Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

What is the name of your band? AVENFORD

What does the name "Avenford" stand for and what made you call the band "Avenford"? It's always hard and difficult to find the right name for a band. Everybody wants to have a special or interesting name that relates to their music. Avenford doesn't mean anything, it's a made up word and it's our job to make sure in a few years time everyone will relate this name to our music!

How was the band formed? Arpie and Peter (the two guitar players) formed the band, they met through a common friend, then Peter asked Zed to be the bass player (they used to play together before) and when we needed a drummer; someone recommended Pete Jean. That's it. We were lucky, we found each other quite quick, didn't had to waste our time to look for the right band members.

What made you form the band? All of us believe we have a place in this so called Heavy Metal world and we could add a little bit more to it. A little bit different, a little bit more what no one else done before us. I think that was the first step to start this band.

Where are all band members from?/Who does what in the band? All of us from Hungary. We came a few years ago to England. At the moment three of us live in London, Zed lives in Worthing.

Arpie Gamson - Vocal and guitars

Peter Szehoffner - Guitars

Zed Slaughter - Bass

Pete Jean - Drums

What was the ambitions of the band when you started? Obviously we started it because we believe that what we created is valuable therefore we have to show it to the audience. It was also a motivation that there are not too many good power metal bands out there, so relatively this section of the music industry has some possibilities for bands like ours.

Could you explain your music to someone that haven't heard you? Hmm…well. Basically our style is power metal but we really focus on the melody too. We want you to remember the melody after listing the song only once or twice. Of course we added some super crazy guitar solos as well which are technically very challenging to play. Try to imagine a band which is a mixture of Masterplan and a bit of Y.J. Malmsteen flavored with some Jeff Scott Soto material and a small amount of Iron Maiden.

Where was your first gig? We haven’t had any gigs yet. We are planning to start gigging in 2014 January.

Who writes your songs?/ who writes the music who writes lyrics? The music of the Mortal Price album was composed by the guitarist Peter Szehoffnr and the singer/guitarist Arpie Gamson. Our close friend Zoltan Bako wrote all the lyrics.

Who has the best since of humor in the band? Ohhh…we are very funny guys, everyone has a great sense of humor. Perhaps Peter Szehoffner is the funniest guy amongst us

Why did you pick that particular style?/What are your songs about? Everyone in the band has his own taste about music. For example our guitarist Peter Szehoffner is a great fan of Iron Maiden and Masterplan, the drummer Pete Jean really likes Dream Theather & Pink Cream 69, the bassist Zed Slaughter likes more brutal staff like Slayer and Annihilator, the singer/guitarist Arpie Gamson has grown up on Gary Moore, Malmsteen. Even though we like different styles the common thing is the power metal, this where our taste meets, so we decided to go for it. Every song has different topic. There is a song which has an anti-war message, there is  a song about a mystical deer (based on a Hungarian legend how they conquered their land), or we have a song about a girl who killed his violent-alcoholic father, and last but not least we have some sex, drogs, rock’n’roll type lyics as well….so the lyrics are very colourful.

Do you write your own material or mainly covers? We write all our material and we wanna play our songs…maybe couple of covers possible at the very first gigs. Arpie hates tribute bands or those bands who earns money with playing someone else's songs all the time. It’s just not the right way to show your thoughts about music, or how talent you are….the only real way is our own material!

Have you made any albums?/If yes what are they? Yes, we just recorded our debut album called Mortal Price. We think it’s a very good album, with very strong songs on it.

Do you have any clips on YouTube? We uploaded some stuff. You can find them if you search for Avenford. I must say, it worth to find them!

At what age did you start playing? Pete thinks he was about 10 but we all were very young when we got the very first instruments to our hands. One of the most amazing times in our lifes!

How old were you guys when you first stood on stage? We were all fuckin’ teenagers.

What year was the band started? In 2012.

How old were you the first time you saw a live band play? Pete was apparently 3. His father took him to a Genesis gig. You can`t start it soon enough…

How old were you at your first gig?/Best/worst gig you've played? Arpie was 14 at his first performance on stage. Peter was 16 at his first gig. It wasn`t a big show but he is never gonna forget  that so he would say it was the best concert in his life.  Worst gig? hmm... Peter has an accident on stage the e1 string has broken and he didn`t have spare one then he finished the rest of the show with 5 strings :)

What places will you be playing in the immediate future? Well, somewhere around London I guess and then who knows… we just got together and currently working on the bands live show and looking to take it to the finest clubs around the country.

What songs are in your live set's? Our debut album Mortal Price contains 10 songs, we play all of them on our gigs. 

Is it always the same set's live? We are planning to put just couple of covers in our list which can varies from time to time…it depends where we play or what we feel would be more suitable for the audience.

What are the plans for the rest of the year? There are plenty to do and not much left till the end of the year. First of all we`d like to finish putting the live show together and organize the debut appearance of the band.

How do you get psyched up for a gig? Couple of beers before the show and that’s it! Ha-Ha! :) Seriously we always wanted to perform on the stage, it’s everyone’s dream so we already treated our minds for that.

What are your goals with your music? We put our aims very high. We want to be well known all over the planet, we would like to show to the world how a good music should sound.

When did you decide to go all in for the music? Long time ago, when we were kids….yes probably that time. We always wanted to be musicians.

