Peter Brkusic from Nasty Habits has supplied us with a brief history of their new singer:

Attila Scholtz was born in Budapest, Hungary on 7 June 1973. He took two college degrees in teaching English as a foreign language, but he has always been more attracted to the stage than to schools. He formed his first band at the age of 14, and besides learning to play all the basic “rock instruments”, he soon started focusing on singing. His voice has been classically trained since 1995. In 2003, he was awarded “Singer of the Year” at the award show organised by Hungary’s biggest rock club, Wigwam. He has also learnt to play latin percussion and he’s a keen harmonica player. As a founding member and key figure of the Foundation for Hungarian Rock Musicians, Attila worked a lot for years to help young musicians get along in the weird world of music business.

 

He is most well-known, however, as founder and leader of Cry Free, the Hungarian Deep Purple Cover Band, one of the most authentic tribute acts in the whole world, looking back onto a 20-year career, during which they have given more than 500 shows in 8 countries, sometimes playing to thousands (their audience record: 9000 people). When the band celebrated Deep Purple’s 40th anniversary in 2008 with a huge concert, the members of the “real” Deep Purple welcomed them in a video message that they had recorded just for them beforehand.

 

Cry Free is perhaps the only tribute band in the world who have played with three original members of the group they represent on separate occasions. Perhaps the most outstanding of all these collaborations was the one with Jon Lord (R.I.P.), as the legendary keyboardist/composer toured the world playing his extraordinary show with some of the best symphony orchestras and conductors, and Cry Free. Until the great maestro’s untimely death, Attila and his band accompanied him on stage 14 times in 4 different countries, reaching as far as Asia.

 

Apart from Jon Lord (and other rock legends such as Ken Hensley of Uriah Heep and Bobby Rondinelli of Rainbow/Black Sabbath), Cry Free have also performed with founding Deep Purple members Ian Paice and Nick Simper. During the Simper collaboration, the bass player’s own band, Austrian musicians Nasty Habits made a mental note that singer Attila Scholtz may be of good use for them in the future. And indeed, when original NH singer Christian Schmied couldn’t make it to their Russian tour early 2015, they brought in the Hungarian singer, who came to the rescue. A few months later he was announced as an official member, and now the new Nasty Habits line-up complete with Attila Scholtz is awaiting a handful of shows this autumn with Nick Simper on board again, of course.