Gergely Kalapis Music

After I sat down with myself and agreed “NO MORE GUITARS!” Yes, I was asking for trouble. There is this app called Nextdoor, where you can keep up to date with what’s happening in your neighbourhood (stray cat, dumped rubbish and nail technicians - Wembley top 3), but also buy/sell stuff. I have been looking for bargain buys, but really bargain ones only. This 2006 guitar was advertised for £90 by a chap who bought it to learn how to play, but after a few weeks of self-teaching gave up and went on to play piano instead, consequently it had barely been used. Although I am aware this model has been produced in vast quantities (it’s likely still in production) and is an entry level guitar, it really is more than convincing with solid, round lows and mids, and is quite a versatile instrument and a nice addition to any home studio on my level. There is a bit of Slash's soul in it :) Long story short, you can’t beat a good double humbucker :) Oh, and still can’t find another one under £...

So there we were.. My first LP was released, and thankfully received positive feedback and gained a good number of listens (to my standards, that is). So what now? Many popular artists come under intense pressure for having to repeat this success with their next release - well clearly in my case, being virtually unknown, this was not an issue. The context: I have found previously that pumping rock tunes with a good beat and considerable distortion come relatively easy to me (like “We’re Gonna” or “Overdrive”), they were not overly difficult to produce (most of the time) and really got my legs going - low-hanging fruits, essentially. Some of the feedback I received for “Reach into your Soul” also suggested that while variety in terms of style of songs on an album is great to demonstrate an artist’s diversity and versatility, cohesion could help my new album be of a stronger material. Last but not least, I have been wanting to put together a record with songs that I like equally (yes, I ...

When I thought “I think I have enough guitars to cover my needs.” So what happened was.. I really wasn’t looking for a new guitar. I already had my Squier Strat, my Tele , agreed with EP Guitars on a custom Strat that he would build for me, and bought his underused Ibanez jazz guitar. It may have started off with the rookie error of me signing up to Fender newsletters and regularly browsing different guitars, although the Jag always escaped my notice. When the 60th anniversary series came out, I watched a few videos of it, learnt a bit of it’s history, but that was it. I must admit I really liked what I saw and heard, plus I remembered Kurt Cobain and Noel Gallagher had them as well, but I stayed strong. A couple of days later I required a guitar case at a short notice to transport my Squier Strat to EP guitars for a good clean and adjustments. This happened while I was in Lincoln for work. Thankfully, I had about an hour until my train back home and there was a music shop 4 minu...

  Late 2021, I was already working on material for Eternal Allies, however to try and keep the momentum up, I decided to put out a release while I was working on material for the LP. The EP revolves around the first two songs, “The One Next to You” and “Wonder You”, that I originally wrote a few days apart in late 2007. Despite being of two very different moods, to me they have always been tied together and both channel a medley of warm feelings and memories I associate with winter months. Just listen to the demo of “Wonder You” - can’t you see yourself walking as the snow falls gently on a winter’s night? These two songs also aired on my high school’s radio at the time - oh what a feeling it was! This release was also intended as the "rebirth" of one of my first demo CDs, which featured the demos of “The One Next to You” and “Wonder You”, along with several others, but this time as a single featuring only these two songs. While I was working on them, I decided to add a coupl...

After submitting my first EP to the distributor, I soon began thinking of a concept for my first LP, this time round featuring a mix of reproduced old demos and new songs. Evolved during a period of self-reflection, I think the end result is an almost intimate, but certainly an honest representation of where I was then. The context: With the release date for Lockdown EP still ahead, I have already started working on material for an LP, starting with the complete reproduction of "Another day", which I originally wrote and recorded as a demo in 2005. As it became popular among my friends at the time, it would have been the opening and title song for the new album, however due to delays to the production of new material, it later went on to be released as a single in May 2021, with a reworked version of the 2015 demo "Sway" as a B-side. Soon afterwards, I have resumed writing and producing new songs, again, largely building from voice memos, although in several instan...

I am not going to lie; it has to be one of my best purchases. I have been wanting to buy a Telecaster to get a bit of vintage in my songs, but as I have only been producing a couple or so songs a year, I found it hard to justify the investment. Then in 2012, I was halfway through recording the song "The Chemist" when the signal from Squier Strat I was using went dead. After a superficial investigation I came to the conclusion that something in the electronics must have broke, but the show (or the recording, rather) had to go on. So I went to the music store in Wembley and tried a few entry level Teles, when the chap in the guitar section showed me this blonde "Baja" Telecaster, which was a limited series edition with custom shop roots. I must admit I could then only hear a subtle difference in sound between a standard Player Series Tele and this one, but the chap was selling it quite well and credit to him, he also offered me 20% off for a minor chip on the body (a...

2020.. a swear word now, isn’t it? Like many of us, I found myself locked among four walls, not really allowed to go out and amazed how many hours there are in a day! Although I have been producing and releasing singles for over 10 years by then, often years would pass between releases, and even those would only be published on MySpace (good old days!), YouTube or Soundcloud so it was about time to turn it up a notch! The context: I already had a number of ideas accumulating in my voice memos over the previous couple of years or so; these were mainly a few chord progressions on the guitar or a hummed melody, but I also had around 3 or 4 demos created in GarageBand on my phone while I was out and about or just had too much time on my hands. Although I didn't have a solid concept as to what message I wanted the songs to convey, I wanted the EP to be a take on the roots of my influences, from the vibe of 50's-60's rock and beat music to folk.   Artwork: the front cover image...