Usually
this Hungarian power trio is labelled with tags like stoner, doom or
sludge. Well they have a pieces of each element in their songs. Seven
years passed since Apey & the Pea transformed from a Pantera
tribute band into this independent outfit. They are still in the
underground, but that’s OK for their electrified and heavy sound
that is clad in dirt and some rust.
Their
second album – 'Hellish' was released two years ago and I wonder
which direction the band is going to take?
I
may conjecture as long as i want, but i’m not a fortune-teller.
Probably Aron Andras, Appey & the Pea singing guitarist, knows
such things better than me.
Hi man! How are you?
What's going on in Apey & the Pea?
Hey man, not much,
feeling great, we just announced a gig with WEEDEATER this October in
London at The Underworld, super excited about this.
Why so far? Couldn’t
get Weedeater in Budapest?
Just for the weed I
guess. Weedeater actually played here last year, couldn't make it to
the show, can't wait to get eaten.
Aron,
how did you figure out this name for the band?
It
all goes down to a very basic and dumb story, not sure if this will
get you going but back in the day when you registered a profile on
myspace you had absolutely no time to think of a username, you had to
give that right away or else you couldn't continue.. so that was my
pick (laughs). Probably the worst fucking band name in the history of
heavy metal, sorry about that.
The
band was formed in late 2009 after the break up of Remembering the
Steel, a Pantera tribute band. And three of you just started to play
that masculine and groovy stoner doom stuff. What did drive you to
change the direction?
Not
sure if we even knew what we wanted to play at the beginning.. we
were really into grunge that time and a lot of classic Crowbar,
Pantera groovy stuff. I guess it just evolved through the years as we
wanted to play and sound heavier and that is our goal ever since, to
make it the heaviest as possible. The game changer for me guitar wise
was an Electric Wizard show in London, after that I wrote "Judas"
and "Devil's Nectar" and got into doom, sludge in general.
Apey
& the Pea - Judas
So
you want to say that you aren’t that sort of Black Sabbath fan
since mindless childhood? Which doom bands did influence on your
sound besides Crowbar and Wizards?
Yeah well it kinda got me backwards, I was listening to these bands way earlier than I got into Black Sabbath. People like to call all sorts of stuff "stoner", "stoner rock", "sludge" "doom", what I always admired in heavy metal was the crushing evil "doomy" type of fat riff oriented slow stuff like Eyehategod. Sleep, High on Fire, Matt Pike had a huge impact on my guitar style, he's my Buddha.
Do I get it right
that you three work together since then without any lineup changes?
Oh yeah, we just smell
different that's all. We're best friends and brothers ever since.
The
previous album “Hellish” was released just one year after debut
“Devil's Nectar”. How do you see your progress on that record?
Well,
I do think that is our best album yet. Until the next one comes out
(laughs). That was a more mature and conscious record, we absolutely
knew what we wanted to hear, and almost got it right, we'll get it on
the III. album don't worry (laughs). You know we always record our
albums as we play live or rehearse, no tempo, just separate rooms for
the instruments, 3 headphones look each other in the eye and go.
That's the only true way we can keep it real and living, if we start
polishing it like everyone does we just lose all the good stuff. No
pig in a poke, I want it to be as real as it can get live.
Apey
& the Pea - Abraham
What
are your requirements to the sound you extract from your guitar? And
one more thing – you and mister Zoltan are vocalists, how do you
share your parties on the “Hellish” album?
Well just a fucking wall of loud orange cabs (laughs) . We play very, very loud, it's also a huge challenge to hear ourselves singing live cause it's just a big mess up there always.
Most
of your lyrics sound like drug-influenced stuff, what's the real role
of substances in the process of Apey & the Pea songwriting?
Yeah
well I'm not sure if I want to go into details cause we live in a
very weird dictatorship in Hungary but we do get a lot of influence.
We used to get very very high at the beginning when we were writing
songs, but now days we're only working clean as a motherfucker
(laughs). That's the only way we can get 130% out of each other, the
music got very complex then it was so if we're on something we just
play on 66,6% or I don't know, and that's not enough anymore, like I
said before we want to be tight and as heavy as we can possibly be.
“Hellish”
was released two years ago, how did the band spend this period?
We've been touring and
going and going as much as we could, mostly in Hungary and in-between
we've been working on our III. album since April I think.
Can you already tell
something about new material? Did you go further from the point where
you started with Apey & the Pea?
As we're working on the
songs, whenever a new one is done we're always like shocked when it
comes to comparing where we started off from. It's like a joke. In
fact I'm aware that it's a very boring thing to say but I have to
admit this is the most brutal, mountain carrying heavy shit we ever
done. A lot of thrash and hardcore stuff, but still the same meat.
How much of doom and
stoner did you leave in new material? Wouldn’t it suddenly turn
that Apey & the Pea become a Pantera tribute band again?!
I
don't know, we don't really think of it that much, it's just a lot
more evil and fast and cut to the chase face ripping sweet stuff, it
might also be the shortest album we've done so far.
Apey
& the Pea – Pothead
I know of not many
doom bands from Hungary - Wall if Sleep, Magma Rise and Stereochrist.
How is the local scene big indeed? How often do you play in your
country?
Used
to be a lot bigger.. work, wife, kids, family or got older and
dropped out you know how it goes, but yeah a lot of old classic bands
like them are still going and that's great. We know and love everyone
here who's in the same boat, it's like a big family but although it's
sad in a way that we're the only metal band in Hungary who plays
heavy music and gets the attention, a lot of very cool young bands
here.
Budapest is
beautiful city with rich history, your music is straightforward,
heavy and dirty. How does the city influence on you? What are
negative and positive aspects of living there?
Well
beer is very cheap here, that's a good thing. Huge and very cool
underground metal scene, bands, musicians, all huge impacts on me and
on us. Budapest isn't really a metal city, if I see a guy in Napalm
Death shirt I'm like "hey dude" and I kinda like it that
way.
How would you sum up
the general message of the band? What's Apey & the Pea about?
Love
each other, live the music you love and speak what you are. It's
still about our friendship, and our love to each other, and the noise
we make, can't get enough of it (laughs).
Words
by Aleks Evdokimov and Aron Andras
