Can you give a short description of Bridge To Solace ?
T : I think we are what you could pretty much say a metalcore band but we don't like this kind of description at all I think we just play ...
Z : No we're a metalcore band cos' we really mix hardcore and metal
T : Yeah
Z : You know, it's in the drum it's in sing which is hardcore and the guitars are more metal and all those bands you call metalcore now are just like double phase base and being tough and we're more in a hardcore base
T : I think we have some punk rock base sometimes
Z : it's hardcore punk you know the base
T : but we've got some big metal influences, you know it's like the Sweden metal and heavy metal influences and the melodies of the guitars
Z : I mean, whatever people could call us, we're a band who mix hardcore and metal !

When did the band begin ?
T : I think it was in 2000
Z : yes, but without me, I was in Newborn, I know Tom since a long time and when Newborn split he told me that we should play music together and then I got into Bridge To Solace, that's it !

It's the first time for you to play here in Lyon, did the release of "Kindgom of the Dead" bring you more opportunity to play all around Europe ?
T : Oh not really ! I think we played in Europe in general, it's just a reason for us to tour again, and the release of a new record is a good reason to tour, but I think the new release is like ...
Z : it's not that all you know, the people who come to our shows know our old songs better cos we play a lot of all songs all around Europe
T : The first record has been out there's two years !
Z : Yes two years and "Kingdom..." is like 6 months and we don't play much songs of "Kingdom..." except for two first ones. So probably the next time we'll play there is gonna be the time that people start to know "Kingdom...". You know the other one is older so the people have more chance to get it and the new one is fresh, but some people know the new song but they are really into the old songs

You're on tour with Undying, do you see a change from the audience when they listen to you and then listen to Undying, as you are from Europe and as they from the United States ?
T : Oh it's a harder one because Undying are so good and their music is so catchy and people obviously adore them but we have really cool reaction from the audience whatever we play, I think we had the best reaction on tour than inside Hungary, so I think there's new big differences like, you know people like us even if we are from Hungary, they still like us. It's something very surprising for us !
Z : It's not like that anymore, you know a couple of years back yes, but know we're all European people and so we don't really care. You know the European metalcore is so huge because you have this bands like Cataract or Heaven Shall Burn and now people take more attention to the European scene, and some bands are on big label and people say " Hey they are from Europe so there might be some good bands in Europe !", so definitevely it changes for the better in the last few years so I don't think there's a big difference except that people know Undying better cos they've done in Europe 2 tours before this one, but it's been pretty good !

Your band gives the aggressivity of hxc music with melody as a lot of bands do now, but you've got a special touch that makes you different from the others, does it come from your own to be different or was it just a mix of what you like ?
Z : It's both !
T : Yes I think it's both, we have very different influences, Adam is a real song writer guy, he's listening to a lot of metal, he really brings it into his music and then when we put songs together you feel all the influences we bring. It can be punk rock, hardcore or metal, we just love to listen to all this shit
Z : It's a half of mixture, it's always flatoring when people tell us "you are metalcore, but you sound very different" and it feels good cos it's something we wanna do cos I personally consider myself as a HxC kid, I've been to HxC since I was 14 and it's important for me to have a message, we still be a hardcore band and I think that is make us special

You play with a lot of international bands like Cradle Of Filth, Walls of Jericho, Testament and Children Of Bodom and your new album is going to release out in South America. How can you explain such opportunities ?
Z : Budapest like the metal scene for so long from promoters, to audiences, to metal bands, and a lot of metal bands are good friends of us and we got invited to play in some show with Walls Of Jericho, Cradle of Filth, Testament and that was a great opportunity and in Hungary we've got a big festival called Sziget, it's an island in the middle of the Danube, and there's like 50 to 60 thousands people who come to the festival and there's about 20 different stages, you can find a lot of things
T : there's world music, irish music
Z : yes there's pop music stage, rap music stage, there's a huge main stage. I saw Anthrax, Slayer on that stage.
T : Last year it was a pretty good one !
Z : yeah, and the last year was the first time we play there and it was probably the strongest metal day over all the 7 days because Children Of Bodom was headlining and most of the modern metal bands played all on the same day and most of our friends was here, and there was like a hundred thousand people there who was watching us, so it was surprising for us, you know there's so many bands playing and we have a real opportunity to play there ... and we're going to play next year, probably the same day of Meshuggah, so it's gonna be a really good show and it's amazing
T : I really got the impressions that in Hungary the metal scene really like us, more than the hardcore scene I think, we've got all these reviews all the time in Metalhammer, they really appreciate us
Z : Yeah Tom was right that the hardcore scene is a sort of picky cos there's band who talk too much and act nothing and we are a band who is commited and we're around for ages, we had hard times, you know hxc is everywhere, and even if hxc is a beautyful thing we love it, but people can be so jealous but some reasons the metal kids love us
T : And we love them back
Z : Yeah and there's so many good metal bands in Hungary who always ask us to play with them in Budapest

