Hungary’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest was minutes from going on stage in the 1996 competition when the band’s 26-year-old bassist, Péter Géza Marót, had a great idea for improving the vocals on their song Fortuna. But band leader Gjon Delhusa was not interested in new ideas, certainly not then. “He told me: ‘G, you can do that on your solo album’,” says Marót, also known as G, PG or PG King. “I’ve been thinking about that album for 25 years.”
Marót says he now has the album he’s been ruminating over all this time: Beautiful by PG King, is influenced by a life spent in and around the world of Hungarian rock – including helping to launch the Hooligans, a big-name band that’s still going strong, and playing with Bëlga, a Hungarian rap act that achieved massive pop status among the country’s teens.
But the sound of Beautiful is neither rock nor pop. It’s soulful bass-driven music that has a loose, jazzy sound yet distinctive beats, a style that Marót describes as “psychedelic jazz rock”. The songs hook you without resorting to easy hooks. It sounds as if Marót is playing for his own inner music lover instead of trying to win over his audience, though the result is impressive. It’s the album Marot has been working toward all these years. And it’s Beautiful.
Released during the time of the pandemic and produced in collaboration with Kelo Mania and a host of friends, the album has yet to be performed live, not even in Budapest. Marót is eager to get on stage when concert bookings return to normal.
With seemingly endless energy, Marót is always creating – writing songs, bringing together musicians in the studio and creating videos for his music. He’s been known to hide away with his instruments, samples of singing and his computer for a sleepless week, and then emerge with several new songs, each completely arranged and accompanied with a video clip. Still, he says, performing on stage is what makes the music real. Since his Eurovision days, live performance, and the subsequent afterparties, have been two of his favourite pastimes. “I’m still living the rockstar life I started in 1996,” he says.
One of the biggest gigs Marót ever played was with Bëlga on the main stage of the Sziget festival, warming up a crowd of about 60,000 before Faithless came on. He played his song Nem hall, nem lát, nem beszél for more than 10,000 with the Hooligans, the rock act he helped found in 1996. He’s also played with, and in some cases founded, loads of other Hungarian bands, including artsy-indie acts such as Carbonfools, Sickratman and the Homeless Millionaires. For this new album, Marót expects the gigs to be smaller and more intimate, and he’s hoping to play about ten shows in Hungary.
Until those shows can be booked, anyone interested in a taste of Marót’s latest will have to be content with listening to the album, which can be heard on Amazon or Apple.
