Barış Manço, Cem Karaca, Erkin Koray, Mavi Işıklar, Tanju Okan, Fikret Kızılok and Erol Evgin are only some of the acts who’ve left their marks on the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s in Turkish music.
These acts and their songs — despite still maintaining their popularity — are gaining new life these days in the hands of a new band called Retrobüs.
Note that that’s no misprint. The band’s name is a play on words — a combination of the word “retro” and the name of İstanbul’s popular public transport system, metrobus — for the band takes its listeners on a journey back in time through not only their songs but also their looks and even the lead singer’s voice.
The band’s founder and front man is Fırat Şahverdi, a 24-year-old multi-instrumentalist who dropped out of the music conservatory.
In addition to their repertoire, Şahverdi’s voice and the band’s costumes and even their hairstyles are all part of the concept that is Retrobüs.
Şahverdi says what they’re doing is not merely impersonating the legendary acts of Turkish music, and he is quick to underline that they’re not trying to replace any of these legends either. They’re not aiming to become the new Cem Karaca’s of Turkey, or the Barış Manço’s of the 2010s.
“We’re not trying to be one of them,” Şahverdi says during a recent interview in İstanbul with Sunday’s Zaman.
So much so that the band’s motto has become “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” It has become Şahverdi’s habit to repeat this sentence at each of their concerts, and he was again doing so at the end of their show preceding this interview. The band seeing themselves as a “means of taking audiences back in time” is a sure sign of their respect for their job.
“We’re not an egocentric band,” adds guitarist Murat Yerden. The 29-year-old says what they’re doing is “just a theatrical show,” adding that he enjoys seeing people enjoy the music they’re playing on the stage.
Like his band mate, Yerden is also a multi-instrumentalist, and he plays the oud, kemenche, guitar and bağlama. He calls himself a man whose “entire business is music.” Playing music is my life, he says during the interview, adding, “At times I cannot [play] the least I can do is listen to music,” strumming his guitar all along.
Şahverdi says the reason they chose the name Retrobüs for their band is that they wanted something modest but at the same time something that wouldn’t be easily forgotten. And he says they’ve spent quite a lot of time until they finally came up with the name.
Some people who hear about them for the first time cannot help but ask, “What, a band called metrobüs?” But their explanation is clear: “We built a vehicle on which to take people to the good old days. We are the drivers of this vehicle. We take listeners on a round trip in music.”
The band has already been discovered by several record labels whose representatives offered them album deals, but the duo says they have no intentions of making an album. “We formed Retrobüs with the songs … of legendary acts. Why would we want to re-record their songs? We wouldn’t want to turn the admiration we receive into dislike,” they explain.
The duo also notes that they don’t want to be remembered as a passing trend in Turkish music, or merely “impersonators of famous acts.”
Playing on the same stage with Manço, Karaca
Retrobüs plays regular live gigs at 12 shopping malls across İstanbul as well as taking to the stage at music festivals in Turkey.
Yerden says they prefer playing live gigs instead of confining themselves in the recording studio. “We speak to a truly wide audience, from seven-year-olds to 70-year-olds; that is the entire society. And we’re neither part nor representatives of any ideology. Each [ideological] segment [in this society] has had its share of the past; they might have happy or sad memories of it. [But] now this enables our music to be embraced by people from all age groups,” Yerden adds.
According to Yerden and Şahverdi, hearing words of praise from both a couple in their 60s and their son in his 30s at the same concert is the best part of it.
“Sometimes during our concerts I close my eyes and at these moments, listening to Fırat’s vocals feels like I’m playing on the same stage with Barış Manço or Cem Karaca, let alone the audience feeling as though they are actually listening to them,” adds Yerden.
Şahverdi’s favorite moments onstage are the times when he sings songs by Cem Karaca. “Because I love him and his music and when I sing his songs, I feel like he’s there with me,” he adds. “I know my limits; I cannot argue that I sing exactly like he did. But although my vocal cords hurt whenever I try to sing like him, it still makes me happy. At times my voice gets so exhausted that I immediately shift to a song by İlhan İrem to relax my vocal cords a bit, because [İlhan İrem’s] voice is softer. But the audience thinks it’s about my talent; shifting from one voice to another instantly…”
He adds: “As long as this band exists, people [from younger generations] will keep learning about these legendary musicians through our performances. The most common feedback we get is, ‘I never used to listen to this kind of music, but now I do.’ Even the new generation is not really fond of its own era’s music, so they prefer listening to classic hits.”
The duo Retrobüs say the most difficult part of creating and maintaining the concept behind the band is finding genuinely retro garments. These days retro is the trend everywhere and because of the high demand, prices are high at stores that sell second hand clothes or those that rent old costumes.
“The shirt I’m wearing right now used to belong to my late brother-in-law,” says Şahverdi. “Our relatives have started browsing through their closets for unused clothes for us to wear.”
(Today’s Zaman)
