ARPAD was born in Budapest, Hungary on October 19, 1980. At the age of 7 ARPAD moved to Los Angeles with his mother. Having been brought up in listening to classical music and opera from his mother (Csilla) and seeing RITCHIE BLACKMORE of Deep Purple, ARPAD showed strong interest in music and this led him to play the guitar. While in junior high school age (15) ARPAD's grandmother gave him his first guitar. ARPAD's early musical influences were bands like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Guns 'N' Roses, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Steve Morse, John Petrucci. ARPAD was so committed to the instrument that he played it all day, every day. He devoted at least 8-12 hours a day. ARPAD claimed that he had learned almost all of Ritchie Blackmore solos from Deep Purple "note from note" by age 18. ARPAD's first band was called Sandman playing there original songs and covers from METALLICA. After recording with underground rockers Chicano at the age of 24 he went on to compose and record his own demo with producer TIBOR PULIUS. Although he had limited resources, he managed to show his unique guitar playing in each song. After completing the recordings he formed rock band KONTRABAND where he worked with legendary producer STEVE ROWLAND (The CURE, PETER FRAMPTON) and ex-drummer (AT THE GATES, CRADLE OF FILTH) ADRIAN ERLANDSSON. ARPAD has left the band to start working on his own solo project SONIC TEMPLE and completed three brand new songs with record-producer JOHN ROBINSON at CLIQUE PRODUCTIONS. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Sonic+Temple">Read more on Last.fm</a>. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.