Former members, and other stuff:
Hungarian guitarist Tamás Szekeres is now already a living legend because of his creation of the first instrumental heavy metal album ever produced in Eastern Europe. "Guitarmania" was sold out in three weeks after hitting the stores in November 1989(!). "Guitarmania" was extensively promoted throughout Hungary, and was followed in 1990 by an intensive tour of more than 60 dates, for most of which Tamás was the headliner. He opened for bands like Alice Cooper and Deep Purple in front of more than 10,000 people. Immediately following that tour, Tamás began recording demo's for his second album. Meanwhile "Guitarmania" continued to ride high on Hungarian charts. Being born in 1964 in a family of professional musicians, Tamás developed serious interest in music from his very earliest childhood. At 6 he started playing the piano but 8 years later, at the age of 14, he began to study classical guitar. Influenced by the wave of the hardrock and heavy metal movement, which only reached Hungary in the early '80's, his attention soon turned to the electric guitar as well. Not unexpectedly his career started out playing in garage bands. In 1979 he formed his first band under the name Hardtop. In 1981 he signed a deal with record company Hungaroton and his first album titled "45" with the band Carat was released. At 18 he joined the Varga Miklós Band, his first nationally well-known band. As a musician and composer, he also participated on the single Europe, which sold 350,000 copies. As a result of this very succesful single, the album Europe was released. On this album he performed on 9 songs. At the age of 20 he was invited by Lajos Sóm and Tamás Takáts to join the established rock band Senator, with whom he released an album in 1985. The collaboration with this band provided him with serious studio experience and stage exposure. 1986 was a very important year for Tamás. He did his final examination at the Béla Bartók Musical Institute and he started his study of 4 years at the school of music (Zenemüvészeti Föiskola) as a student of László Szendrey-Karper. To improve his skills as a serious musician, he continued his classical music training, meeting the rigid entry requirements of the prestigious Franz Liszt Music Academy of Budapest, ultimately obtaining classical guitar degrees in both Music Education and Performing Arts. Also in this period he started thinking about a possible solo-career. For over 2 years Tamás continued playing with the Varga Miklós Band and decided to work in a studio in Vienna. Meanwhile he became very busy working on the album "Guitarmania". This album was finished in 1988 and was released in 1989. Also in 1989, Tamás gave 60 performances with his own band, Szekeres Tamás Project (STP). In 1990 he was invited to tour with the band East. In 1991 he was invited to join the very energetic band Omen, in which many of his friends were playing. The result was 3 albums and 6 tours in Hungary. In early 1991, Tamás signed a longterm agreement with his Dutch management. "Guitarmania" was released on CD in the Benelux countries and during September of that year a succesful tour brought Tamás all over The Netherlands Besides a Christmas album in autumn 1991, from May 18, 1992, a total of four (!) albums were recorded and released in Hungary and Europe and were followed up by performances everywhere by the Tamás Project Band, simply called TAMAS. In 1994 Tamás was invited to perform with Omega, the biggest rockband ever from Eastern Europe. Renowned musician Gábor Presser also performed with the band. In September that year they both performed at Omega's comeback concert in the Budapest Népstadion in front of 80,000 people. On stage Klaus Meine and Rudolf Schenker (The Scorpions) appeared as guest musicians. Two days after that performance Tamás was flying to Los Angeles to honor the invitation of Ken Tamplin to substitute for the world famous guitarist Joey Tafolla in a coast to coast tour. At the end of 1994, he was invited by Gábor Presser to participate on his new album, followed by 30 live performances. 1995 was the year of the Tamás Guitarschool. His Zenésmagazin Guitarklub column transformed into a "live version", with Tamás training guitars in more than 50 locations. Meanwhile the album "Guitar Hits" was released on which Tamás plays 9 songs of world famous guitarists like Tony MacAlpine, Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. By mid 1995, he was very busy with serious studio work. First, he recorded the international world-version of Omega's "Trans and Dance" ("Transcendent"), and after that, he worked for 4 months on his own new album "Blue Syndicate" together with his old producer Miklós Küronya. Because of the releases of "Transcendent" and "Blue Syndicate" and the forthcoming interest of the press, Tamás appeared in various magazines and newspapers. He also toured together with Tony MacAlpine through North Europe. A single, "Midnight Train", was taken from the album and reached the playlists very soon after its release.
