HOW DID YOUR NAME ORIGINATE?
The birth of the band name didn’t happen yesterday. I was more or less a teenager when I formed the band. The only thing I can clearly remember is that we wanted to have a one-word band name. I came up with the idea when I was working at one of my very first jobs, at a rockabilly bar as a bartender where I didn’t even earn 2$ / hour, so far from home that it was almost impossible to get back late at night. So the band was birthed in quite a hopeless place and compared to that now, we’re very happy about how far it’s come.
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WHERE WAS YOUR FIRST GIG AND HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE THERE?
Our first show was on the 17th of September 2009 in our hometown Budapest in Hungary at a club called Dürer Kert. The club still exists which is something that you can’t say about most of the rock clubs in Budapest. We played in front of approximately 30 people. Basically friends and family came, it was a nice kick-off!
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WHEN WAS YOUR LAST DAY OFF AND WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT?
Unfortunately we’re still not making a living from this band. We’re working on that as one of our main goals but we’re not there yet. Our bassist and drummer are full time musicians, they provide the rhythm section for other bands (in a totally different genre) too, which makes it possible for them to make a living from what they really love. Our guitarist has a big family to care for, so beside the Hellfreaks he has a full time job to deal with. I focus all my creative energy on the Hellfreaks but I also spend my workdays in an office. To sum it up, we’re all working a LOT. So if we really find some ‘me-time’ - that we’ve had around christmas - we’re spending it sleeping and recharging.
- WHAT IS SOMETHING - APART FROM YOUR PHONE OR WALLET - THAT HAS TO BE IN YOUR VICINITY AT ALL TIMES?
I have some serious problems with my spine so I always have painkillers with me, cause I never know when the demon might kick in.
- WHICH SONG BY ANOTHER ARTIST DO YOU WISH YOU'D WRITTEN?
Our head of instrumental songwriting is our bassist Gabi, that’s why I’d like to forward his answer over here: Mastodon - Toe To Toes. If I was a singer choose, I would say Marmozets - Major System Error
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WHAT'S BEEN THE MOST SURREAL FAN MOMENT? I know eventually I could get used to it, but I just can’t: I’m always fascinated how far our music has made it. I mean that literally. We have fans from the furthest corners of the world. For a band from East-Europe, where it’s really unusual to break out, that’s just unbelievable. Our music is listened to in countries where I haven’t even touched the continent with a toe. I know that’s the magic of the internet but it’s just crazy that people from such different parts of the world, with totally different cultural backgrounds are listening to the words and notes we wrote in our dark little Budapest flat.
Some other very heartwarming moments that can be sad at the same time, are some of the messages we get. On more than one occasion, fans have written to us about some very heavy times they’ve had to go through, from deep depression to extremely hard losses and they let us know that our music was the only thing that gave them strength in those dark moments. I don’t think that you can get a bigger compliment than that as an artist.
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