Their latest album 'The Ravished Bride' proves Kočani Orkestar is still one of the funkiest Balkan brass bands out there. When we learned they were playing the Antwerp Roma theatre, we simply had to be there. Just before the start of the concert we managed to get bandleader Djeladin Demirov apart for a short interview.
Djeladin your latest album was produced by Stéphane Karo and Vincent Kenis from Divano Production. They are known for their desire to push the limits of gipsy music. When they come to you with their ideas, do you guys always like what they are proposing?
Djeladin Demirov (clarinet & voice): "Sometimes there's a little negotiating involved because it's not always easy for us to put their ideas into practice. None of the band members of Kočani Orkestar knows how to read or write music, so we have to do everything by ear."
The new album is entitled 'The Ravished Bride' and after 'Alone At My Wedding' it's the second album centred on a wedding theme. You guys have been touring the world for some years now, how much of what you guys do is still related to the wedding traditions?
Djeladin Demirov: "Almost everything we do on stage is in some way or another inspired by the wedding ceremonies where we performed traditionally. Some of the songs we play are really old traditional songs that we give a modern spin. Whether we play a concert or at a wedding, our style and our songs are exactly the same."
Kočani Orkestar got its first international boost when the band was featured in Emir Kusturica's film "Time Of The Gypsies" ("Dom Za Vesanje", 1988, red.). More recently your song 'Siki Siki Baba' was used for the movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan". What did you think of that movie? Of course it's a comedy but it doesn't exactly paints a nice picture of life in Eastern Europe.
Djeladin Demirov: "Having our song featured in that movie was just about the best publicity we could think of. It's true that it's not the most conventional film, but that does not really have an impact on us or on our music."
Over the years there have been a number of changes in the line-up of Kočani Orkestar...
Djeladin Demirov: "Yes, let me tell you the band's history in short. From the beginning there has always been one family that was in charge of the band. When Kočani Orkestar first started out it was the Veliovi family with Naat Veliov as the band leader. When he decided to leave, Ismael Saliev, the lead saxophone player, took over and today it's my family, the Demirovi clan, who are in charge of the band. Personally I didn't like the previous bandleaders of Kočani too much. I worked with Ismael Saliev and he was a bit of a self-involved man, always boasting about being the best and so on. When I took over as bandleader, I decided I didn't want to make the same mistake. My main priority is that everybody in the band feels good and enjoys playing music."
Many times I've seen different gipsy band fraternizing backstage and joining in playing each others music. Is it really as easy as they make it seem out to be?
Djeladin Demirov: "Yes, if you know how to play it's really easy. We've just finished a project where we collaborated with the Italian musicians, Paolo Fresu, a trumpeter, and Antonello Salis, who's a pianist. These guys are jazz musicians, so we had to fuse our styles. A good musician listens, interprets what he hears and then plays his own improvisations; that's our trade if you want, so it's not difficult."
You're working with a new young lead vocalist now (Ajnur Azizov, red.). How exactly did you find him?
Djeladin Demirov: "In Kočani, the village we're from, everybody knows each other. It's a very tight-knit community. When we need a new musician or singer, we just ask around and someone always turns up somehow."
Historically the music Kočani plays has its roots in the Turkish military bands. It's a part of history that's easily forgotten in western Europe, but at one time the borders of the Ottoman Empire stretched all the way to Vienna. Has much of that Turkish culture survived in the Balkans?
Djeladin Demirov: "Yes, absolutely. In the band almost everyone speaks Turkish. Musically the traces are strongest in Macedonia. In places like Croatia and Slovenia for example, they don't use the same instruments we do."
You guys are from Macedonia, part of the former Yugoslavian Republic, a region that for many years was mostly known for all the political and military conflicts that were going on. How did you experience that period? Did the war have an impact on your jobs as musicians?
Djeladin Demirov: "No, the actual war mostly took place in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia. We were lucky enough to escape most of the violence and we always continued to play at weddings or do the odd concert."
And now that Macedonia is an independent republic, has that changed things a lot?
Djeladin Demirov: "Well, we're still not a member of the European Union, so certain things have remained the same. If we want to travel we still need visa and that can make things difficult at times. I don't like to meddle in politics, but for us it would be a big improvement if we would be part of the European Union."