Hey Dirty Slippers, How did you get into music?
Hello and thanks a lot for the interview 🙂 To be honest, it all started with my parents. My dad just listened to some The Beatles, Dire Straits, Rolling Stones and mommy was a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, so when I was a little child, amazing music sounded at home all the time. After that, when I went to elementary school, Green Day’s music poisoned me, I will never forget the Time of your life and the Warning videos on MTV. I really liked the emotion of the 60’s icons from the UK and the power of the 90’s punk rock scene. I think our music is a happy mixture of these.
Who are some of your musical influences?
Of course, The Beatles, Oasis, Green Day, Goo Goo Dolls. Nowadays I really like Sam Fender, Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher’s new solo stuff and great bands like The Lathums or The Sherlocks. We played a show in Guildford, UK in March with a great band Marseille from Derby. They sound massive!
What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
Some years ago, I had an amazing manager friend, named Miklos Abella. Sadly he died many years ago, he was the most professional manager I ever met in Hungary. We toured with a famous Hungarian band as a warm up act, and in a city festival, there was a totally beginner band with really arrogant members who played their set 2 times. The second happened in our stage times. So finally, we had time for only 4 songs. I was really angry and he said: “A professional frontman is a professional because he can adapt to any situation and get the best out of it”. After that, we made a great show with only 4 songs and everybody sang with us and were happy!
Where do you draw your inspiration from?
I am always writing stories about what happened to me or us. Dirty Slippers is a band who wanted to reflect people’s feelings. We had songs about losing a family member, losing a friend about covid, falling in love, the betrayal of a friend and so on. I am really happy, because we had got fans and followers from every generation, and I am the guy who always wrote back to the messages and the comments. We want to care about the people and if we could help their lives with our music or with our charity campaigns, we are happy to do this!
What are your thoughts on the current state of the music industry?
I hope things will get better soon. After the covid situation, the music scene has got serious problems worldwide. We hardly work, we make better and better concerts and we can entertain the people in safe conditions. Some people are afraid about going back to the clubs, ballrooms and festivals after the covid, and I totally understand it, but honestly hope, we could settle with the covid and the war, and after that we could go back to our normal life.
What’s the story behind your latest single, ”Honest Kid”?
I wrote this song during the first quarantine period about the covid, but it’s not a quarantine song. I sat in my childhood room in my parents house in Gyula, which is a romantic small historical town in Hungary. I was upset, angry and sad, because some people died in my environment. Honest kid is a song about, when you wanted to fly back to your childhood, when you haven’t got problems, nobody wanted to hurt you, because you were young, free and problem free in life.
Why should people listen to it?
I think, that’s a very powerful tune and if they will feel the energy, they can catch the vibe and said: “Okkey, I completely understand, what this band would like to message me”
How do you know when a work is finished?
Nobody knows it, but I always listen to our fantastic producer George Shilling (Oasis, Mike Oldfield, Frank Turner). If He said, the song is ready and finished, I believe in his opinion. Your question is good, because when I am working in my home studio, I always record much more instruments, what we will need for a song exactly. But then, George interceded and quickly mute my unnecessary guitar parts 🙂
What are your favorite musical genres, and are there any you dislike?
Of course, I am a huge fan of Britpop, indie rock, and punk-rock! All of these genres are really close to me, and I don’t like anything else. Guitar music is my music, so I don’t like hip hop and rap music or something similar which is made with downloadable background music and not quality instrumental parts. When we recorded our 3rd album in 2018, I made a really big mistake, I let my band mates in a home studio to arrange my songs, and these songs were really electronical and lost their own world. I won’t make this mistake again. Nowadays, my band mates are maximalists in the studio sessions just like me, and believe in analog sounds and old school stuff.
Would you like to say anything to emerging artists?
I would like to say that, please don’t care about others’ opinions. Some people directly want to block your path and shatter your dreams. Just believe in yourself at the maximum level and always working on your music and try to be better and better. I think the most important thing is not to be the best guitarist or singer but to have good songs. I believe in this, I hope I could help a little. Play your music, learn from your idols, and work humbly all day long!
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