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Joined: March 04 2008
Location: Retirement Home
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Topic: Tabula Smaragdina Posted: July 06 2011 at 16:22
The story of TABULA SMARAGDINA goes back to 1998, when the Krivánsk Daniel (keyboards) and the guitar player Bogati-Bokor Akos met in the University campus, they soon became friends and started to share ideas about music, but it's not until 2002 when with the drummer Zsigo Lázlo and the bassist Turi Tamás they complete the rhythm section and the line-up of AMETHYST is completed.
I got in touch with the band and Daniel answered my questions.
When,
where and by whom was your band born ? Did any of you, past and
present members, play in any other bands before joining up in your
band ? Why did you choose that name and which bands were you
influenced by ?
It
all started 10 years ago, when we had some jam sessions, playin' our
favourites... after a few sessions we realised that we have a serious
chemistry working on, so the decision was more than simple: we have a
working band. Each member had his own projects, tribute bands before
Tabula Smaragdina. Ákos was working with a famous Hungarian progrock
band the late You And I until its disbanding, and since that he is
constantly working with Yesterdays; László plays drums with
different bands and a Metallica Tribute band; Tibor plays bass with
Neochrome and in some international black metal projects – but prog
is what gets Tabula Smaragdina together. We have influences from
different eras starting from early rock'n roll recordings, the
Beatles, Pink Floyd, Rush, Metallica followed by lots of "unknown"
bands as influences, we are listening to all kinds of interesting
bands and musicians... as we are big big record collectors too :)
The
band in the early years was called Amethyst, but after our first bass
player (Tamás Turi) had to leave the band because of some
health problems,
and since we found out that Musea Records already has a French band
called Amethyst, we decided to change the band's name to Tabula
Smaragdina. Ákos' favorite Hungarian philosopher, Hamvas
Béla's work inspired the name and of course the mystical backgrounds
of the Emerald Tablet known by the alchemists.
How
is it to run a band in Hungary these
days ?
It's
easy when you don't have time for it :). Tabula Smaragdina is working
as a professional project. Since the band is divided to 2 countries
(Ákos lives in Romania), we have only 3-6 rehearsals each year, but
this seems to be enough to write 2 songs on each session in a
weekend. So we are very pleased about this and our second album`s
material keeps on growing :) The only bad thing is that a progrock
band in Hungary cannot play enough gigs in these areas. And actually
not only the prog bands are in a hard situation, but almost every
band suffers from the same reasons. There aren't enough payed gigs on
festivals or in clubs. There's a slight change of mentality, where
live bands can't get the same attention by the public as some years
ago. It's maybe that this "facebook nation" does not leave
the room, it stays between 4 walls... So we try to concentrate on the
writing.
Over
to your only album so far. Please tell us more about your A Szavakon
Túl album from last year.
Our
first album was written through the jamming years, we added some
parts and some fresh lyrics (in Hungarian) and finished it in a year.
Since Tamás had to leave the band while the CD was being recorded,
Akos, our guitar player had to record all the bass parts too. Since
he was working with Jonas Reingold (of the Flower Kings) on one
Yesterdays track (Dante's Inferno), he had some ideas how to get an
agressive yet mellow progrock bass guitar sound. We got the chance to
use vintage synths and sound samples. So this album was a fine trip
to progrock wonderland for us.
What
have you been up to since the release of this album ?
We
did some songs to some Musea compilations, like Purgatorio, Paradiso
and the Flower Kings tribute CD box. We have new songs and new ideas,
and near Tabula Smaragdina we are extra busy with our side projects.
Tibor is recording the new Neochrome album, Akos just released the
second Yesterdays album in January.
For
those of us unknown with your music; how would you describe you music
and which bands would you compare yourself with ?
It's
symphonic prog, with fine drum grooves, taste of the sweet seventies,
lots of mellotrons and moogs, hammonds and acoustic intruments,
vintage guitar tones. It's like a journey through time. We pretty
much like Platypus, Ty Tabor's works, Porcupine Tree and Genesis.
What
is your plans for this year and beyond ?
The
band is still active, we decided to work on our second album, we
already have the half of it. In a year we hope that it will be ready!
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