We all remember Pakistani radio stations blasting hit Romanian songs ‘That’s My Name’ and ‘Stay With Me’ back in 2009 and 2010. The band which became a sensation in Pakistan was Akcent – a Romanian trio, with Adrian Sina in lead and Mihai Gruia and Sorin Stefan in the team. Few are aware of the fact that another member, Marius Nedelcu, was a part of Akcent but left to pursue modeling.
Last year, band Akcent found themselves in court and resulted in disbandment. Adrian Sina kept Akcent as his band name while Mihai Gruia and Sorin Stefan established Mango Records and started calling the duo as TWO.
The band was kind enough to let us have some time from their busy schedule. First of all, we’d like to thank you for supporting Pakistan in the World Cup 2015 and coming here to perform for us.
PMR: It’s been a while since you parted ways with band Akcent, how has been the journey so far?
TWO: We are very happy to see that our new project TWO is growing up and people have started to follow us and listen to our music. It very hard after being 14 years in a project to start again and reconstruct a new project from the beginning but we take it like a challenge and we are happy now to see that our music is in topping charts in many countries.
PMR: Do you guys still keep in touch with the former and current members of band Akcent?
TWO: With Marius Nedelcu, who left Akcent in 2006 we are still in contact. With Adrian, not so much, because after the split he was very frustrated that we continued our work despite his efforts to bring us down. One of the worst think that we will never understand and never forget was a post on Akcent’s official Facebook account, before a TWO concert in Pakistan, to advice people not to go to our concert. It was a shock for us and for Two and Akcent fans and we will never understand why he did this.
PMR: You’ve kept the sound of Akcent in your songs released after thesplit – any particular reason behind it?
TWO: Because Akcent sound is a part of us and even if the people not know, Sorin and I, we were involved from the start in finding the musical style of Akcent. We receive many messages on our Facebook to make music in old Akcent style J
PMR: It’s been a year since you founded Mango Records, how much have you achieved from this new establishment?
TWO: Mango became one of the most important record labels from Romania very fast, and we are very happy about it. We have artists that were or still are number 1 in Romania and this is the best achievement for us; to take a new artist and make him a top artist!
PMR: You have visited Pakistan many times before and after the split, what attracts you most about Pakistan?
TWO: We have so many friends in Pakistan that we consider your country our second home! We will always come with our hearts open in your beautiful country!
PMR: Any new collaboration coming up for fans?
TWO: Yes, we are working on our new collaborations and new songs.
PMR: Which country do you love performing in and what other places do you still you want to perform in?
TWO: We love to travel; we have been doing this for 15 years. Traveling is a part of our lives. We love to perform in Pakistan. We have sung, until now, only in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Hyderabad. We’d love to see and perform also in other cities from Pakistan.
PMR: You write all of your own music; where do you draw inspiration from when you write songs and what’s your favorite part about the process?
TWO: We find our inspiration in life and especially in love!
PMR: What’s next for TWO?
TWO: We are working on our new single that will be released in the end of August! The name is “You and I”.
