Interview: She Past Away

Back in early 2013 İdris Akbulut of She Past Away agreed to do an interview with me.
Being the first English Otranto article then I would like to just repost the whole thing here, but keep in mind that it's already more than a year old.

They are currently THE insiders’ tip of the New Wave underground – She Past Away. The duo from Turkey had already been active on stage for several years and had released a three song EP in 2010, but it was in 2012 with their first full length album “Belirdi Gece” that they had an international breakthrough.
Critiques for this work almost couldn’t be any better, and I myself think every single one of the ten songs is quite ingenius in its respective way and I won’t hesitate a second to call myself an enthusiastic new fan. Bass player İdris Akbulut talked to the Otranto archives…


İdris, your musical style reminds me a lot of classical dark wave bands of the 80′s and early 90′s. Is that intentional? 

We are heavily influenced by the 80’s music. The albums we love to listen to mostly belong to that period. Our music is an outcome of this influence; however, there has never been a band we tried to sound like. It is totally natural. 

And how would you describe your music, and what are your musical backgrounds, inspirations and influences?

We both had different musical experiences – we played with bands in different genres from Death Metal to Indie Rock. There has been a lot by which we have been influenced and inspired: Italian erotic cinema of the 70’s to B-Movies, Giallos to Spaghetti Western, Coldwave to NDW and the cold attitude of monotonous drum machines belonging to the 80’s are among our main influences. Besides, the gradually deepening depression all about the land we are living on is naturally affecting us. 

Can you tell us about your song writing process? What is first – music or lyrics? 

Riffs first, then the lyrics. In general, we can say this is our priority in music. 

What kind of topics do you sing about? And where do you get the inspirations for the lyrics? 

 In our lyrics, roughly, we address wandering souls, haziness, obscurity, nullity, etc. alluding to religious and social pressure and exploitation. We don’t endeavour to give any direct messages but we can say we complain about the situation we are living in.

To me a lot of the atmosphere that makes your music unique lies within Volkan’s vocals and the use of Turkish language. Why did you chose to sing in your native language? Wouldn’t it be easier to reach an international audience with English lyrics? 

 We always made music in English with our previous bands. Making music in our own language seemed quite genuine to us, so we gave it a go and were quite pleased with it. In our country, New Wave and its sub genres have never attained a real audience. Thanks to our lyrics in our mother tongue, Turkish, we have managed to introduce this music to some people. 

Do you plan to publish the lyrics to your songs? I’m sure many will be interested in what you are saying. 

Yes, we have put our lyrics on our Facebook page both in Turkish and in English.

You announced several dates for concerts in Europe in 2013. Have you played outside Turkey before? 

We haven’t ever played abroad yet. So far, we have two certain gigs in Germany. [info: May 16, 2013 in Cologne in MTC club, and May 17, 2013 at the Shoegazer Festival in Bielefeld]. 

In the age of the internet many (like myself) will have come across your music via video streaming. Where can we buy your music? Are there CDs, and maybe some merchandise like t-shirts? 

Our debut album ‘Belirdi Gece’ is being released on vinyl in February 2013 from Fabrika Records. It can also be found digitally on several internet sites and a CD release is also under consideration. We have t-shirt designs to be shared soon as well [info: now exclusively at UNKNOWN PLEASURE].

And last but not least: What are your next steps? Are you working on new material? 

Among our future plans is completing our recent recordings and releasing a new album. Besides, we are trying to draw upon the concert offers as much as we can in order to reach people. 

We’re very much looking forward to that! I will definitely follow your future career and I hope I will be seeing you guys in Cologne. Thanks a lot, İdris!