners. Or at least enjoy our music, that’s cool too.
5.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Sea of Consciousness"?
It started with the song ‘’Sea of Consciousness’’. When the song was being written, Daniel named it ‘’Sea of Consciousness’’ because it just felt it was the best way to describe the song and feeling it had. Afterwards, István had the genius idea to name our band that. Since then, we took the song as a basis from where we wanted to develop our sound further.
After a while, the name got more and more meaning. Sea of Consciousness symbolizes the reality around us. Every living being on this world is a small drop in the endless sea of consciousness that spans our globe. It is everything and nothing at the same time. We all try to traverse this endless stream and holding on to that which we know. But in the end, everything is random (or fate). From this principle we want to make music how it comes to us, instead of defining ourselves with a genre. We want to create our own genre because life is so much more than those few drops of consciousness most bands associate themselves with. The quest for knowledge, self-improvement and constructive thinking is one of the most challenging and rewarding paths that a human can take. We try to tread that path to enlightenment through music.
6.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?
The white robed figures represent the instrumentalists in the band. The black figure in the lake is our vocalist and the nature around us is the Sea of Consciousness. We are summoning ‘’Spirit’’ that ultimately unites every element and transcends us.
7.Has the band done any live shows or open to the idea?
We had our first show on the 12th of January 2024. Currently we are trying to find shows that we can play so we can hone our craft. We have some shows planned in March but we want more!
8.Currently you are unsigned, are you looking for a label or have received any interest?
We had a label approach us with a deal 1,5 weeks after releasing our album. Honestly, nobody expected it so soon so we kind of freaked out in a good way. But after some thought we decided that it is too soon to sign ourselves to a label. It is a goal that we ultimately want to achieve, but it has to be on our own terms.
9.On a worldwide level how has the reaction been to your music by fans of progressive and extreme metal?
The reaction is huge! Seriously, we did not expect this response. I mean, we even had a viral TikTok video about us with over 40K likes and counting..
It has been almost 3 weeks since the launch of the album and we got from 80 monthly listeners to almost 5000 on Spotify. Its crazy.
A lot of reviews also with some really good constructive feedback that we will take with us in future songs.
10.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
I don’t think you can really assess your own musical development, but we want to focus on capitalizing on our ‘’unique’’ style of composition. With the amazing feedback we have had, this wont be a problem.
11.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
The list is too long to effectively tell you what kind of influences we all have. The main songwriter, Daniel Sirotski, listens to reggae-ska, old-school hip-hop, 1940’s jazz, satanic black metal, aggressive thrash metal, 80’s pop songs etc. The list is too much. Daniel never listens to one band for a long time and instead has periods were he listens to a specific genre before moving on to the next thing. His baseline musical influence is Metallica and Dissection though.
Stefan Gerritsen is a huge metal fan in general, but can listen to almost every other genre too. He likes drum & bass, country, Celtic music and also classic pop music. He loves a song as long as it has substance and it can reach his soul. But if he has to name a specific band, it would definitely be Avenged Sevenfold.
István Timmermans greatest inspiration is Arch Enemy. That band is the main reason he picked up the drumsticks. But most of his inspirational percussion ideas come from bands like Obscura, Amorphis and Septic Flesh. But because we don’t only write brutal metal music, István takes influences from blues and up tempo rock music to come up with fresh ideas.
Bionda Honings remembers when she was 9 years old a friend of her father always played guitar for them. She really was inspired by the fact that you can process your emotions through music instead not knowing how to deal with feelings in general. Music was the best way to deal with reality.
Bionda always steered towards rock music and begun listening to The Rasmus, Evanescence and Linkin Park. Then she found out that more extreme music had more impact and found bands like Orbit Culture and Decapitated. Bionda was inspired by bands that really put their emotion into the music. Because of this Bionda is also very all-round in her musical taste. Its all about the feeling that the listener gets my hearing the auditory journey.
Jeroen Koorn started with rock music on the radio like Queen, ACDC and Green Day. This peeked his interest and later, as a teenager, he met people who introduced him to heavier music like Pantera, Slayer and Iron Maiden. Slowly but surely Jeroen got rolled into the world of metal. His first real favorite bands were System of a Down and Slipknot.
The urge to pick up the bass guitar came when Jeroen listened to Behemoth and Opeth for the first time.
Beside metal music, Jeroen also listens to reggae, oldschool gangsterrap and goes to drum and bass parties frequently.
All-in all, everyone had a very wide range of musical influences.
12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to tell our story here! The response is amazing and we are thankful for your attention!
https://seaofconsciousness.bandcamp.com/album/sea-of-consciousnes
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