When it comes to melodic power metal of the European mold, the productivity and quality of albums in the Serious Black catalog is hard to match currently. Now a decade into their careers, the latest album The Rise of Akhenaton incorporates all aspects of the band’s sound – featuring multiple songwriters who drill deep into the uniqueness and thoughtful nature to the material. Tremendous catchy riffs next to energetic, expressive vocals keep ears engaged, along with a rhythm section that brings all the necessary tools of the trade to convincingly make feet tap or heads bang to whatever BPM is thrown at you. We reached out to vocalist Nikola Mijić to learn more about the past to present outlook that penetrates the latest record, the importance of Bob and Mario’s engineering / production duties to the final sound, Toto memories and the reasons behind their “I Will Remember” cover, the importance of live performances to make an impact for the band, reading and its imagination / creative qualities that could help the younger generation, as well as what’s on the horizon for Serious Black and his other band Alogia.
Dead Rhetoric: The Rise of Akhenaton is the sixth and latest studio album for Serious Black. How did the songwriting and recording sessions go for this material – were there any specific elements you wanted to accent or accomplish that make this effort different or reference previous aspects of your discography?
Nikola Mijić: The album itself represents a retrospective of the start of the band to the current incarnation of the band. The whole entire process of the existence of the band. It starts from the buildup, it goes into the future, it goes into places that we have never been to. It goes to destruction, that’s why we have the song of the four horsemen, travelling around and bringing chaos to everyone. It also touches on things that are happening right now in the world. The recording process is very simple, it always starts with some riffs that sound cool. There was a storyline very deep in Mario’s imagination. He had this thing that he wanted to say about this album, some of the songs were pre-written, and for some of the songs the lyrics were created later to fill in the gaps between the songs that were written before even the music what it is right now on the album.
We had a few helping hands from the guys that are not in this band. Also, the keyboardist/guitarist Bob from Greece, he helped us out with the riffs a lot. We spent a lot of time building up the demos, but the demos were so good we left a lot of it untouched. Some of my singing and choir ideas filled in the gaps – that’s how the entire album got its color. If we had left things alone, it would have been a totally different thing. I try to come in and do my little stuff – something different always ends up happening. I’m curious how people will react to things when the album comes out.
We put a lot of effort into this album. We’ve gone through so many hard things – Mario lost his dad, I was travelling back and forth to Germany with concerts with some other band, travelling to far distance places like Bulgaria, Montenegro, flying to festivals, and in between we tried to record the album. I had a few weeks of off time because I was ill and I couldn’t record the album. I couldn’t start when we were ready to record, so we ended up three weeks behind. It was a bit of pressure, but I knew it would bring out some good things. We didn’t have too much time to lose focus, we had to be right on the spot. Some of the songs are on the album to picture some of the things that we’ve gone through throughout the years. This will be a complete whole package to the crowd. I hope we have enough funds even with the videos that will talk more about the album.
Dead Rhetoric: Do you feel comfortable now with your position in the band, because obviously the last record was your first with Serious Black, and you came in on an emergency basis when Urban Breed left the band?
Mijić: The band is very friendly, it’s almost like a family. There is nothing going on like, you are just a singer, and you just do this. It’s not that kind of a mentality or behavior. It’s absolutely free for us to do what we want to do from day one. Only the other album was written before I came into the band, the first one that I sang on. This one was a little bit different, you could bring ideas in, you could bring a full song, propose whatever. Mario is open for these things, and Dominik too. It was all on us, we could do whatever we want. If I say I don’t like certain lyrics, Mario will say okay – change them. We have changed some of the lyrics, small bits and pieces that came out very well. It’s a process that you have to go through. If you watched the Metallica documentary, A Year and a Half In the Life of Metallica, it’s something like that. You can record a solo fifty times, and this can happen on every album.
Dead Rhetoric: When it comes to choosing the single / video tracks to premiere for the record, what sort of challenges come up in the decision-making process between the band, the management, and the record label? How do you feel the response has been to date for these clips?
