Dirty Slippers have a multilingual, dramatic approach to their music. You can never quite put a finger on what they’re planning, and their music is as diverse as the cultures they represent. With great success coming from their singles, they release their latest number, Honest kid. 

Your unique instrumentals are a mixture of classic rock and this new sound you have found. How did you come about this?

We are a 4 piece band and every member has their own influences. When we started working on Honest kid at the Abbey Road Studios, our ideas met and George Shilling (our fantastic producer) knew exactly what we wanted: something huge, energetic and the feeling of an arena show. Bebi Ferenczi (our drummer) really loves Queen’s sound, and that’s why the drums are really big and wide sounding in the song.

I am a huge fan of british indie rock, britpop and beat music, that’s the reason behind the vocal style and the guitars. I really love making new music with band members, because I totally believe, if you write songs together and different musical worlds can meet, that’s always the best! 

Make no mistake, this is how they execute rock. You’ll hear tones, lyrics and compositional sorcery you might have never heard before. If you think you’re a sucker for rhythm changes, this is just a warm-up for this band. You see a tectonic shift in their sound from Közel Hossád, their 2012 album. They’ve been rocking it in many different directions since then, and you’ll be happy taking that musical journey with them. Almost unwittingly, mediocrity escapes their sound, and they settle on progressions and sequences that are rare to the ears.

Making of the song

 The story of Honest Kid, how did you come about composing a song like this?

The song’s original idea was born during the covid’s first quarantine period. I was really disappointed, because more than 70 shows were cancelled, some of our best friends were ill, and the world was a crazy place then. I sat in my room with my guitars and I started to build my own home studio, which opened a lot of new doors and finally I could start thinking about a lot more of the songwriting things. When a band is in a professional studio, everything happens really quick and sometimes you don’t have enough time to try new ideas and small tricks, which could take the song on a next level.

During the covid, we only had a lot of time, nothing else 🙂 So, I just sat with my guitar on the bed and wrote the song in a few hours. The next day, Rita Bodrogkozy, our vocalist, just came to me and we wrote the lyrics and recorded it. We were full of negative stories, bad things and Honest kid was our shout to the sky! Our fans were really loyal, we had great messages, when we worked on this song and we chatted with a few of them about the topic and the lyrics, and they absolutely loved it. “Rendetlen gyerek”, Honest kid’s hungarian version is our most famous song so far with more than 318.000 Youtube streams. We are really thankful, because our fans were with us “online” during the covid.

Navigating the hit

3) With Rendetlen gyerek, did you know that people have definitely connected with your kind of sound?

To be honest, I didn’t think this song would be our Number 1. A good friend of mine and our drummer, Bebi said first, that’s a better song, what I thought about that, so they said to me: Lazar, this song is great, why don’t you make a video clip for it suddenly? I did it and it was released in January of 2021, and a lot of new people started to follow us. If you make a heart-felt song about the people’s feelings and they think the same as you, that builds a bridge between the listeners and you. 

If you’re listening to this after mainstream pop, you’ll hear the subtleties in the way they perform, along with the raw magnetism of their lyrics and notation. The guitar flourishes, especially during the chorus, are magnificent-collating something of a unique plate of sound for all music fans alike! They might not know it yet, but Dirty Slippers have fans born out of every one of their songs. 

Dirty Slippers-Their multilingual approach

You’ve made songs that connect with English music listeners, as well as stayed true to your roots. Are there things that get lost in translation?

We are in a very lucky position, as we can work with a great English lyricist friend. Of course, George Shilling also provides us with good advice regarding each part of the lyrics, so the final version is usually polished in the studio to the best version, so that it is as close as possible to the original Hungarian version. Of course, specifically Hungarian locations, such as the view of Lake Balaton or the Tihany church hill, are not translated directly, but we refer to them to the extent that a similar image appears when listening to the song.

What is next for your band? Do we see an album coming out soon?

We have a lot of plans for this year! We will have a concert in Guildford on 17th of March with two great bands: Marseille and Modern Guilt. After our debut in the UK, we will shoot a video clip for Honest kid and do some shows in Hungary. Our new Hungarian album “Vársz Valahol” will be released very soon and after that our first, full length English language album will be released in the second half of the year. We are always dreaming bigger and bigger and hope everything will come true!

This song would fit great in Cloverfield, for the drama, passion and lucid lyrical flow. Not only does this band know how to put on a good show, but they understand the passion within the lyrics, with their instruments. They have great singles like Rendetlen gyerek and Magány ès èn. Follow Dirty Slippers for more great music!