The Hellfreaks were driven out of hell to return and deliver a devilish sound of their own combining punk rock, metal and psychobilly that is sweeping across the world. The band formed in 2009 in Budapest, Hungary, when Shakey Sue and her original guitarist Freaky Tiki started the trek in their musical journey. The Hellfreaks originated with Shakey Sue and Freaky Tiki in 2009 playing psychobilly horror punk and transitioned into female fronted modern punk riot music with a tough edge in 2016 with the release of the third LP Astoria that also included a new revamped lineup to go with the change in sound and style featuring Sue on vocals, Tamas Banhegyi on guitar, Gabor Domian on electric bass and Adam Szumper on drums.
From the beginning the Hellfreaks quickly received attention winning a competition with over 180 submissions for the National Contemporary Music Culture in Hungary which followed with their debut release of Hell Sweet Hell in 2010 and their video Boogieman which crashed the internet with 3,000.000 views.
“We’re THE HELLFREAKS, a band from Hungary, which is in the middle of nowhere in the international rock world. We’re a punk rock band soaked with metal aggression and are pretty unique in our country. Somehow, with a bit of luck and a hell of a lot of work, we’ve managed to play way more shows over the border than in Hungary. We’ve played over 250 gigs across Europe and also made it over the big pond and toured in the US.”
The Hellfreaks deliver a raw fresh punk sound fueled with plenty of attitude. “People who aren’t really into punk might think that punk is always “against the system”, that it “hails anarchy” and all that it has to say is “acab”. But that’s absolutely not the case. Punk is about questioning everything that others just take as is. It’s about pointing our fingers to things that don’t work as they should. I see punk as a seed of change because nothing ever gets better without moving outside of your comfort zone, at least with the right questions. “
“I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would go through days like these, not just in my country, but all around the world. The gap between poor and rich is getting bigger and bigger, the dream of equality between different cultures, religions, sexualities etc is running though our hands like sand and simply the unfairness in our society is growing day by day. Not ignoring this is already punk in my eyes. The Hellfreaks has been more than a decade part of my life. As I was growing up, our audience grew too. I’ve realized that I’m actually getting heard by a lot of people all around the world, so I wanted to use this attention wisely.”
For Sue, the Hellfreaks and getting involved in music was a “freak” accident. “I got into music completely by accident. I was a professional gymnast and sport was pretty much my everything. I unfortunately landed badly on my feet which resulted in a spine operation when I was 14 years old. I had to recalculate my life and fill the gap that my sports career had left behind. It was a difficult reality to accept at the time. The physical pain was nothing compared to the hole that I tried to fill. That’s how I found music and a couple of years later ended up forming the Hellfreaks in 2009.”
When it comes to inspiration, Sue points to strong female leads. “Personally I’m very much into music with tough girls at the front! Like The Distillers, Mamozets, Jinjer, The Pretty Reckless….I wouldn’t be surprised if you heard these influences in my vocals.”
Being from Hungary has been a challenge for the band to gain acceptance but with the reach of the internet and touring abroad has created plenty of excitement to build off of world wide. “It’s not up to me to decide if we stand out musically or not. It is pretty rare that a Hungarian band has a bigger fan base outside of Hungary than in their own country. Being Hungarian from this aspect only means that we gave to work a bit harder than a band from Western Europe because it’s not the kind of country where you can achieve anything just because you dream about it.”
With the pandemic still wreaking havoc worldwide plans for 2021 are tentative at best but always open for the band to continue their creative forces. “We’re working on a new record and I’ve almost exploded! That’s how much I would love to reveal and share it with our fanbase. But for now they need to muster some more patience till that happens. Me too. 🙂 Even though we’ve prepared some other surprises that we’re going to share soon, I recommend everyone subscribes and follows us on YouTube and Spotify to see and hear it first hand!”
The Hellfreaks latest release was God on The Run in 2020. “God On The Run is the 4th album we’ve written as a band and it’s the very best material we’ve ever released. We’ve been working on the new songs for over two years, fulfilling an old dream to work with foreign producers. Pre-production work has been with Paul Miner (New Found Glory, Atreyu, Death By Stereo) production/mixing with Evan Rodaniche (Escape The Faith, Powerman 5000, Lacey Sturm). The mastering with Tom Waltz provided us with the perfect final form for the band’s songs and ideas.”
Skakey Sue draws on the darker moments in life as inspiration which explodes into a a edgy sound full of power and emotion. “Literally everything can be inspiration: I write the lyrics for my band and they are mostly inspired by everything I go through. I’m really bad at sharing my happy moments, that’s why my lyrics always have some dark vibes. It’s not that I’m an unhappy person but the hard times are just a way bigger muse for me than anything else.”
Look for more great music and attitude to come from the Hellfreaks lead by Shakey Sue and her band mates. They are a band that are truly worth your attention and create truly intense and firey music that needs to be heard.