Veil of Maya Keep Up With New Trends in Music + Pop Culture, Says Lukas Magyar

Veil of Maya vocalist Lukas Magyar was the latest guest on Full Metal Jackie’s weekend radio program. Since their beginning as a deathcore group, the band, who last released the False Idol album in 2017, has been keen on evolution, which Magyar credits to their collective interest in remaining up to speed in what is current in and outside of heavy music, even down to pop culture.

Since issuing False Idol, Veil of Maya have released standalone singles as work toward an eventual seventh album progressed. Magyar sees this strategy as partly modern, but also a necessary byproduct of the pandemic, which hindered their ability to work seamlessly and in more typical ways.

Read the full chat below.

Veil of Maya have released several standalone singles over the last couple of years. How do individual songs without the context of a whole album allow more artistic adventure?

They just help to build hype and anticipation for an album down the road. The way the industry has just changed, it’s also just what a lot of artists are doing and I think it makes things a little bit less stressful when it comes down to the creative side.

The band is capable of incorporating different styles and complexities into its music. What tends to influence and inform the mood of the musical direction particularly?

We keep up with the way things are within our own sort of realm of music, but also try to stay on top of what’s happening outside of that, even in pop culture.

We’re able to add our own twist to things and pull a lot of influences from different areas, whether it be our own loves or other styles of music. I take a lot of lyrical inspiration from films and books, so you pick and choose whatever grabs your attention.

Veil of Maya, “Viscera”

The coronavirus affected everyone in so many ways — mentally, emotionally, financially and creatively. How did the restrictions of the pandemic hinder or actually help the process of writing music?

As far as what we were going through as a band, it slowed down the album process because we were away from the studio. With the restrictions, we were unable to get into the studio atmosphere and truly plug away at the rest of the album.

However, I found that the isolation really allowed me time to work on my craft as a writer. It did take a lot of from my vocal training and rehearsal in that regard, but just strictly writing I think it helped me get in my own space [and allowed me to] refocus and try to understand a new way to approach things because there wasn’t this huge time crunch on it.

How are musical and personal connections such an important foundation for this band?

Everyone has something in common, whether it be a style of music that they listened to or something that kind of draws us all together.

At the end of the day, that tends to be pretty important because when you get away from the music and the creative process, you really want something that’s going to help everyone bond.

Times tend to get a little bit rough on the road and you’re cooped up traveling around. Things aren’t really as extravagant or luxurious as what the outside viewers and listeners might think it is. So, sometimes just the downtime to have a movie to throw on that everyone is paying attention to and hanging out together to watch is really helpful.

Veil of Maya, “Outsider”

Doing things a little bit differently in terms of just releasing songs, do you feel like the coronavirus and this whole pandemic is going to change the way that you look at how you release music in general in the future?

Having more standalone singles was something that we were trying to work towards already, so this may have just expedited that process and made it happen now. It may have been more of focused on later albums down the road, but at this point we’ll probably see more of two or three singles [being released] before an album actually comes out, If not more.

Thanks to Lukas Magyar for the interview. Follow Veil of Maya on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Spotify and  find out where you can hear Full Metal Jackie’s weekend radio show here.