Real Lies (HU)

We interviewed Balázs from Real Lies because they played in Cluj later this week.

CZB: How did you hook up with Luna amară, did you find them or did they find you?

Váczi Balázs: After receiving a review for the Tenorman EP in the Hungarian Metal Hammer magazine, a guy wrote us on myspace (www.myspace.com/realliesh). He invited us to play in Romania. We were surprised at his interest, because our songs are mainly with Hungarian lyrics. So we asked him about romanian bands he could recommend for us to play with. Then we listened to these bands and wrote a mail to Luna Amară cause we liked their music a lot. We asked them if they felt like having a mutual exchange of gigs with us in Hungary and Romania.

…

CZB: Have you listened to any other Romanian bands?

Váczi Balázs: We had a concert with Iguana pe Fir in Salonta two months ago. We had a nice evening there, they are nice guys and good musicians indeed. What amazed us was the audience. Those guys were fantastic. I heard before that in Romania, guys can enthuse over rock shows better than in our country, but it was surprising for us. That was our first gig in Romania.

…

CZB: Will you have your album for sale, and at what price?

Váczi Balázs: No, actually we sold and signed away all of the records we had in stock. We are a small indie band without any label, and nobody buys CDs in Hungary so we usually put our recordings up on our website. If someone is interested, our stuff is downloadable for free from www.reallies.hu Unfortunately, the page is in Hungarian, but in the Media section you can find what you want.

…

CZB: What are you hoping to gain through these two Romanian shows?

Váczi Balázs: Good feelings and adventures to talk about. We never expect bigger things from our shows. We just play because we like to play and we like to write songs when we rehearse. OK, we hope there will be guys who come up to us after our gig and talk to us about music, beer and girls :) …

…

CZB: You have been playing for four years and TenorMan (2009) is your debut album. How did the band start out?

Váczi Balázs: Ohh. It is a long story. Basically, the band started out originally around 2000 and we had more than 10 personnel changes. I’ve been playing in the band from 2001, Atesz (Attila Szabo) came in 2003, GergÅ‘ (Gergely Nagy) in 2007 and Matyi (Matyas Mozsar) came last year. We had our first concert in 2005 under the name Wulfgang (like our first eponymous Demo) and afterwards we changed it. We needed some time to get the singing down the way we wanted it to be. We tested a lot of singers but none fit into our imagination. On the other hand, we don't play an easy music; it’s not about the speed, but the rhythm. All in all, it took time to find the proper guys. Eventually, we decided to do the singing ourselves ... and we are now well on our way.

…

CZB: What is the Szeged music scene like? What are the more popular genres of music?

Váczi Balázs: Szeged is a University town with a population of 170,000. There are a lot of small bands who play together for one or two years and stick to the underground level. However, there are also really talented bands who can't breakthrough on a nationwide level, because our musician life is still centered around Budapest (on the other hand, bands don't do anything to become more popular on a nationwide level). The most popular style of music is a specific Hungarian type of alternative rock music. All that amounts to is guys in tens of bands playing the same boring and million-times listened to melodies what were dictated by some truly good bands about 15 years ago. Of course, there are also lots of British guitar bands. Some bands promote ska music too. In the harder line, the metal core, screamo, punk and black metal bands are trendy nowadays. Our style is not trendy, but in the past couple of years there are bands in Budapest who are successful with this specific genre of alternative rock.

…

CZB: How many radio stations do you have in Szeged?
Váczi Balázs: There are three or four local radio stations in Szeged, that promotes the trendy shit like Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, and Hungarian alternative guitar pop. There is one among them which is an independent radio station (Rádió Mi). They are students and music fans. That channel is better because of the playlist. There is a BIG problem around the nationwide radio stations.

There are only three national FM Stations. One of them (Sláger Rádio) plays only songs from the 80’s and 90's, the second one (Danubius Rádio) is controlled by the big publishers (the record companies). Recently, the government gave frequency rights to another two new radio stations (NeoFM, ClassFM). The third one (MR2-PetÅ‘fi) was good when it started, promoting small talented bands, also giving small acts the chance to get heard and be discovered, but recently it started playing the same hit music around the clock.

Of course there are also radio stations which you can listen to on the internet. They play songs from talented underground bands and have good programs focusing on problems of our society (Rádió Café, TilosRádió).

…

CZB: How many Live Music clubs do you have in Szeged?
Váczi Balázs: There are five or six music clubs in Szeged. The biggest two belong to the University and they are strictly profit-oriented: they are not open to promoting underground bands … but there are smaller clubs. Especially the Garabonczias Club where we will play with Luna Amară. There, bands promote a diversity of music styles from electropunk to darkjazz … from all over Europe.

…

CZB: How often do you play in Budapest?

Váczi Balázs: We play more nowadays. There was a time when we gigged around Szeged, but since we got some appreciation from "talent spotters" and by our Tenorman EP, we started to play all around the country and we tend to have concerts in surrounding countries too.

…

CZB: Do you have day jobs or are you students?

Váczi Balázs: We are working as factory hands, researchers and surveyors. Matyi is the only student.

…

CZB: How has the financial crisis affected local gigs / local bands?

Váczi Balázs: I don't feel any difference. Lately we have become a deficit band, but it coincides with our bigger plans, having bigger expenses.

We also have friends who lead pubs. They say yes, there are less people going to gigs, but we don't feel it really, maybe because of our slightly advancing notoriety.

…

CZB: Is the debut album produced independently and how long do you think you will be promoting this album ...

Váczi Balázs: Well, we do not call Tenorman an album. It comprises 4 genuine Real Lies songs and a bonus track (Zárszó), which is a poor quality recording with my old, cheap classic guitar. We never play it live either.

In response to your question, we don't emphasize the promotion. When the EP came out, we sent it to all the music media (the press and on the web). We were lucky we got other contacts. Last year we won a national talent spotter contest. That is how we got some extra attention from the media. After that, two American labels contacted us on MySpace and added some of our songs on their compilation albums.

…

CZB: What has to happen for a second Real Lies album to come out?

Váczi Balázs: I don't know. Actually I think we will be changing our style. As we write the new songs, we feel them less hard but more sick in polimetry and texture. We will see. We have a manager now. We would like to get more attention at the time when the new record will appear.

…

CZB: Why did you choose the name Real Lies?

Váczi Balázs: That is a pun around the spelling and pronunciation of Real Lies, Realize, Real Eyes. A friend of ours gave us the name. It refers a bit to our game with rhythm. Actually we know that Machine Head has a song title that unties this joke (real eyes realize real lies).

--- 

Interview conceived by RiCo

…

Answers from: Váczi Balázs

Date: Sun, Jan 17, 2010

…

The Band

• Balazs Vaczi (vocals/guitar)
• Attila Szabo (guitar)
• Gergely Nagy (bass)
• Matyas Mozsar (drums)

www.reallies.hu

Lasa un comentariu: (max. 1800 caractere)

Nume:   Antispam: