“The grilled sausage in Széplak is so good it will make you cry”

WLB: Did you have a good time at Strand Festival?

Kama: Our gig in Zamárdi was probably our best concert last year, so we were really looking forward to coming back here this year - especially since this time we hit the stage on 20 August, before the 25th anniversary concert of Tankcsapda. Our Wednesday gig had a relaxed vibe about it, and we even organized Strand Festival's first kung fu class.

Sanyóca: But anyone who’s missed it will get the chance to see us live at some point in the future.

Kama: The skies also honoured us by not sending pouring rain on us. We were caught in rainstorms at Sziget and Park, so we are very thankful to the heavens above for not ruining our Nagyszínpad career.

Sári: Out of all the Hungarian festivals, Strand is especially appealing to me, not least because of my height and build. I don’t like crowds too much, and the atmosphere here is more relaxed as well.

WLB: What is next for you in terms of Nagyszínpad? The end of summer marks the end of a chapter in this regard as well?

Sanyóca: Not at all, it is about to get started for real actually.

WLB: How did MR2’s talent show help you?

Kama: In a million ways. We have songs, which are well put together, the group and the concerts work, but the more our music and news of the band reach people, the more things get into full swing. We gain lots of experience by playing on a stage this size, and the audience already knows what Mary Popkids is.

Sári: The Nagyszínpad tour kicks off in the autumn, but we’ll update our sound a little bit, and we are also planning two music videos. The first one we’ll shoot for the song Renomé at the end of August with Emil Goodman and Menzkie, who also worked with us on Nightdrive.

Sanyóca: The other video is for Liar, and it will be directed by Krisztián Éder.

WLB: How do you handle the pace?

Kama: Things have been unbelievably crazy, we have hardly stopped all summer after the album came out in April, and we’ve been in serious work mode since January. We’ll have a bit of time to relax before autumn starts, and then we’ll slowly get cracking with writing songs.

Sári: We’ll also learn, recall and practice certain things, which we didn’t have a lot of time for because of the festival season. We are striving to become more professional.

Sanyóca: 2015 will be the year of Mary Popkids!

Kama: Why 2015?

Sanyóca: All right, a year somewhere between 2015 and 2040. By then we would like to reach an outstanding level of proficiency with our music. That is what we are currently working on as well. Our newest member and manager Virág Csiszár helps us with that. Up until now Kama and I were responsible for this side of things as well, but from now on Virág will work for us part-time. She’ll not only coordinate the international affairs of the band, but she’ll also deal with all kinds of issues we may have and she’ll even provide moral support.

Sári: There is still plenty of need for that!

WLB: What kind of international affairs?

Sanyóca: We can’t say anything about those yet, but this I can tell you in advance: we are planning on doing something that will shake the Hungarian music scene to the core.

Kama: We play music so that we can do this day and night.

WLB: What has the audience taught you?

Sanyóca: They love us immensely, and that feels very, very good.

Kama: We have learned to act much more naturally in front of the audience. We can address them without feeling anxious. They know that if they come to a Mary Popkids gig, it is going to be a kick-ass party where they can let their hair down. Also, they totally get the kung fu thing, and they are up for dancing, too.

Sanyóca: In this period we came to the realization that we don’t have to give up who we are, we only have to have a good time on stage, and the audience will respond to that. This is something we have to keep practicing and learning how to do. This summer we have practically played at all the festivals, and we watched the greats, who you can really pick up a great deal from.

WLB: Your Strand gig was on Wednesday, but you are here until Saturday. Who are you looking forward to see?

Sanyóca: Parov Stelar, and John Newman on Saturday, we’ll come back from Széplak just to see him.

WLB: Is Széplak where you tend to hang out when you come to Lake Balaton?

Kama: Yes, Sanyi and I know each other from Balatonszéplak. The joint at the Balatonszéplakfelső train station (called resti in Hungarian) is our favourite place to this day.

Sanyóca: And the cheapest pub of the street.

Kama: Yeah, the pub not far from the resti. It is just a tiny stall with the cheapest possible drinks, but their grilled sausage is so good it always makes me cry.

Sanyóca: I paid HUF 580 for four hosszúlépés (Long Step) fröccses and a sausage, and all of them were freaking amazing. Our song Víztükörben (Reflection on the water) is actually about Lake Balaton. We have more or less grown up at Balaton, we have spent half of our lives here. We consider ourselves Balaton kids.

WLB: What about you Sári? How much of a Balaton person are you?

Sári: When I was a kid I spent quiet a bit of time on the northern shore in the Révfülöp-Köveskál region, which had a big influence on me. But on Wednesday evening I also found out how awesome the sausage in Széplak is, and I was lucky enough to have visited the resti, too.

Sanyóca: It was also in Széplak, at the beach actually, where we did Barbi Palvin’s ice bucket challenge. It took us half a day to get the buckets and the ice.

Sári: Of course, most of the ice had melted by the time we figured out how to do the whole thing.

Kama: We want to support the Heim Pál Children’s Hospital with the challenge, and we tagged our good friend Halott Pénz, MR2’s Marci Buda, who specifically warned us not to tag him, stand-up comedian Ádám Kiss, and Karesz Drótos, the frontman of Tibi Atya.