Mijić: Sometimes it’s inevitable, you have the label, you have management, and they see things how they want (it) to happen. How the band should evolve, move on and do its thing. They have a lot of people behind all of this. There is a whole entire mechanism working behind this, about the concerts, about the tours, everything. It’s a decision that goes back and forth. They propose some of the singles – we say yes, we say no, we disagree. It’s more of an agreement-based thing. We can’t exactly choose what we want to put out. Nobody can. You go to a company, you have to work, you can’t say – no I’m not going to work (laughs). We talk things over, and this is how it works.
Dead Rhetoric: How do the production duties work between Bob Katsionis and yourself when it comes to your roles to reach the finish line for a record? Do you find that you each have your own strengths and specialties that help Serious Black sound that much better in the end?
Mijić: Absolutely. Bob is fantastic. He’s a very well-known producer in Greece. He’s great at creating melodies, riffs, and things like that. He’s phenomenal. Also, the pre-production that he does for the album, you are halfway there. You can go forward quickly after Bob finishes with some of the stuff he does. He’s a helping hand in that case. A lot of the bands when it comes to pre-production, it’s just a demo, you fix things in the actual production. This is not like that – it’s more of a finished product that you get, and you can mold it into whatever you want. That helps a lot, it’s almost like a helping hand behind every great band, I’ve heard a lot about producers who help the bands to get to another level. Bob is not just a musician and a part of the band, he’s also a producer. He helps us all to be more creative faster and better.
Mario is a very good engineer. He is the mixing guy for us. Mario’s strengths are about picking things out. He is the final producer; he lets us know what goes where. We have decision making options – we can say where we are not satisfied. He is capable of redoing complete sessions, which are tons and tons of tracks. If you look at his session, it’s all in one session – he lists all these tracks. He is very good at what he is doing.
Dead Rhetoric: You recorded a special Toto cover of “I Will Remember” as a tribute to the recent loss of Mario’s father. What does this song mean to you – and how do you think this helped Mario get through that time?
Mijić: This song is also very special to me because when I was very hungry, I had a band that was a Toto tribute band. I played a lot of gigs with these guys, and this is one of the songs we played so many times, the crowd is always happy to hear this song. This song brings joy to everyone, it’s not hard rock, it’s not pop, this is a true ballad. It talks about metaphysics, the passing of time, and how our lives are passing. We are just passing through on this planet, things are moving very fast and sometimes we don’t even notice that we just lost someone. That’s what this song means to me. All the times I spent in Budapest with my friends, and they are now living other lives. It’s almost like parallel universes. I lived somewhere for five years, and this is my life and something that’s happened to me, and now here I am in Serious Black – that time to me seems like far in the distant past, a different life for me.
This is what Mario is feeling about this song. Something that will remind him of his father that will always bring joy to him. He will remember the nice moments and the fun times that he had with his family.
Dead Rhetoric: You are preparing to tour Europe with Sonata Arctica and Firewind – a great triple threat package for sure. What are your expectations for the tour, and what can the fans expect for live performances from Serious Black – is it a difficult process now choosing an ideal set list with six albums to pull from?
Mijić: I guess it’s not because it’s not a difficult task. I’m in the band for three years now. A lot of people would say two years, but I’ve actually been in the band for three years now. We’ve gone through this playlist so many times, changing it, which songs work, which songs don’t work with my voice. No one can sing Urban’s songs the way that he sings them – it’s just like that. Bruce Dickinson cannot sing Led Zeppelin and Symphony X, back and forth. It would be unfair for us to do things that worked before absolutely 100%. I want to do things that suit my voice, the band feels comfortable with, and I feel comfortable with.
We will promote some of the songs from the new album, as that will be released. This is our focus right now. Today and what is happening this year, bring to the people a little bit of the past, a little bit of the now, and present the album and the songs that we feel will bang their heads hard. That’s the process of finding the right songs for the playlist.
