Interview with Hosenfefer, November 2006

NB - Please introduce yourself.
H - Hi, I'm Filip and I play guitar in HOSENFEFER. We are coming from Kosovska Mitrovica (Kosovo, SERBIA) and we play HATE FUELED ALCOHOL DRIVEN DOWN'N'DIRTY PUNK'N'ROLL!

NB - How did Hosenfefer start, who are the members...?
H - When we were teenagers only things we could do to have fun in this shit town is to drink and listen music. And these were only things we were doing. Then we decided to try and play our own music and we started a band. We played our first gig in '97 so I consider that year as HOSENFEFER start. In 2002 we recorded our first album. Band members are: Pero (vocals), Filip (guitar), Draza (bass) and Mladen (drums).

NB - Kosovska Mitrovica is not really the r'n'r place I guess, or maybe I'm wrong? Are there more similar bands in Kosovo or Southern Serbia? Are there places where you can play, how many people come to the gigs, are there good CD shops...? How is music life there?
H - Depends from which side you look. Mitrovica is great place to be in a r'n'r band because there are thousands of things that pisses you of so we have a lot of subjects for our songs. From the other side, like I said in previous answer, it's a shit hole. There are some r'n'r bands and that makes me happy. I hope they will also do something more than playing here from time to time. Last year we tried to do something and we opened a club where we had organized more gigs for one year than it had been organized in Mitrovica in last ten years but, unfortunately, we had to close it. There are few places where we can play and there are about 50-100 people who are always coming to r'n'r shows. So we do most of our shows all over Serbia.

NB - What did you release so far and are you working on some new recordings?
H - So far we have the following releases:
- "Hosenfefer" CD (2002. Kizmiaz Records)
- "Hangovers and Heartaches" CD (2003. Kizmiaz Rec, 2006. Basement Blues Rec)
- "Knife In My Back" 7"vinyl (2004. Tian An Men 89 Records)
- "Keep On Drivin'!" CD (2005. Kizmiaz Rec, 2006. Basement Blues Rec)
- "Rocka' Live!" DVD (2005.Kizmiaz Rec)
- PSYCHO-SONIC BORIS and HOSENFEFER- "Rocka' Live!" CD+DVD (2005.Kizmiaz Rec., 2006. Bsasement Blues records)
- V/A- SERBIAN GUITAR ATTACK! CD (2006.Basement Blues Records) On 4th of November we are going to record the album with PSYCHO-SONIC BORIS (this time with our songs- just two covers) and two new HOSENFEFER songs. We will also do a HUMPERS covers for upcoming "Positively sick on the streets of Serbia- A tribute to Humpers" album.

NB -Did you contact labels outside of Serbia and what was their reaction?
H - We already have a 7" vinyl out on Tian An Men 89 label from France. Soon we will have another 7" out in the USA on VINEHELL records. I would really like to have all our recordings on vinyl and I hope that somebody will release it in future on 12". To be honest, I didn't work that much on searching for a label to release our material (I was always working more on searching for places to play gigs). That is next step I will take after recording of a new material because one of my goals is to have all our albums on vinyl. Maybe No Brains Records could be the first label to have a HOSENFEFER 12"? Ha ,ha ha!

NB - What do you guys do next to playing in the band? How do you spend your day?
H - All of us have jobs. We are spending most of our free time hanging out with our friends. Pero is married and he will become a father in two months. So now it's more difficult for us to be in a band than before but we are trying to do our best.

NB - I see on your website that you like to eat, cook and drink. So can you give some good recipe to No Brains Readers? What's your favorite drink? Some good local beer?
H - Yes, we love eating and drinking. We used to make a lot BBQ's for us and our friends, with lot of beer and meat. These parties usually go on all day long. And beside BBQ our singer Pero always makes a "HOSENFEFER MUCKALICA". He's the only person who knows a recipe for it so I can't tell you how he makes it. Only thing I can tell you is that there's a lot of meat, pepper and onion inside and it is hot as hell. Our favorite drinks are Rakija and beer. The best local beer is Jelen.
Here is one beautiful photo for all meat eaters and beer drinkers (muckalica, Jelen beer and bbq).

NB - You have really great lyrics. Who writes them?
H - I wrote almost all the lyrics, then my brother Rajko and Boris.

NB -What are the things you hate most? Listening to your songs it seems alot, but try to make a short list.
H - I think that we are normal people and we hate things that all normal people hate, the difference is that we write songs about things we hate (there are a lot of things in Mitrovica to write about) and that makes us feel better. So you can make a list by yourself while listening to our songs. For some additional "things that HOSENFEFER hates" you have to wait for our next releases.

NB - Your favorite bands?
H - Mainly we listen punk-rock. We love 50's trash rock'n'roll, 60' garage punk (Sonics, Back From The Grave & Teenage Shutdown compilations...), Stooges, MC5, Radio Birdman, New York Dolls, Saints, Ramones, Cramps, Dead Boys, Pagans, Kids, Misfits, Headcoats, Lazy Cowgirls, Dead Moon, Devil Dogs, Humpers, Oblivians, Gories, Teengenerate, New Bomb Turks... this list could go on and on. My favorite labels are CRYPT and RIP OFF, because, in my opinion, these are only labels that haven't released a bad record.

NB - Your favorite movies?
H - There are a lot of movies I like, but here are two legendary Serbian movies for which I'm sure that any of us will put on his top ten list: "Ko To Tamo Peva" and "Maratonci Trce Pocasni Krug".

NB - If you could wish 3 wishes that would come true, what would these be?
H - I don't know... really... I was never thinking about it... I've never had some big wishes... but for sure I would wish to live in some normal place and to make some money from playing so I wouldn't have to wake up early every morning and go to work that I don't like.

NB - Anything you want to say for the end?
H - Have fun and listen Rock'n'Roll!