Pe 2 iulie, in Londophone Pub din Bucuresti vin Morzsa Records, o trupa care se descrie anti-folk, sound-ul lor situandu-se undeva intre indie-pop si old school americana.Alcatuita din muzicieni veniti din cele patru zari – Texas, California, Budapesta,Insulele Reunion – Morzsa Records si-a stabilit cartierul general in Budapesta, iar in prezent se afla in turneu. Au trecut prin Serbia, Ungaria, Polonia, Ucraina, in calendarul concertelor urmand Romania si Moldova. Motiv pentru care i-am adresat cateva intrebari solistului trupei, Freddie Schulze, care a raspuns atat de frumos si de plastic incat am decis ca cel mai bine e sa lasam interviul netradus si sa nu stricam farmecul limbajului sau.
How and where did you all meet? How did you form this band?
I came to a house party at Zoltan Gluck’s flat and we discovered that we were both drunk and both played instruments and wrote songs. So we kept drinking and playing and when our whiskey cloud lifted we discovered that we were a band. Our buddy Justin rode his bike into Budapest from London with a disgusting leg disease and on our trip to Balaton to cure it we met Barz Endre who beat on some pots around a campfire. Justin and I used to play music in Texas in a band called the Heartstring Stranglers with our current cello player Emma Hertz so he joined us on a couple shows along with Endre. Jerome Li-Thiao-Te was a friend of Zoltan’s from who-knows-where and stooped to join us with some gigs before deciding finally that he loved us. He plays in maybe 12 million bands in Budpest so it is really nice that makes time for us. However, Emma and Jerome are not playing this gig though so who cares! So in short, as far as this tour is concerned, Zoltan is a Californian-Hungarian, Endre is Budapesti with a nagy turul in his heart, and Justin and myself are both old buddies from Texas who used to give each other ‘band jobs’.
What is your musical background, did you play in other projects before Morzsa Records?
Yessir. I was a founding member of the Heartstring Stranglers in Denton, TX.. Justin’s solo act is called Har Herrar but he also played in many of my favorite Texas bands like Mt. Righteous and Blank Blank. Endre is a recovering metal-head and Zoltan has actual music training which he abandoned to pursue leftist sociology, I assume after dropping acid while listening to Woody Guthrie vinyls. Jerome is everywhere but now Ipar Kutya is I think his most successful band though he has a solo project called Jeromos and Emma used to play with some other Texas greats like Peter and the Wolf and a bit with the Theater Fire from Fort Worth. She also writes her own music but wont let any of us hear it.
For the people who haven’t listened to you yet, how would you characterize your music?
No bullshit punk hearts with sweet and pretty folkish sweaters over too-tight t-shirts.
You are described as an “anti-folk outfit”. Why anti-folk? Do you consider yourself as anti-folk?
When I was a kid anti-folk was vaguely political and lyrically aggressive music played with acoustic instruments. I think we do that most of the time. But we also really like americana and some of us dig the blues and I really love hipster pop and twee garbage so I dont think anti-folk really makes sense anymore. That’s kind of why I use it still, I think it’s a pretty empty descriptor. Maybe ‘not-folk’ is better.
How is the writing process for your band? Who comes with the idea for a song, who writes the lyrics and what inspires you when you are writing?
With the exception of Endre who thinks songwriting is for pussies, we are all songwriters in the band. A few of the tunes we play are older tunes of mine from the Heartstring Stranglers but I think I wrote maybe 50 or 60 songs since moving to Budapest but most of them are crap. We play a few of the not so crummy ones. Zoltan doesn’t write as often as I do but he does write much better. I’m not sure what percent of his total songs we play but they are much more carefully crafted whereas mine are sort of like playing donkey kong with your ears. Justin has written quite a few songs as well and he recently finished his first more officially ‘morzsa records’ song and its gorgeous. We used to cover a song of his for a while when he was out of town and now he’s including a couple of his private collection into our public works.
None of that answers the question though. I can only speak for myself but I write maybe 3-4 songs a month and throw out most of them. Right now i’m working on songs about puppies. I am doing this because I am sleeping next to 8 beautiful Magyar Agar puppies (which are free by the way if you promise to neuter and vaccinate them). When I’m depressed about girls I write a lot more. I’ve been writing a lot about Texas lately and also I’ve been working on stuff for our label Pleasemachine who is putting out our album in a couple weeks. Songs dont come from ideas but ideas are used for songs in my experience. They just come out of you. You can’t help it. It’s like pooping.
Nowadays everybody seems to be using a lot of electronic instruments in their music. Why do you prefer acoustic instruments?
In Texas I had this idea that if everyone was doing post-modern music, we should one-up them by doing post-apocalypse music – music after oil that told stories about our long duree global suicide. That’s what the heartstring stranglers were about it for the second album. Here it’s more because we don’t have much money and we like the way they feel. I do get pretty weary of all this electro fetishism though. It’s fun to dance to and I like most of it but its limiting in so many other ways and it lacks this grisly filth that playing acoustic has.
You all live in Budapest. How is the music scene there? Do you have a lot of gigs there or do you have more concerts in other cities?
We are making a scene here that suits us. It’s getting better and we have great friends and supporters but so far, if we’re just talking about the sort of style we bring to the table, the scene is us. I don’t mean that to sound messianic or self-aggrandizing but we hear the word ‘unique’ used to describe us so often. Back home we’d just be one more group of hipster indie rockers but here in Budapest we stand out a bit. Hopefully it’s a ‘big fish in a small pond’ situation and not a ‘small fish in a who-gives-a-shit’ situation. We’ll see! We love our new friends at Pleasemachine and Massolit books (both quite close to each other in the 7th district) are very excited about the sort of scene we can build together. This touring stuff in pretty new for the band and very new for me. Justin has more experience with this sort of thing. He’s a hobo.
I saw that you usually have gigs in small places, places that are not necessarily concert venues. What do you like about these places and which is the weirdest place that you played in?
These are best!!!! There might be some disagreement in our ranks about this but my home, Denton, TX, is the home of the house show. My only wish since moving here has been to find that particular environment again but it is so hard. Right now my favorite venue in town in the Siberia shoe store run by our label but they aren’t really a venue. they just let us play there sometime. We have enjoyed playing Massolit Books in Budapest and Krakow as well. I think one of my favorite shows this year has been in a bar in Krakow that was completely unplanned. We went in for a drink and we had our instruments and the beautiful bartender, Talia, asked us to play a song and it turned into a really fun show with total room participation. The bar was called Cafe Philo.
Non traditional venues have a totally different feeling to them. They are much more intimate, more involved. There is a direct unmediated link between the band and the audience and an active will to listen and to engage.
You will play in Romania for the first time. What do you know about Romania, have you been here before or is this your first trip here?
It’s my first trip and Justin and Endre’s too but Zoltan has been before. We have oodles of Romanian friends and colleagues and exes here in Budapest from Romania so we are all pretty excited about exploring a bit. I have been told by two friends of mine from my home that Cluj in particular is like the Romanian Denton (my home town). I have to admit I am a little intimidated by Bucharest. I’m not great with boulevards.
Interviu: Raluca Tamas
Tagged in: concert, interviu, londophone pub, morzsa records
