In Conversation with 123

One of our contributors, Mustafa Çankaya, recently sat down with a few members of the Turkish band 123 to talk about music, life in Turkey and everything in between. 123 features Dilara Sakpınar on vocals and synth, Feryin Kaya on bass guitar, Berke Can Özcan on drums and percussion, Arda Erboz on guitar and trombone, and Seçil Kuran on vibraphone and percussion. 

Mustafa Çankaya: Let’s start from the very beginning, the band was formed in 2004. How did you get started?

Berke: That’s right, I formed the group in 2004 together with Feryin and Burak, who is no longer with the band but used to play the keyboard for us. The three of us just started playing together – during those days we were already playing together in another band called Dandadadan – and kept at it for quite awhile. Dilara joined us in 2009, right after we recorded our first album, Aksel. The album, which only featured the three of us, came out at the end of 2009, but from that moment on we started playing concerts as a team of four and our music began to feature vocals. Since then we’ve made four albums, after which Burak left the band and two new members (Arda and Seçil) joined us. We recorded our fifth album (featuring the five current members) in January and it will be released in May 2014.

MÇ: Have you started playing songs from the new album?

Berke: Definitely, for example tonight we’ll play 15 songs, and 9 to 10 of them are from the new album. I mean, the band as it is right now (with five members) has been together for a  year and we’ve been consistently playing these brand new songs over the past year – our audience has already been listening to these songs.

MÇ: I think any listeners who discover you are curious about the band’s name – is it one, two, three or one hundred twenty three?

Berke: Yes, everyone is always asking about that!
Feryin: Actually back when Berke, me and Burak started playing in 2003, we became completely obsessed with songs that were 123 bpm (beats per minute), especially after this non-stop two-hour electronic set. That’s where the name of the group came from. Also, all the songs on our second album Stereo Love, which was actually recorded before Aksel, our first album, were recorded with 123 metronome. If you count it out, all the songs on that album have the same tempo.

MÇ: Compared to mainstream bands, you guys have a different sound. How would you describe the music you’re making? 

Berke: We’ve actually gone in a lot of different directions with our music. Aksel sounds like instrumental film music. Stereo Love, which was recorded before Aksel, was more like electro-jazz, then Arve was very vocal-based and acoustic, on Lara we went to pop, and our album coming out in May, Anya, has more of a rock sound when comparing it to our older stuff. The idea from the beginning was always to embrace change – we aren’t afraid of mixing things up and trying something new.

MÇ: Are there any poets, authors or musicians who have influenced your music?

Feryin: You could say the northern musicians have influenced us.
Berke: Our music has been affected more by Scandinavian culture and artists such as Jaga Jazzist and Arve Henrickson – we really like Norwegian jazz musicians.

MÇ: I think Arve was featured on your album, right?

Berke: Yeah, we recorded a track with Arve Henricksen,
Feryin: We also count the National Bank, Thomas Dybdahl, and Little Dragon from Sweden (Dilara really likes them) as influences.
Berke: Each of us has been influenced by very different musicians. For example Dilara really loves Sade and I feel the same about Pearl Jam, and although we as individual musicians have been shaped by those artists, which in turn affects what we bring to 123, 123’s sound doesn’t really reflect this – I mean our music doesn’t sound like Sade or Pearl Jam. But this situation, I mean our different tastes in music, is really an advantage for 123.

MÇ: Would you say that increasing the size of the group has been beneficial? 

Berke: For sure, Seçil and Arda also have a ton of ideas and bring a lot to the table – every member means a new idea, a new voice and a new color for us.

MÇ: The band was founded in 2004, so you’ve now been together for a decade – do you have any special projects to commemorate your tenth anniversary? 

Berke: I don’t think we’ll do anything special for the first decade, but we have started frantically documenting our work. We are collecting everything about the band that we can find, but we haven’t decided how to use it yet. The twentieth anniversary is really a much bigger deal since there are so many groups that are ten years old, if we reach twenty years that’s something.

MÇ: Over the past few months you had some boutique concerts at Krek and a pop-up event at Kontra Plak. I found out about the pop-up event just one day in advance, did you really decide to play just one day before?

Berke: That’s exactly right, we decided one day before, which is the whole idea behind a pop-up event. Actually, Babylon came up with this idea. In January they had wanted us to play in their studio upstairs as a special performance and this time they collaborated with Kontra Plak and organized this mini-concert. It was announced at the last moment. We played 4-5 songs, and one of the songs will be released.

Krek is a place we know through Büyük Ev Ablukada, and up until now they were the only ones who had played a concert there. Krek is actually a theatre and the idea is that the performance is done behind a glass pane and the audience listens with headphones through a receiver. We love this format. It was an opportunity for us to play without a microphone and make the audience really listen to the acoustic sound.

MÇ: Let’s talk about the Rock’n Coke festival. I had the opportunity to see you guys play there but it was completely packed and I couldn’t get close enough to take pictures.

Feryin (smiling): How nice, not for you necessarily, but for us. We were also surprised by the turnout that day, the concert started in the early afternoon, it was one of the first Sunday concerts, and the festival-goers were able to wake up with our music.
Berke: When the curtain opened we weren’t expecting such a crowd, especially considering that it was an open-air festival. It was a huge surprise.

MÇ: Alcohol companies can no more sponsor festivals, concerts and bands. Has this new law affected you and, more generally, the music industry?

Berke: Definitely, this kind of things affects us and all musicians in Turkey.
Feryin: Music grows with investment, so the less investment that is coming in, the less work we have. Worldwide the number of musicians are constantly increasing, and this is very good because the people can share their albums over the internet to millions even without a record label. They’ve completely cut out the record labels. But the reduction in the number of festivals unfortunately makes everything harder. But like everything this too will find a way. So many music groups want to play, they play at home – it’s not possible to stop music. Maybe the musicians will not play to an audience of 50,000, instead they’ll play twenty concerts to an audience of 300-500, so they will reach the same mass of people.
Berke: Like Feryin said, it pushed people to make house-type concerts out of necessity. Like how we made the Krek concert with the very acoustic set, without alcohol, on a Sunday evening, where the subject is only the music itself. This prohibition and difficulty inspired us to do these types of events. In my opinion, the musicians will turn this into an advantage, they won’t be able to stop us with this law.
Feryin (smiling): For example in Iran it’s forbidden for women to sing, so do you think they don’t sing?

[Dilara comes backstage] MÇ: The final question, could you guys recommend to Yabangee readers some bands you like to listen to? Turkish groups would be better.

Berke: Büyük Ev Ablukada, Ringo Jets
Dilara: Gaye Su Akyol
Berke: Bubi Tuzak, Manua Kea
Dilara: Ceylan Ertem
Feryin: Yasemin Mori. Basically all of our friends!

This interview has been edited and condensed.