A lot can change in 25 years. For Kerekes Band, that means turning a tradition entirely on its head.
Back in 1995, they were Kerekes Ensemble, a true died-in-the-wool folkloric group from Eger in northern Hungary. Their music was of the táncház, the dance houses of the country’s rural villages. Completely acoustic, their set-up was built around shepherd’s flute player Zsombor Fehér’s journey to the deepest roots of the culture. “I learnt the music exactly as it was played by the village musicians. I was soaking everything up, not just the music, but the lifestyle. We tended the soil and cut the grass and harvested together. We wanted to get the whole vibe, how it all fits together.” And so it went, learning the old ways and playing the old music. But eventually the táncház started to grow suffocating. So they invented. Maybe Csaba Námor would play an unexpected chord on the koboz lute, or Zsombor would add a bluesy lick on his flute – and then all bets were off.
Kerekes Ensemble were now Kerekes Band, and they went wild. The traditional gardon (a cello-like percussion instrument) became a drum kit, a bass guitar joined the viola and the koboz, and Zsombor took his shepherd’s flute to the next level, creating a one-of-a-kind chromatic version and adding any electronic effects he could – distortion, delay, wah-wah, chorus. They kept the repertoire the same, but their sound was now as much inspired by Jimi Hendrix, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Kool & the Gang as by the fields and folk of Hungary. It wasn’t actually too much of a leap. Drummer (and Zsombor’s brother) Vikor Fehér felt the connections come naturally: “We realised that the energy in táncház is exactly the same as rock music. The way they beat the drum is the same way we beat the gardon, how we blow the flute has exactly the same strong energy. It has to be loud, and you have to dance!”
Like when Dylan went electric in ’66, people took some persuading. “Everyone was looking at us suspiciously,” says Zsombor. “The folk musicians said ‘what are you doing with our music?’ and on the other hand, the rockers were unsure too. We created a genre between genres. It gave our music a sort of outlaw feeling that we’re doing something very new and very different.” The gamble paid off: their first album as Kerekes Band, 2006’s Pimasz, was an explosion of funk, punk, disco and folk – and still a classic today. That spirit never left them. Now with 25 years and nine albums under their belts, Kerekes Band are one of Hungary’s most popular folk groups, and kings of their own flavour of ‘Ethno-funk.’
2020 was going to be an extravaganza year for the group. It started strong with a sold-out, career-spanning barnstormer in Budapest in January, and there were shows booked from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Isle of Wight and a converted mill in the Hungarian countryside, before COVID-19 put paid to those best laid plans. No matter, though. Kerekes Band’s music is a colourful riot full of fun, flute and funk. After 25 years, there’s no slowing down; the celebrations will continue for a long time to come.
Photo: (l-r) Ákos Csarnó, Viktor Fehér and Zsombor Fehér of Kerekes Band live at Müpa Palace of Arts, Budapest, 2020, by Kotschy Gábor.