1. I'm not too familiar with the Hungarian scene; is it bigger than one would assume as far as Metal goes?
Depends what you assume. Anyway metal has always been pretty popular in Hungary and the scene has been even more active in the past years. We have some great clubs and every year more and more bands visit our country from all over the world which kind of keeps the whole scene alive and forces Hungarian bands to keep up a certain quality and mentality. Now it’s easier for us to book concerts internationally and lots of Hungarian bands choose to extend their focus to Europe as it’s a larger and more interesting market. So things are developing and there are some good possibilities ahead.
2. Obviously, Stereochrist is Doom/Stoner Rock and started back in 2002. How did all this come together as far as the band, the name and the music you settled on to play?
The foundations of Stereochrist were a band named Mood that released 4 LPs and gained a considerable reputation throughout the underground Doom-metal scene all over Europe – even in America. Mood disbanded at the end of 2001 but three members (Kolos Hegyi – guitars, Balazs Megyesi – bass and Tamas Koltay – drums) stayed together to form a new band with myself as vocalist. The music was pretty much what we played before even though I arrived from a slightly different musical background but we all feel that the chemistry works and we have great prospects. The name itself has nothing to do with religion – as many claim – we just tried to create an emblematic phrase that represents the traditional values we believe in but is some kind of a paradox at the same time. I know Jesus is slightly overused as a cliché but rock music is made up of clichés anyway.
3. What bands are your high regards as influence?
A whole bunch of different stuff. We have favorites like Down, Trouble, COC that we all like but our taste is pretty much different when it comes to listening music as a passion. I like old classics like Zeppelin and Whitesnake but also some of the beginning of the 90s stuff like Soundgarden or the melodic stuff like Eleven. Our guitarist, Kolos is a real metal freak, he grew up on Sabbath and Judas Priest, Balázs, the bass player loves many of the mainstream music, like Sting or Creed, while Tamás, the drummer prefers classic doom stuff, like Wino & Co.
4. "Dead River Blues", is your debut correct? Are you already working on new material? If so, what can we expect?
Yeah, we finished recording the debut last summer so it was time we got together and get into serious jamming again. We have 3-4 new songs and even though they are not finished yet it seems evident that this time we use a more straightforward approach. No difficult structures, less bothering on songwriting and I also wanted to sing more in the traditional 70s rock style.
5. Does the band tour outside of Hungary and what else is in store for the 2004 season?
We did a one week mini-tour in Finland last October and some shows in Germany as well. This fall we plant to do another round over Germany and Benelux so the whole year is dedicated to touring with the debut album and jamming for the second LP. We might also try some guitarists to make the foundations of our sound heavier.
6. Final comments, websites, info, etc.
Thanks for being interested in us and have a more in depth look at www.stereochrist.com.

back to media