Is it easier to get your inspiration from older bands or from bands more modern? Both. As Arpie likes J.S. Bach a lot obviously he would like to mix that baroque music into the power metal environment, but he also tries to incorporate some Deep Purple and Rainbow stuff. Zed, Peter, and Pete likes slightly more modern music, so they are joining to the song writing with their ideas.

What are your sources of inspiration? The impression comes from everyday life. Or sometimes the inspiration is coming from an old memory. Even a person or an occasion could be a trigger for a song. It’s very hard to tell, it just comes.

What's the first step when making a new song? Hmm…figure out the melody of the song…especially the verse part then the chorus. Then write the guitar parts together with the drums. It comes very fast if we start jamming. And then Zed puts some heavy bass track on it. First of all we always make some sketch version, then we start to clean it up, put the details in it, and finally our friend Zoltan writes the lyrics.

How do you feel about the downloading of music instead of buying albums? We have to accept it. This the way nowadays so every band should get use to it. Peter really likes to buy original CDs (he has hundreds of them) but Arpie thinks it’s just wasting money when you can download them for free. Naughty boy!

What would be your dreams for the band?  We don’t like this expression dream. We have targets, aims what we want to achieve, all we have to do is working very hard and gigging a lot all over the place…then put our music to people’s face that they will shit in their pants

Besides your own music, what genres and bands do you listen to? It would be a very long list. Everybody listens slightly different kind of music. Let’s just say if I compress to this question to the 4 member all together then the artist lists starts from J.S. Bach and finishes with Jorn Lande. And there is everything between them that you can imagine.

What would be your greatest fears for the future? We don’t want to think any fears for the future. There is none.

When you are on stage, what do you fear most then? A broken string perhaps!

Have you been in any other bands? Peter played in couple of Hungarian bands like Tűzvonal, Ragadozók, Mr Eddie Krueger, Arpie also played in Hungarian bands Fade Out and MAJER, Zed played in the band Ragadozók and Pete played in many bands over the years the most recent one was Achilla.

Do you have any hobbies? Arpie is a fan of collecting watches and Lego Technic models. Zed is a very serious collector of GI Joe stuff. Pete is always in a hurry to go home and pat his pussy-cats. Peter collects original CDs.

How important are your fans? Like friends, you have to take care of them by giving the best of you!

How often do you rehearse? We usually do one long session once a week.

Where do you rehearse? We tried out couple of places but recently found one in north London where we keep going back to and occasionally we go down to Worthing and rehearse there where we can work on our live sound much better.

Name 2 of your own songs you like at the moment? Hunters’ Trial & Mortal Price

What do you feel is the best live band you've seen? Uh, it's a hard one, but I have to say Iron Maiden. We saw then so many times!

What drives a band that isn't all that famous and renowned to try to make a living on their music and to keep playing? It's going to sound selfish, but as long as I enjoy playing and I can make few other person happy with my music as well, then that's enough for me to carry on!

Do you have any webpages? At the moment only facebook page. Our official website is under construction…but it shouldn’t take too long.www.facebook.com/avenford

Any pearls of wisdom for all other bands out there?

Play like this is your last chance to play. Think about this and you'll understand, it's not too hard to give 100% all the time! 

Describe your show, visually and musically.

At the moment we're working on the musical side of the show, trying to find the sound what's suits us the best. But we need to start to think about some sort of visual thing as well, because the audience has eyes too, not just ears! It would be great to add something visual to the show what makes memorable, what makes people talking about us like: "Hey I saw this band last night, you have to check them out, they were awesome!" And things like that. :-) 

How do you view the music industry of today? Dog eat dog. There's so many bands out there, and some of them shouldn't be there! Too many wannabees, it's getting harder for us to find something new and interesting. As you said it in the question: it's an industry, it's business. Nowadays in the media you have to buy or listen to the bands/artists that the industry puts in front of you. We think it was much easier when we were kids (late 80's early 90's), there wasn't this many choice, but there wasn't that much rubbish on the market!

What advice would you like to give other bands?

There are lots of things but shortly:

- Always check out the sound before the gig starts. Do not play without soundcheck.

- Forget the concerts with full of covers. Sit down, think, create, play it in live. Then you are an artist.

What are the biggest obstacles for a band? To get a proper management. Without help you just play in small pubs for 20-30 guests. As long as you try everything by yourself there`ll be no miracle. You need help unless if you are a millionaire.

What is best/worst with playing the clubs? Obviously the best if the club is full. The worst thing if the sound is crap. You need someone at the mixer who knows what to do otherwise it`s just a big noise and you can not impress people around.

Tell us about upcoming gigs and why we should be at them? Well, we're planning to start to play in January, we would like to introduce the band in the clubs-pubs with the music and the sound what makes us different then the others. We don't want anybody to listen to 4 guys who only makes a huge noise on the stage. And you can see 4 handsome guys at the same place!

How would you describe your sound in one sentence? It`s time to wake up and listen modern METAL!

What was one of the most quarrelsome times for you in the band? When we have to decide who's going to pay at the bar... That's about it. We're quite loyal to each other, we don't try to step on each other toes. It's like a little family, when we have to make a decision, we sit down and talk about it, even about the smallest things. 

What's your Pre-show ritual? Finally an easy question! A few beers...

What do you feel a band/musician should spend their money on? Instruments, if you can afford then buy the best ones, and the best amps. Use always professional stuffs `cos the sound makes quality of your production.