It's a black, black day for black metal - the Romanian black metal band Negura Bunget has split after an unreconcilable disagreement between Sol Faur and Hupogrammos and percussionist Negru. Louise Brown spoke to Hupogrammos, who is completely devastated by turn of events.
He told Terrorizer that at Roadburn festival, which became their last performance together, "we knew it already, we had - I cannot call it a fight, as I am not a fighting person - but we had this disagreement already on the tour and we knew it would be our last show."
He then went on to explain that the band had decided to put out the statement below, but instead the split has been turned, in Hupogrammos's words into a "a public scandal. I am not interested in this public shit like what happened with Gorgororth but I cannot remain receiving his [meaning Negru's] hits, so I have killed my baby of fifteen years."
Speaking about the band's last performance at Roadburn Hupogrammos had this to say:
"I cannot tell a lie, it was an emotional moment for me, I was making many more mistakes than before. It was great to be part of this festival. What they are doing is really great, full of professional bands and professional atmosphere."
He ended our conversation saying, "I'm really sorry for people listening to Negura Bunget now, I do not want this to ruin the music. I was trying to avoid this scandal, it was not on our purpose that it has happened this way. Negura Bunget is something that should remain sacred and I wanted to present it for the people like that."
This statement can be found on Sol Faur's blog - see links below.
This statement is signed by Sol Faur and myself (Hupogrammos). Our aim is to shed light on the recent developments in relation to Negura Bunget. We also want to prevent further abuse of the name Negura Bunget and our past activities. Our decision should be well understood and fans and media have a right to be correctly informed of the current development. We owe this to the public and Negura Bunget itself. There is no intention to turn this into a personal issue between us and our former drummer Negru. We do not wish to create a public scandal, but a line has been crossed and it is time now to stand up and fight for what we believe in.
With the last "official" Negura Bunget statement, things went too far. The selfish and greedy acts of a single person are doing too much harm. We cannot accept how our issues were presented to the world. In truth our gesture to step aside from the band was generated by the selfish behavior of our drummer Negru and by his lack of ability to connect, to work in a team as well as by his lack of honesty.
We initially intended to remain silent on the reasons of our split. We all agreed to end our joined work and to release a simple and unspectacular statement to the press in order to prevent our personal animosity to become part of the story. It was agreed by all that none of the members would use the name "Negura Bunget" ever again in the future since the band as an entity was comprised by all three of its members. Negru's act of making a public statement that is completely different from what has been agreed upon proves once more a total lack of respect for the other members of our and his own band. It proves his honor to be questionable as his acts are serving only his personal interest.
Our own statement, which we had sent to Negru for approval and adjustment, looked like this:
After fifteen years of experience in the metal scene Negura Bunget decided to end its activity. Negru will continue with his own project called Din Brad, while Hupogrammos and Sol Faur will continue the direction of the band under a different name that will be announced at a later date. The band would like to thank everybody, who supported and believed in Negura Bunget and invites you to follow our further musical activities.
Unfortunately we did not have the chance to see his final statement before it was sent. We were unable to change or to prevent it from becoming public in that form. Being in charge of all the logistic part of our work (i.e. all our contacts, our Myspace page, our official website, our newsletter and activities of Negura Music) Negru was entitled to send our statement to the media and to the public. However, he didn't consult us before posting a statement that did not care about our opinion, even though his statement makes believe this was a mutual decision.
We think that it would have been much more natural, peaceful and wise decision, if he would have simply continued his musical activities under a new name or under the name "Din Brad". In this regard we would like to express our deepest regret and disappointment that two of our guest musicians, whom we collaborated with during the last years, accepted to join his sham. Nevertheless we consider it to be very inappropriate for them to continue performing songs that were composed by those members leaving the band. It is truly sad to see that the band is now becoming a personal business for our former drummer. He never was and he will never be Negura Bunget by himself. If this is the spiritual endeavor which he is talking about, then this is a serious insult to the very name of Negura Bunget and an unforgivable contradiction to the cultural and spiritual concepts that Negura Bunget was standing for during all these years. It means an injury to us, the past members that dedicated 15 years of their lives to support and sustain an elevated path. It means an injury to anybody, who believed in what we were doing and maybe most of all it is a wounding of Spirit and Transcendence, the path that Negura Bunget was honored to dedicate its very existence to.
We, Sol Faur and Hupogrammos, who have composed nearly all music and written the lyrics of and for Negura Bunget herewith, declare that this band is dead. Any continuation of it just means a sham and a fake in our eyes.
- well, maybe not, but I imagine they put on an AWESOME live performance 
