At the age of 11, there were already parties at his apartment
In his book, Révés tells a long story about how he had a hard time coping with his parents’ divorce. “My parents’ divorce hurt me a lot, but I don’t experience it as a burden, but as a benefit of life, which is a forgivable sin. We especially keep difficult memories in our hearts, and this was a rich source for me as a child. Being an only child, my parents’ bickering took a toll on me. Mainly because my father was an exemplary man, with his serenity, humor, and intellect, and when I lost him, it took a toll on me. But I don’t want to cover it up, because many people experienced this drama, but as a sensitive child, I was even more receptive to experiencing this drama as a drama.”
After his parents divorced, he mostly lived alone in their childhood apartment, at which point music filled the singer’s days. “There was a lot of partying and listening to music in that apartment when I was 11 years old. I think my 2.7 GPA at the end of the year is a testament to what I went through. Then the absence of my father, with the obedience of my mother, made it possible for me to lead such a life.”
He lived with his mother’s girlfriend in the 1960s, and Révész learned from his father only years later that there was a love relationship between the two:
“My mother moved out with her girlfriend, Ilona, and they lived in another apartment. I think they really wanted to live out their desires together, so I tactfully gave them space, but at the same time I loved the solitude. Every evening, if I felt like it, I had dinner with them, they treated me great, I can honestly say that at the age of 12 I didn’t know what it was really about. I enjoyed the love and care of both of them. Years later, my father took me up to Mátra and told me about the relationship between my mother and Ilona. My father was a big girl, he was the reason for my mother to go through with the divorce.”
Everyone turned around in their room, from Charlie to Béla Radics
Sándor Révész played music in the bands Szivárny and then Echo at the age of sixteen, and he found playing music much more interesting than going to school. In his book, Póka refers to Egon as a brother and friend, and their friendship was particularly intertwined during these times.
“My mother sent me away from home, which my academic results helped her to do. I put everything on the music, but we had already been fighting for three or four months. At that time, I played in an amateur band with Egon Póka, who called his parents to tell them what had happened, and they took me in. I lived with them for two years. Egon shared his bed with me, we lived in a ten-square-meter room, and all the giants of the music world at that time visited us: Bill, Charlie, Béla Radics, Lajos Som (later the founder of Piramis) and Tibusz Tátrai.”
By the way, both he and Egon Póka were kicked out of high school. “We didn’t do anything extraordinary. We had long hair, we didn’t go to school, we smoked. We were banned from all the high schools in Budapest, it was a big stunt.”
Messy years after great harmony
Piramis became the star band of the second half of the seventies here, but the band also went on international tours, in Germany, for example, they had a joint party with Steppenwolf. Piramis was founded by bassist Lajos Som, with whom working together went smoothly in the beginning.
“Retrospectively, I feel that Piramis was in the tolerated category. Lajos Som fought his way through the bureaucratic circles that helped as many people as possible get to know Piramis. For a long time we were very satisfied with Lajos Som’s performance, then when he was no longer able to work intensively with the band, we were very sad, and I was the one who voiced this in the band. I don’t even know where I got the courage. After the great harmony with Lajos, we had some turbulent years.”
Lajos Som struggled with a serious addiction, so Révész always emphasizes that we should not identify him with this, but remember him as a musician:
“I really, really ask the music-loving public not to identify him with the last fifteen years he produced with his addiction. Lajos was a very straightforward, lovable guy, and what his addiction turned him into is a drama, but I bless him regularly in my heart, I loved him very much.”
Due to disagreements, Révész announced at a concert in Berlin in 1981 that this was the last time Piramis was on stage in this form.
“I decided to quit right there on stage. I introduced the band in English, when I came to introduce myself, I said that the band will perform in this form for the last time. I didn’t say that I was leaving the band, since they wouldn’t have dealt with it in Berlin, but the other members of the band knew what it meant, and we came home from Berlin to Budapest in a frozen mood.”
Révés said about Lajos Som in the interview: “I don’t know if he forgave me, but I forgave him”
About the Egon the Spider case
His friendship with Egon Póka was very important, which is why the question arose as to how he feels about the accusations against Póka, that one of the founders and managing directors of the Kőbánya Music Studio regularly held and kissed the school’s students, typically aged 18-23, and several female employees. and his teacher.
“I have no idea where these things can come from, I would like to talk to the young girls about what exactly happened. Egon had a very direct and friendly attitude, but I never found him offensive. I mean, there’s never been an instance of me standing by him as his friend and him speaking abusively to me, so when these allegations came out, I thought I knew him too well to believe that. He was a guy with a great sense of humor and I can imagine that humor crossed a line. I don’t take a position on this issue because I wasn’t there.”
He was looking for the quiet after the successes
According to Sándor Révész, although he was an active drug user, he gave up drugs after Piramis.
“I wasn’t drinking at the time. In general, many people in our profession lived on alcohol, but it played no role in my life, because it gave me such a headache the next day. I smoked a lot of hashish, but the smoke in pubs, for example, and loud music bothered me a lot, I tried to protect my throat from them too. I lived these experiences with my girlfriends or wives, but I avoided these places. I live in a healthy state of schizophrenia, I always had this duality that what I do is active, but in the meantime I was looking for stillness, another pace of life. After a feverish success, I didn’t want to live by going to a public place anymore, but I went to a friend’s house and we talked in the armchair until morning.”
Révész had a stroke in March 2022, but he bore his illness with patience, he planned his book for his seventieth birthday, but due to his recovery, the publication was delayed by a year. According to him, he is very cheerful and happy with life, he is still sluggish, but he has forty songs in his drawer with lyrics and music.