Dead Rhetoric: Now that the touring / festival landscape has opened back up after a couple of serious down years due to the global pandemic, what are your thoughts on the health / state of the live music scene, especially within heavy metal?
Mijić: I think it’s coming back. Things have drastically changed. Even technology has changed, how concerts are done. There are more people that are listening to streaming platforms, they are swiping the bands, the more aggressive the bands have to be as far as their promotion and everything that they do. These things like touring, going out and playing in front of crowds and people, it’s an absolute must. This will divide bands between being good or being average. I cannot say for us that we are fantastic, but we try as hard as we can to be as professional as we can be. Every band has to go out there and play.
In the sea of bands and albums and songs and singles that come out daily and monthly and yearly, it’s unbelievable. You don’t have that much space in that small little platform. You have to have so much money to promote yourself, do everything by yourself, to get the attention like in the old days. Even in the old days, concerts were fun, the Sunset Strip, a lot of the bands that were there became successful. Right now, that’s why the festivals are important. You have 45 minutes to show what you have, and that’s it. If you can do it, you can do it. If it’s hot on stage, you have to do it. If it’s raining, you have to do it. Just like Judas Priest in the Czech Republic, Masters of Rock. Absolute chaos, the weather was exploding, and Judas Priest was playing on the stage, rain is beating everything up. Still, they are up there playing with full potential. Hats off to these guys.
Dead Rhetoric: If you had the chance to teach a high school or college-level course on any subject matter outside of the field of music, what type of course would you develop – and why do you think this would be important for people to learn?
Mijić: I don’t know. An old school course, enjoy things a little bit more. Things that are not that fast, to read more. Explain how reading is developing people. Watching the kids that grow up right now, I see that many don’t like reading at all. Read whatever – if you like science, read about science. If you like fiction, read about fiction. Read all the books based on movies that you see. Open the door to another dimension where you can actually use your creativity. This creativity creates music also. It is the way to communicate with other people. It has nothing to do with music, with what we do right now. It gives you the ability to make friends, to see the world friendlier than it’s portrayed in the media, and to shut off your television. Use something else for your viewpoints. Almost like a Ted Talk.
Dead Rhetoric: You are in your mid-40’s – if you had the chance to go back in time and make any changes to your life during your 20’s or 30’s, what would you tell yourself and try to accomplish that you believe would be beneficial to your current life?
Mijić: A good question. I don’t know, I like what I do now. I wouldn’t change a lot. Maybe I would give myself some advice when I was finishing school in Budapest. The point is, if you change anything in the past, I guess you like sci-fi movies… heavy metal guys like this. Anything that you change in the past will change the course of your lifetime, so you will not end up here where you are. From that perspective, I wouldn’t change a thing. But if I could change a few things, and not lose anything from this, what I have right now, I would actually slap myself and say, accept the invitation to the Music Academy of Budapest, and go there. I could have gone to the third year of that academy from the school I was attending, which is sort of like Berklee. Jazz musicians, very strict rules in the school. Maybe I would stay in Hungary and go to the other countries, travel a little more, explore things – but I wouldn’t be in a project with some of my other friends for my former band Eden’s Curse.
Dead Rhetoric: How do you see the next twelve months or so shaping up for Serious Black activities? Are there plans in the pipeline to do possible touring across North America for this album?
Mijić: With my other band Alogia, we are doing small things. We’ve been doing it since 2001, we have some small plans. But it has to work around Serious Black. Serious Black, we have this tour going on, and we will see what’s going on after that. Maybe a headlining tour, things like that. We are trying to find a way to make a nice little video about the tour to document what’s happening and give this to the people. The rest of the plans are in between, I cannot talk about these things. We want to reach more people out there; we want to promote our new album. There is much more beyond the visual – take the album, take the lyrics, and read them. It’s not always what you see, there are different things beyond that. If you use your imagination, you can see a different video for a song, create your own video in your head. To the young people who listen to our music, create your own AI videos to these songs after the album is out. Pick out a song, create something, share it.