Please introduce yourself and share a bit about your background.

I'm BÁL, a one-man black metal band from Hungary active since 2017. I've been doing music for years and I tried myself in different genres too. I grew up in a music-loving family with a few musician members.

Tell us a bit about yourself. (Location, artist name, the works!)

My first name is Bálint, and the particle of this is BÁL. This means a festival where people gather to have dinner, dance, and feel good in my mother tongue. However, if you listen to my records, you may realize that it's kind of a paradox. I live and produce a few kilometres from the capital of Hungary and since the beginning, I released tons of albums digitally and physically too. I worked with different artists from all over the world and became:

• A radio show host
• A label owner
• A vocalist of multiple bands

What's your musical origin story? (when did you start? What inspired you?)

I started BÁL around 2016-2017 and it was originally a personal therapy for processing stuff that was going on around me and inside of me as a response. Nowadays, BÁL has different reasons to be too, but my main inspiration is still my emotions.

What were the driving forces or pivotal moments that inspired you to pursue music?

My inner self and a force to help myself out from stuff that I experienced in my private life.

How would you describe your style of music?

Black metal of any kind. You'll be able to hear raw black metal, atmospheric BM, post-BM, DSBM, and so on if you spin my discography. I like to experiment a lot so you may find some elements from drum and bass, disco funk and dark ambient but deathcore, death metal and hardcore too.

How is your personality reflected in your work?

Well, because I'm doing this all by myself, I think it's not an easy question to answer. BÁL feels like a ghost that possesses me when I start to work on a song and it has some spells that wake up my subconsciousness and my inner self starts to respond to those magical words. My personality must be an in-between layer of all of these in my opinion.

Describe your creative process when you write new music.

Everything comes by itself.

What is the name of your latest releases?

My latest full-length is titled "Nagyobb nálam" which means "bigger than me".

What was the inspiration for that release?

This record is mainly the result of self-expression.

What challenges or unexpected moments did you encounter during the writing/recording process?

Well, if I feel that I'm challenged to write new stuff, I simply stop. I don't do my own work forcefully and all my songs released under BÁL are free of hardships and rules.

What strategies do you find most effective for promoting your music?

Regularity is the most important thing here. As I do my own promotion too, I realised I need to create content, post, comment, share, etc. every single day to grow organically. Grabbing all the occasions that I can find and using them is another very important thing too. By that I mean, if someone asks you to do an interview, never say no. If someone comments under your post, never leave it unanswered. I hope you all know what I mean.

How do you engage with your fans online and offline?

I do my stuff 95% online with the method I mentioned before. Frankly, I don't give live shows so I try to sell merch whenever I have money to invest, I feel that somehow makes people engaged.

What upcoming promotional activities or releases are you most excited about?

To be honest, I've not been excited about anything for a while just as I'm not surprised by anything nowadays (however I had big things happening to my project lately that my young self would never have believed) but currently, at this moment while I'm writing the answers to these questions, I'm the most excited about this one :D I must add that I'm very happy that I get my living from the music I do and I appreciate every single day while I'm in this position.

How can folks contact you (socials/email/websites etc.)

https://linktr.ee/valentbaal

Is there anything else of interest that we should have asked about? Please include it here.

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