After Classes

After Classes is a pop-punk band from Budapest, Hungary. The band consist of Balázs Sebestény (vocals), Dorottya Kovács (vocals), Balázs Lapis (guitar), Márió Bogdán (guitar), Zoltán Somogyi (bass) and Ábel Schéder (drums). The kids are playing kinda pop-punk music with some powerpop element, spiced with the girl-boy duo on the lead vocals. The band was founded under the name The Gorse in a small town, called Gyula, Hungary in 2000, when Laci Braun decided to start a band. For his brother's recommendation he asked Tibcsi Kiss, a schoolmate from primary school to join on drums, and Balázs Lapis, a kid from high school to fill in the guitar. In the first term they played classical rock and blues covers, and tried so many guys on the bass. In 2000 Laci and Tibcsi recorded their first demo, Absurd World, including Livin' for today one of the most known and liked songs of the band. Some months later, in 2001 Laci went up to Balázs Sebestény on the school's floor and said: "Don't you wanna play the bass in our band?", and he said "Of course, I do!", so they started to work together. At the same time they parted ways with Lapis, 'cuz of musical differences. They started to write songs beside the good old punk rock covers, and they made some demos, some of them was available for anyone, some not. In the Summer of 2001 they recorded three tracks: Advice for life, I wish and Jennifer. The following year they added six more (all the songs on that record was written by Laci) among them the another much liked song, Smellslikelife, and entitled the album Stand by the giant turtles!, after a Greenpeace action. This entire album is free for download from http://www.myspace.com/afterclasses. After Laci left from high school in 2003 things changed a bit, and they started to play shows outside of their hometown with the hungarian pop-punk veterans, the Falcongate. The differences between Tibcsi and the others 'caused his terminal leave. They started to find a new drummer, and meanwhile Laci's brother Totya helped them out. In 2004 Balázs also graduated, and left Gyula, so the band started outgrowing the high school band status. This year someone told them, that the name The Gorse is an existing band's name somewhere in Ireland (well, it was a fake, 'cuz it was called The Corrs...), so they figured out a new name. Once the kids were driving home by car, and listened to blink-182's Going Away to College, which has a row "She kissed me after class, and she put up with my friends", and after that they called the band After Classes. They uploaded some of their tracks to PureVolume, and sent some links to different sites. Ákos Radócz, who was the owner of the one-time Eightball music portal offered a free webiste, and helped them promoting their music. With his help the band became more and more known in the hungarian scene. They visited a punk rock show in 2005 to the effect to find a new drummer, and they did. There was a band, called Link-X playin, and their drummer, Gergő Kinka was amazing, so they asked him to join. Soon the band got the chance to play two songs in the semi-finale of the hungarian music chanell's (VIVA) competition (Tehetségvadászat), and after that they played some shows with bands like Falcongate, Reflected, Link-X, Szükségállapot and more. After one year collaboration Gergő left for his primal band, but 'cuz of the band became a popular part of the scene, they easily found Márk Koller, a fan kid of After Classes, and a very talented drummer. This was the most classical lineup of the band. They sold a lot of stuff, played many shows with Anti Fitness Club, The Grenma and the bands above, and started to record demos for the songs they had written since 2002. For the Autumn, 2006 the friendship broke up, and after Laci's announcement of leaving, they cancelled all forthcoming shows, and published a statement about the break-up. After all that the kids played in many formations, Laci ganged up with two DJs (he's no more active), Balázs founded Atagood Place (after the title of an old AC song, "At a Good Place Like This"), Hearsay Evidence (including the latter Anti Fitness Club guitarist, Peti Szabó) and joined the metalcore band, Forsaken Mind. Later on he joined a well-known hungarian Idol (Megasztár) singer, Gabi Tóth's band in 2008. Márk also played in a metalcore band, and after that he filled in the drums in the hungarian electro/indie singer, Zsuzsa Vargas band. In 2007 Balázs visited a Set Your Goals/No Trigger/To Killshow in Budapest, and discussed with Tomi Árnyék about making a hardcore/pop-punk band. In the Summer that year, Balázs and Dóri Kovács travelled to Siófok, to spend some time and meet Andris Gyimesi (Falcongate). There he listened Dóri singing something in the afternoon, and newfound the opportunity of making music together.Teamed up with Tomi on drums, and Lapis on guitar they started to rehearse. Balázs wrote the songs, and made the vocals with Dóri. Soon they found Márió Bogdán, who filled the guitar, but the band didn't work out. In the Summer 2008 they parted ways with Tomi, and after a while they asked Ábel Schéder,- who commented their MySpace profile - to join, and he did. Zoli Somogyi, who was a one-time AC fan, and a friend of Balázs filled in the bass, and they started to write songs and to make some demos, they plan to release in 2009.