Xpress025

“Pink Floyd On Metal”

Interview with Tomi (guitars, lyrics) and Lopez (drums)

How did the history of Solar Scream begin? What is the past of each one of you?
Lopez: It’s quite a long story… If you are interested in it, you can read a detailed version on our website (www.solarscream.hu) in English. To make it short, there were two metal fanatic teens (Harek – guitars/vocals and Csabesz – bass) who contacted a third guy (that’s me) with the idea of forming a band. After 1 or 2 years the fourth member (Tomi) completed the line-up and from that point on we’ve been taking things seriously. We had no previous bands worth mentioning.

Tomi: I’d known Harek for a long time. We started to play the guitar together in 1994 and were good friends with the same influences (In Flames, Anathema, Paradise Lost, Nevermore or Tourniquet, just to name a few), so it was obvious that we should play in the same group. It took a while until we found the best way to achieve it. The actual history of Solar Scream started around 2000- 2001. In the beginning of 2006 we parted with Csabesz, who lost his interest in the band. Our new bass player is called Dávid. He has two other bands, Annie Hall and R-Clone, but we hope that he will be able to help us out in the future. His playing and backing vocals gave us a great boost, so we are really excited about working together.

What is the musical essence of the band?
Lopez: The use of 7 string guitars and 5 string bass gives the fundament of the sound and Harek’s riffs and atmospheric melodies create the musical side. This is flavored by everything we can add to the songs, until they become some monumental monsters.

Tomi: In fact, a lot of our tunes are over the 5-minute mark. Due to our non-commercial approach, we like to let themes unfold. The two guitars mostly play different things and not the usual harmony-riffs, and Lopez is everything but a heavy metal drummer, so it’s always a kind of experiment to mix these elements.

How would you describe your music? Which style would you locate it?
Tomi: We collected some often mentioned words from our reviews to form a line that describes it best: “smoothly progressive metal with a futuristic touch”. But there were also opinions like “psychedelic heavy rock” or “Pink Floyd on metal” – which was quite funny to read. Think of a mixture of deep-going melodies, low-end groove-riffs and a bit unusual song structures with melancholic vocals and straightforward choruses.

Please, tell us something about “Ground Level”.
Lopez: Recording our first EP was a very pleasant experience for us all, an enjoyable, creative process. It was unbelievable to see, how the songs were taking form, and although the result could be better in some ways, we are still satisfied with it. It is our first product, so we love it.

Tomi: The EP contains 6 tracks in 36 minutes: three songs, a cover version of Depeche Mode’s “In Your Room” and two short instrumental interludes. The whole EP can be downloaded from our website, by the way. Feel free to do it, share it with your friends and tell us your opinion!

Could you give me a brief description of each song?
Tomi: Are there any limits to the length of this interview? :-) Okay, I’ll try to keep it short. The CD starts out with an intro, “Subsurface” – it consists of an echoed chord progression that can be found in the next track too. The title also suggests that this is somehow “below ground level”. Then the title track “Ground Level” kicks off, very heavy and with some strange vocal experiments that didn’t turn out perfectly, but give the song a special atmosphere. The longest, darkest and maybe the best song is “Dead Like Stones”. We managed to create some very massive arrangements at the end of it. “This Order” is the most colorful tune, it starts out melodic and the chorus is really catchy. It took us a long time to arrange the calm middle section of the song, but in the end it became the best-constructed part of the CD. “Transgression” is a reprise of “This Order” with multi-layered guitars and some piano, and is followed by “In Your Room”. We covered this song by Depeche Mode, because we used to play it at rehearsals and the vocal melody suited the voice of Harek. We changed some elements of the original version, it contains heavy distortion, female background vocals and the ending is quite different, it kind of leads back to the starting sequence of “Subsurface”. So you can set your CD player to ‘repeat’… Lyrically, the songs deal with different situations, challenges and failures a human being has to face in life, with the overall message that we should try to remain faithful to our own principles – even if it’s ‘against the grain’.

How is the creative process in your music and poetry? What factors do influence these areas?
Tomi: The main musical ideas always come from Harek, who mostly writes complete song structures. Of course, the parts usually alter as we all take part in forming them at rehearsals. The first vocals are usually some hummed melodies, where I try to make up some matching lines to. We usually record the song we are working on, so everyone can take it home and think about it. I usually come up with the lyrics while traveling or yelling out ad lib lines in the bathroom. It sounds strange, but it seems to work. :-)

At artistic level, did the album fill your expectations?
Tomi: I’m still satisfied with it. Of course, it has numerous minor mistakes that mostly only bother us. But the songs are quite homogeneous and it’s always a good feeling to show the CD to some people or just to listen to it once in a month.

Lopez: The drums could have been better, but for the first CD they are okay. Next time we will have more experience.

How would you say your musical development will continue in the future?
Lopez: We try to be more direct, the new songs since “Ground Level” indicate this quite well.

Tomi: We started to treat vocals as an elemental part of the songs. The songs on “Ground Level” had already been finished when we started to think about where vocals should be placed. After that we wrote the melodies and started to rehearse them with vocals. This time the vocals are coming together with the first riffs, so I just have to lay down the main lyrical structure (sometimes with some fake or stolen lines) to have the complete arrangement. This way we can already rehearse and form the complete song.

Are you working on a new album? If so, is there a release date planned?

Lopez: Of course… Most of the material has been written, but we are not in hurry to record it. We don’t want to make any mistakes.

Tomi: We have about 6 new songs we already play at concerts. We want to record and release the new album some time this year. It can take some time, until the legal procedure and everything is completed. But it will be easier, because we are planning no cover song this time. There is no working title to the CD yet, but I can give you some song titles: “Misery Entwines”, “Grains of Sand”, “Escape Design”, “Without a Sound”, “Heart Carved Into Mine”, “Might Be Rain” and “Over”.

Is this your only group or are some of you participated in other projects as well?
Tomi: Harek also plays guitar in the punk-rock band Cukros Bácsik (the Candy Men). We rehearse at the same garage and share our equipment, so it’s not a big deal. This also helped him to become a more confident frontman and singer. Both bands have only a few concerts in a year, so we don’t really have problems in cooperating. But if we have a concert together, Harek has to perform twice, which causes him more stress and he is not allowed to drink too much beer before and between the sets. :-) Oh, and Dávid participates in two other bands, as mentioned above. He gained a lot of experience from these and previous projects. He can play the guitar and is a very confident singer – we can only benefit from his abilities.

What would you tell to our readers to make them interested in listening to Solar Scream?
Tomi: Maybe it can be of interest that we are from Hungary – from the other side of the world, so to speak. We were very excited to have the chance to introduce us to your readers, because we won’t really have the chance to play in South America. Music is a language beyond words, its message can’t be defined clearly, but it’s a wonderful experience to have some positive feedback from people we have never met – it grants us the feeling that we have something in common with them. So, once again, feel free to download the songs and contact us with your opinion, so we can learn something about each other.

Thank you for your time. Do you want to add anything else?
Tomi: Thanks for your time and help, Sergio. It’s great to be present on Nucleus. We just want to add that there are several great fellow-bands of us to be found in the links section of our homepage. They are worth every listener’s attention. Give them a try!

Nucleus interview: 18/01/06

By Sergio Vilar