I am sure most of our readers don't know a thing about you - could you please introduce yourself and tell a bit about your background?

Dreyelands - We are a progressive metal band from Hungary, Central-East Europe. The band formed in 2002. Gergely Springer (bass) and I are friends since our early teenager years and we played in a lot of band together in a lot of genres and wanted to establish a progressive metal band. When Omar Gassama (drummer) joined us we made Dreyelands with other guys. We had a few line-up change in the past and when Zoltan Kas (keyboards) and Serbian "vocal phenomenon" Nikola Mijic (vocalist of Alogia, Expedition Delta) joined we were started to make live gigs and writing songs. We recorded our first release, a promotional EP titled 'Can't Hide Away' (released in 2007). There was also a music video made for the title song of the EP. This video was featured several times on the Headbanger's Ball program of MTV Hungary with the EP receiving great feedback from not only Hungarian but also international press. During 2007 we finished the song writing for the debut album 'Rooms of Revelation' which was recorded in several studios in Hungary and Serbia in 2008 and mixed/mastered by well known Hungarian producer/engineer Barnabás Hidasi at HL-Studio in 2009. After the recordings keyboardist Zoltán Kas left the band and for future promotion work and live gigs the band is completed by Gyorgy Nagy (Age of Nemesis) as a session member.

We are playing music based on heavy but melodic progressive metal with a touch of tasty flavour of '80s hard rock and AOR music.

What kind of hopes and expectations do you have for 'Rooms of Revelation'?

Dreyelands - World domination, of course...:)))

Well, we hope that we can reach the utmost people with the album, and would like to place Dreyelands onto the worldmap of metal to have the opportunity to work further in the future. Making albums, touring, etc...

If you had to choose one song you feel represents you, which song would you choose and why? Personally I would pick "Way to you", a song I feel captures the essence of Dreyelands pretty well.

Dreyelands - Pretty good choice for it, but I would pick "Fragments" and/or "Leaving Grace". "Fragments" represents the tasty combination of complexity and the easily accessible melodies which we like very much and "Leaving Grace" has the darker and heavier side of the band which is very important for us too. These two songs representing better the direction we want to move forward... You know, the dark-heavy-melodic-AOR complexity. J J J J

How does the final result compare to the idea you had going into the studio?

Dreyelands - We wanted to make a concept album with songs that can stand alone. All these with classic based but massive, ultra thick arrangements and modern sound. I think we managed it.

We finished the album more than a year before it's released and now I would make a lot of things different but you know an album can be finished but never perfect. J

Can you give us a brief introduction on the lyrical concept behind 'Rooms of Revelation'?

Dreyelands - It's a concept album. It's a journey in a schizophrenic mind. There's a guy who lost his loves after the first fulfilment of their love. He begins his trip in an imaginary house and as he gets on room by room he is getting nearer to the answers and his fate.

Tell us a bit about the artwork... dominated by the colour red...

Dreyelands - It's simpler then it seems. One of my friend (Peter Kurtosi) told me that he is interested in making the artwork for the album. We gave him a little guideline with the concept. We wanted a corridor with doors on the cover, but in point of fact we gave him full freedom... He came out with this red based image and we all loved that, so we "bought" it. We had little willies that it’s a bit darker than our music but we thought it's heavy metal or what, so that would be great for the artwork.

Hungary - not the country known for its huge metal scene, I must admit that the only other band I know of is Age of Nemesis. But how is the scene, and do you have a strong camaraderie among the bands and do you all try to spread the word for each other?

Dreyelands - It's funny to mention Age of Nemesis. (As said before) their keyboard player plays in Dreyelands nowadays. J

I think we are the third progmetal band that can get on abroad. There was only Age of Nemesis, Stonehenge before. Although we have a strong underground metal scene, unfortunately there is only a few clubs where you can play with the minimally desired circumstances. There's a lot of situations when a club tells you that they are insolvent, moreover they expect you to pay if you want to play there... So it's hard to get on, and making money with it is almost impossible. There are only a few professional bands here. But camaraderie is working. We have lot of friends to play with. And they are all great guys.

You are releasing this debut album on a Finnish label - how did you hook up and do you see this as an advantage?

Dreyelands - We were sent out a lot of e-mails and promo kits to a huge amount of labels and Lion Music gave us a very fair offer and we heard about them a lot and they were/are so kind and polite and there is no seed of pontificating as we experienced elsewhere. So it quickly turned out to sign the deal. It's of course an advantage. It's obviously an advantage in the Hungarian point of view. Unfortunately, there's only a few band which have international record deal. Hope to have more...

2010 has just begun, but which albums impressed you in 2009?

Dreyelands - As a fanatic music listener and collector I make my TOP10 every year.

So here it is for 2009:
01. Europe - Last Look at Eden
02. Chickenfoot - Chickenfoot
03. Pearl Jam - Backspacer
04. Katatonia - Night is the New Day
05. Guilt Machine - On This Perfect Day
06. Behemoth - Evangelion
07. Winger - Karma
08. H.E.A.T. - H.E.A.T
09. Heaven and Hell - The Devil You Know
10. Muse - The Resistance
+1. Long Distance Calling - Avoid the Light

but I have to mention a few other albums and live cd/dvds I liked very much (in alphabetical order):
Mr. Big - Back to Budokan
Pagan's Mind - Live Equation
Pearl Jam - Ten (Redux) The Devin Townsend Project - Ki/Addicted

What tasks lay immediately ahead of you - any plans taking the album our on the road, single shows or...?

Dreyelands - Immediately, we are rehearsing hard with our new keyboardist for a couple of shows we have in April in Serbia. We'll have a release party here in Budapest, Hungary in May and will playing on MetalFest Open Air Hungary and in the breaks we are working on our new website. For the near future we'd like to confirm as many live gigs as we can but these are only stand-alone shows yet. We hope we'll have the opportunity of a serious tour sometimes in the future.

Thank you very much for answering my questions. Do you have any last rants for our readers?

Dreyelands - Love music!

And keep dr(e)y(e) the lands then every plants will die!!!

As we all know: plants are not metal!!! :-D:-D:-D