We aren't really a new band. Aebsence was formed in late 1995 in a small town near Budapest and the lineup has been stable since the summer of 1997. In 1999 we presented a demo to the wider ranges of audience: it brought us a fairly far-reaching distinction in the country's underground scene, and it was generally admired by the music press. We've won a national rock talent contest in 2000, which hardly yielded any results. After negotiations with Hungarian labels, in 2001 we decided to take the production of our debut album into our own hands and finally we released it ourselves under the title "Unusual" in 2002. 2003 has seen the departure of our drummer Attila Math?, whose successor was being sought after for quite a long time, and has been found a short while ago, although he is not yet an official member of the band.

So the promo cd "Unusual" is out for about 2 years now. I'd like you to tell us if you're satisfied from its promotion, the sales and the reaction from the rock/metal community. Did you expect something more?

The promotion was nothing short of marvelous as it was fully done by ourselves again. :) Basically we've done as much promo as our money and energy allowed. In general, press reviews were positive. There were a few foreign papers however, that disparaged us or didn't want to write about the record. These were mainly old school metal zines or ones strictly dedicated to one style that have found us too "nu metal"-ish. We are generally satisfied with the results. We expected more from labels, although we surely invested more to reach the press than to find the labels.

Aebsence comes from absence right? How did you come up with that name?

The band was originally called Absence but around 1999, when we published our first demo on the Web, we've received 3-4 e-mails from similarly called bands like "Greetings from Absence, Poland… Absence, Germany" and so on. There were no legal problems but we decided to distinguish ourselves from these bands in a way. As we didn't really want to change the name, we chose the Latin-style AE. This way you can always know that Aebsence is the Hungarian one.

I would say that your music is somewhere between rock and folk. Do you agree? Why did you decide to mix those two?

We never considered ourselves a "folk rock" or "folk metal" band. This is basically a metal band and we like to play hard and loud rock/metal riffs. On the other hand, we were always convinced that we could only add something new, original and interesting even for a foreign listener if we mix our own roots into the music. Not too heavily but strongly enough for anyone to recognize. Do you think your readers would be interested in a Hungarian copycat of Guns 'n Roses or Korn? The only exotic thing would be that we are Hungarian, and this would no longer be interesting after the first song. But this way the thing that remains is our culture that is an organic part of our music. Others have already done similarly, and we too are loosely following this path of our own "roots bloody roots"!

Will this remain your main course in the future or do you like to experiment with different styles?

The main course will surely remain the same, at least the mixing of these elements, although we want to experiment with the implementation. It can be approached from different aspects.

What is the thing that inspires you most to write a record? Who is mostly responsible for the compositions?

I compose the core of the songs and they get shaped to their final form during rehearsals. It is not easy to tell what inspired them as the songs on "Unusual" span across 6 years: you can find everything in them what happened to us during this long time.

Is there a concept behind the lyrics?

The concept is the interchanging of English and Hungarian parts. In the beginning we've had huge arguments about which language we should use. A part of the band wanted only English songs, but in that case the only way to insert Hungarian folk song parts is to translate them and it would have worked very strange. These centuries-old songs would have lost their original mood. Although English is easier to sing, we wanted to keep the originality. As the final result would have been pretty strange any other way, we've kept the hybrid solution.
The lyrics themselves hold no particular concept, they are usually about whatever that keeps us reserved at the time being, so we try to choose a folk song that fits the situation or the track, but we don't push it very hard.

Which is the genre, band or musician that influences your songwriting? Which is your favorite music or band?

Our common favorites are Alice in Chains, Tool, and Anthrax. At gigs, we usually play a song or two by these bands. Anyway, we're listening to quite a lot of bands from punkish things to Meshuggah, Soundgarden and to pop and jazz music.

This brAinmAsh records is it a regular label or is it your personal one in order to promote and distribute your music?

This is our label. It is not an official one we just needed a name.

Have you been in contact with a big label or offered a good contract?

We haven't received any favourable major label offers yet. Actually, we have received a few unacceptable ones, but not that many either.

What is your vision or dream about Aebsence. Is a professional carrier in music in your plans?

We are quite experienced to know that we shouldn't have any grand illusions regarding this musical genre. Most of us have been playing music even before Aebsence was formed in '95. We're doing what we like, totally independently of any deadline or other kind of pressure. We'd like to record and release albums regularly and make them reach the audience. Whether this is done by a label or anyone else (for example ourselves), that doesn't matter a lot. We'd like to play abroad as much as possible. Our goal is to have "Aebsence" mean "quality" to everyone who recognizes the name.

What's the situation in the Hungarian Rock/Metal scene? How difficult is it for you to achieve great things outside Hungary?

I could go complaining across several pages now but I choose not to. In my opinion it is nowhere easy to go successful by doing non-mainstream music, and bands doing trendy, audience-friendly rock music are in a better situation also in Hungary. We hope that now, after joining the European Union, it will be a bit easier to reach foreign audience. If for nothing else, we no longer need to provide certificates for our instruments to provide that we haven't bought them abroad :)

Have you played live yet or do you plan to? What's the reaction of the audience?

Due to our drummer problem, the last year was quite scarce in gigs, but previously we have been playing live pretty regularly. Of course we are not rushing anything but we hope that we'll be able to continue it shortly.
Audience reaction varies, even within the country. There are places where the audience has been sitting and some other places where they have been jumping for joy. Generally, their reaction is positive. They pay attention to our music. Due to the broken rhythms you cannot really mosh to our music, but those who know the songs can do it, and those who don't know them usually clap in the end.

So which is your future plans? Any new songs ready yet?

We have loads of themes to work on and our primary goal is to shape them into songs and record them for the next album. We don't know yet how it will happen (mainly concerning financial grounds). And of course we are striving hard to practice the gig repertoire with our new drummer so that we can refresh the public memories of our name yet again.

Thanks for the interview András and all the best to you and the band. You may close this interview as you wish.

Well, we thank you for the opportunity, all the best to your readers. All the best music. I hope you'll see us live somewhere around soon!