 1. How did the band come to be?
We’re not newcomers so we have a pretty long story, with many ups and a few downs. The band is over 10 years old, so it’s taken a long time to get to where we are today. I got into music literally by accident. I was a professional gymnast, sport was pretty much my everything - but unfortunately I once landed wrong on my feet, which resulted in a spine operation when I was 14 years old. I had to recalculate my life and fill the gap that my sports career had left behind. It was a difficult reality to accept at the time. The physical pain was nothing compared to the hole in my soul that I tried to fill. That’s how I found music and a couple of years later, ended up forming The Hellfreaks in 2009. Today, 11 years on from our very first concert, we’re one of the most prominent internationally touring bands in Hungary having played over 200 gigs over the country border. We have toured all over Europe and made it over the big pond to the USA. We’ve recorded 4 albums, all released through German labels, have over 6 million views on our youtube videos, sold over 5000 physical records and are super happy to have a worldwide fan base that we can call our own. 2. Do you have any releases coming up in the new year? Big YES! The last few weeks were all about preparing and laying the nest for our upcoming album! At the end of 2019 we released 3 of our new singles from the upcoming record. RED SKY: https://youtu.be/ciBz9iwiWc0 MEN IN GREY: https://youtu.be/4l0xzBQcZ6E WITCHES HEAL: https://youtu.be/pFKqt1N74ew A couple days ago we released the last single that we wanted to reveal before the album comes out. The song is called ADRENALIZED and is an un-typical, happy song for us. https://youtu.be/WDZ64ZlXTzM On the 7th of February, under the wings of Sunny Bastard Records, we’re going to release our long awaited 4th album “God On The Run”. We’ve been working on the new songs for over two years, fulfilling an old dream to work with foreign producers. Pre-production work was with Paul Miner (New Found Glory, Atreyu, Death By Stereo) production/mixing with Evan Rodaniche (Escape The Faith, Powerman 5000, Lacey Sturm). The mastering with Tom Waltz provided us with the perfect final form for the band’s songs and ideas. You can already pre order it here: www.thehellfreaks.com/shop 3. What is something you want listeners to take away from your music? We’ve written more than 50 songs with the band so far. If I was to sum up the messages in just a couple of sentences here, it would make me really sad to see that I might be wasting my time on something I’m really not good at. But luckily I can’t. Every album has its own “atmosphere” because each of them are a little “mirror piece” from the time in my life when it was written and as time goes by, my life changes. So did my lyrics. While writing the last album, I also had to deal with my real-life job. I work a lot in the social media field, with influencers, vloggers, etc. Of course this has it’s fun side but on the other hand, messages like “you are all perfect”, “everyone has a talent” and “find your inner shine” just choke me. It feels like a pool of clichés, wrapped in nice packaging that’s being pushed down my throat. I would say the songs on the upcoming album are against this “smile or die” attitude. It’s about “it’s okay that you’re not okay because it’s not equal to being lost”. 4. With everything that is going on in our world what is one cause or organization that you are passionate about? We’ll go from small to big: First off, I’m a classic crazy cat lady. I share my flat with 4 cats, 3 of which are rescues. I follow the work of many Hungarian animal shelters in social media groups. Of course a lot of unbelievably cruel stories are shared that shock me everytime as to how cold hearted humans can be. But on the other side, I have a HUGE respect to all the Hungarian volunteers. They are working so hard, without earning a cent and they are only motivated by their own heart for the weaker ones - the animals that were given up by others. They are the proof in my eyes that this world has the chance to become a better place! Another project that I really love is the The Ocean Cleanup who are developing ocean and river clean up systems. I studied as an environmental engineer and that is where I heard about this project in the very early stages. First of all, I think that ridding our oceans of plastic never gets enough attention: we all know that it’s a problem but no one feels responsible for it. On the other hand, I was always fascinated by the CEO of the company - he was only 18 years old when he came up with a revolutionary technology to concentrate and remove the plastic from our waters. Last but by no means least, the person that everyone is talking about: Greta Thunberg. Whatever you think about her methods, speeches or whatever surrounds her, she is the proof that it only takes one person to move mountains. Of course global warming won’t be solved by her alone, but she has more people than ever talking about the issue, which is the first step for any solution. 5. What is your writing process like? All of our albums had a totally different writing process.In the last two years we worked on our upcoming album ‘God On The Run’, which is going to be released in February 2020. These songs were not written in the rehearsal room. Most of the parts have been written separated by the members, putting the puzzle pieces together afterwards, so everyone has their own writing process. I’m pretty old school when it comes to the lyrics: I can’t sit down and figure out what I want to write about on purpose. The ideas find me randomly, so I always write down 2-3 words or a line in my phone wherever I am in that moment, otherwise the idea is gone forever. When it comes to the song I look at my idea board, pick out one of these ideas to work on. When I start to work on the words, I need to be alone and I’m not able to write in digital form, I need to have a paper and a pen in my hand, otherwise my brain is blocked. 6. To follow up with the last question, what inspires your sound? There are no direct influences but of course we all had and still have influences that we try to use as inspiration. We try to find the sweet spot of our common musical tastes. If we had to list what kind of music we listened to during the writing and recording process of our last album, you would get a list from A to Z. I think that is one of the key features that makes us able to create something unique in the end. We don’t want to walk along a well-trodden path. But personally I’m very much into music with tough girls at the front! Like the Distillers, Marmozets, Jinjer, The Pretty Reckless etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if any of you heard these influences in my vocals. 7. Any tours coming up soon? Of course, here are our upcoming dates: 21-02-2020 Germany, Frankfurt Am Main - Das Bett 22-02-2020 Germany, Essen - Don’t Panic 23-02-2020 Germany, Düsseldorf - Pitcher 05-03-2020 Germany, München - Backstage 08-07-2020 Hungary, Dunaújváros - Rockmaraton Fesztivál 8. Anything you would like to tell our readers? Thank you for having us! Stay tuned, follow us, like us, subscribe to our YouTube channel as there is so much coming right now and hope to see you all someday personally at a Hellfreaks show! Website: www.thehellfreaks.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheHellfreaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehellfreaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thehellfreaks Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehellfreaks/
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