I was surprised to see a performance of Greg Bennick from Trial, so how did you meet him?
Z : It was in november 1999 when I did a show for Trial, which is my number one hardcore band, probably the best thing that come to HxC, I love them so much, and I made friend with Greg and we have non stop contact, he knew for my new band, Bridge To Solace and loved what I did with Newborn, and he started to make his website, Words as Weapon, it's like an activism site with punk hardcore and he's a juggler, he's really crazy, so he makes juggling with activism political stuff and we went to studio with Tom and we listen to our first songs, and I believe in songs with a big message you know, and we wanted to add something which could be like something shouting or something like that but it's not really original anymore
T : A lot of band do it now !
Z : And Greg he's a friend of mine since ages and I e-mailed him in saying "hey I've got a new band and I want you do to it" and he told me to send him the MP3 and the lyrics and to give him a week to do something, we talked for hours about the meaning of the songs and he did beautyful poetries

What can you tell me about the Hungarian scene ? Can you name some bands? Are you going to tour with some of them ?
T : the hungarian scene is special like hum, I think a lot of American bands love to play there, well if you are a big american band you will always have a great time in Hungary but if you're a Hungarian band it's different ! It's a small scene of course, but you can do a lot of good gigs and there's good pormoters, always nice to you if you play there, he's (Zoli) the number one promoter, but I think if you're a Hungarian band, like us, you can only get shit !
Z : Yeah because that's what I told, there's too many jealous people, they are so concerned about the other people's life like why do they do this record? Why do they do this concert? Why do they do this tour ? But there's some good bands too but I wouldn't like to name some because some others could just get picky for not being there !
T : But for the future we don't really know who's gonna to tour with us
Z : What we know is that we wanna a do a tour with The Great Deceiver, you know it's a Bridge To Solace tour but we have the same book agency than them and we play with them for 7 shows on this tour, I know them from before cos I did a show with the other bands of the singer, and they are amazing people and I think it's a really good band, they are very different, they play metal and they play hardcore, it's so much different than everything and we really really wanna play with them for a full tour maybe at the end of this year or maybe the next one, there's so many thing we wanted to do, we wanna tour with The Great Deceiver, we wanna make a new record for the next year and we wanna do a headlining tour and another tour where we can support another band, but this tour is wonderful !

Something very different for the end, what are your main topics for your lyrics?
Z : The main topic of my lyrics are hxc cos it's something I really love and also love to write about the real things that happenned to me, ,when I write I just seat down and listen to HxC records cos the lyrics are always something meaningfull to me, I'm inspired by the lyrics of band like Strike Anywhere or Boysetsfire, you know those bands have a lot to say. I don't like those kind of songs who say "raise your fuckin' fist" and stay behind stupid slogans. You know, we wanna talk about real things and that was hardcore is about and we wanna communicate with people, we're hardcore cos we have such a different outlook on things than the rest of the world, and we can always exchange ideas on a song, how we can change one thing and how we believe in things and that what my lyrics are about you know...With the new record I want to do something very unique, like a conceptual album, it's going to be one story and actually it's about a human story... And the new record is about being different from the rest of the world and try to survive in this world and it's about my convictions, and I'm not really religious but I believe that in life you have a fait and things are always happened down and all your actions are the result of others actions, and that's what the new record is about, if you doing something bad to someone, something bad to you is going to happen, and the new record is going to call "Dreams and Nightmare" cos this is life it is. So lyrics are about what really happen to me .

Interview Laureline & Benny
Translation Laureline