Rock Monsters Romania

BandBook Agency celebrates its second anniversary with a two-day mini-festival featuring eight artists from its portfolio: Ana Coman, Pinholes, Delta Pe Obraz, Paul Tihan, Cristina Lupu, Andra Andriucă, Prima Dragoste, and Diana Căldăraru. The event takes place at FORM Space in Cluj-Napoca, from January 28 to 29, 2025.

This marks a year since the first BandBook Showcase at the Expirat club in Bucharest and two years since the official launch of the service platform. During this time, the agency’s team and the artists it represents have experienced countless concerts, launches, and tours, fulfilling ideas and dreams along the way.

We spoke with Pinholes, an alternative rock group formed in Iași in 2011, brought together by a shared obsession with their Moldovan roots and Eastern European aesthetics. For over a decade, they’ve traveled across the country, proving that you can dance to sad music with your eyes closed. Drawn to metaphors and unapologetically dramatic, Pinholes aim to find the balance between alternative rock, post-rock, post-punk, and the influences of Alexandru Andrieș, Marin Sorescu, and Negură Bunget. Somewhere in the band’s discography, all these elements come together. 

How does it feel to be part of a showcase festival, and how does it differ from a regular show in your opinion?

We played a couple of showcases in the past, with no great affect or change to our career. So, we are a bit cynical on that end of the events spectrum. The whales and higher ups of the music industry have seen it all and smelled it all and these types of events feel … fake.

Fortunately, this one is different, it feels more specific and honest in its intentions. BandBook took a risk in organizing one of these events outside their usual home in Bucharest. We have partnered with BandBook from some time now on the booking end; things have been going pretty great. They are a hardworking group of people, and it feels from our end like they are a new band trying to “make it happen”. Fighting with the odds and the bitters sweetness of small victories. All the bands in the schedule are great and I can FINALLY see live Prima Dragoste and Delta pe Obraz.

What are you most excited about for the BandBook Showcase?

For the previously mentioned live acts of Prima Dragoste and Delta pe Obraz, but also for the fact that we are going to have a guest guitar player for our set. Our brother Vlad is caught up in a time loop this month and cannot make the show, but we have Florin Hanu from Alone at Parties and slowheart to cover up the delay end.

What is one thing the public probably doesn’t know about you or your music that you’d like to share before the show?

I am not sure that there is something that is not already out there about ourselves or our music. We jokingly call our music style post tristesse, but at the bottom of it we are just trying to write some songs that make us giddy on the inside while playing them live.

As 2024 just ended, what is the most important thing you learned, and what was your best moment of the year?

Everything is exactly the same and as it should be. Nothing really changes `round here in the music purgatory.

One of the best moments was when everything “clicked” while recording Astenie. It was that rare feeling of “woooooow”, “yeeeeee” and “iaca” when the song was done and it was juuuuuust right. We knew we “had it”. We have in the backend some songs that we are working on for years now and we can`t reach that. Yet.

Headlining the last day of Rock`n`Iasi in our 1^st adoptive home town was also really cool.

You’re starting 2025 really strong, so what plans do you have for this year? How many of them are must-achieves for you?

We are gaining momentum to start working on the new album. A couple of songs are out, of course: Atacă-mă cum am învățat & Al treilea divorț, but as time goes by it kind of feels like we wanna` start as fresh as possible.

This past week end one of our older songs (Dispozitiv/aparat de măsurat dorul) just became one of the favourites to play, but it`s such and odd and slow song that currently we cannot find a perfect place for it in our electric set. So, we are still pondering if we want to go sort of full-on guitars and Negura Bunget on our new album or just lay down some acoustics and piano with a pinch of delay to it. But we are getting there.

What message do you have for people and young artists who want to pursue a career like yours?

It really depends on what that young artist is pursuing. I think our generations was really reluctant on learning the ins and outs of social media, and most older bands are really struggling to find a way to work the algorithm and get that delicious viral feeling, or find a way to stay in touch with the new cool kids. So, maybe learn a bit of that.

We take a lot of pride in our independent ways of working. We own everything we play on, we record on and ride on. Everyone in our band knows a bit of everything and also a lot of something. As a group we cover a lot of our needs: booking, recording, merch, composing etc. So maybe a bit of that also.

Realistically, find a job and your music career pursue it as a super serious hobby. There is nothing on top of the music chain just taxes, back pain and dying hope.

 

Interview by Radu Mihai