mor ve ötesi is:
KEREM KABADAYI (drums) //
HARUN TEKIN (vocals / guitar) //
KEREM OZYEGEN (guitar) //
BURAK GUVEN (bass).
The band was established in January of 1995 with a slightly different line up by Kerem Kabadayi (drums), Harun Tekin (vocals/guitar), Derin Esmer (vocals/guitar) and Alper Tekin (bass) four close high school friends in Istanbul, Turkey. Their first album Sehir was recorded and mixed between August 1995 and January 1996, and was released in June 1996 by Ada Muzik, a record label known for hosting and championing local talent with an edge and originality who would venture into unchartered musical and lyrical territories. Off the album, the first single "Yalnz Sarki" and its corresponding video garnered some popular interest and the album received critical acclaim.
1997 was an important year for the band. It saw their first show outside their hometown in the capital Ankara at ODTU (Middle East Technical University) the educational institution typically known as a political hotbed. It was also the year the first line-up change took place with Burak Guven replacing Alper Tekin on bass. In 1998, the band began working on their next album while maintaining a residency at the influential Istanbul venue Captain Hook. The album Birak Zaman Aksin was recorded by their long-time school mate and sound-engineer Volkan Gurkan. After the process, Derin Esmer left the band and was replaced by Kerem Özyegen on guitar. The album was released on March 1999, once again, by Ada.
In early 2000, mor ve otesi took part in nationwide anti-nuclear energy campaigns, and supported the cause with various concerts and appearances. In July, the band recorded a song, "Sen Varsin", to be included on a tribute album for the legendary Turkish protest singer Bulent Ortacgil. They closed the year with their most important performance to date, opening for Placebo at the H2000 festival in Istanbul on December 9.
The third album Gul Kendine, their most proficiently crafted work to date, was once again recorded and produced by Volkan Gurkan, and released in December 2001. The promo tour for the album was also the bands first proper nationwide tour, and the closing concert in Istanbul drew upwards of 5000 people. Receiving wide critical acclaim, the show was regarded by the media as a musical treasure and an audio-visual extravaganza. It was clear that the band was now in a new league, in both an artistic and popular sense.
In 2003, mor ve ötesi joined in for various anti-war activities by artists of all kinds, and composed the anthemic "Savasa Hic Gerek Yok". The song was performed in Ankara on March 1, along with fellow musicians in front of a rabid crowd of 100.000 people. Having played their part in worldwide anti-war efforts, the band was once again in the forefront of the national rock scene.
In May of the same year, mor ve ötesi released an EP called Yaz. Its opener, a rock style cover of the popular 1990 classic "Yaz Yaz Yaz" became the countrys summer anthem. The band followed the success of this single with another nationwide tour which saw some unprecedented attendance numbers. In Autumn, the band started writing their next album while working on the soundtrack for a film called Mustafa Hakkinda Hersey. A song from this soundtrack, "Bir Derdim Var", was also to be the third single from the forthcoming album Dünya Yalan Soyluyor, and brought the band the prestigious Altin Portakal (Golden Orange) Award at the acclaimed International Antalya Film Festival for Best Song for a Motion Picture. A new producer, the renowned bass player Tarkan Gozubuyuk, was chosen for the album, and work began in January 2004. Following the most crafty production in the band's history, the album hit the stores on May 1, 2005 and attained incredible early sales figures. Supported by the first single "Cambaz", the album took off and got on track to become a platinum-selling rock album, and the song received huge airplay from both TV and Radio stations. The second single, a cover of the idiosyncratic singer Fikret Kizilok's "Sevda Cicegi", further expanded the albums popularity, and the third single, the aforementioned "Bir Derdim Var", was not only arguably the most popular rock song to date in Turkey, but was also championed as Song of the Year by musical authorities and fans alike. The commercial success of the album which reached 250.000 units in sales was complemented by a very busy and expansive touring schedule, as well as a fourth video single for "Ask Icinde". The band played about 150 shows to date since the release of the album, sharing its songs live with large audiences nationwide, and the experience enabled the band to become a rock-solid live performance act.
The bands last international foray for the year 2005 was a strong performance at Simdi Stuttgart, an international music festival that took place in Stuttgart, Germany in November. The fifth and final video from Dunya Yalan Soyluyor was made for the closing song "Uyan" and it reached the 1 spot on MTVs World Chart Express. The video was re-edited from an animation created by Andrei Khrjanovsky in 1968 which was shelved by Soviet censors when it came out.
The band recorded the follow-up to Dunya Yalan Soyluyor between February and April of 2006 and released their fifth album titled Buyuk Dusler on May 9 of the same year. The first single off the album was "Sirket", the video for which showcases a collage of imagery and conventions borrowed from the 70s B-horror flicks, and is essentially a humorous and macabre critique of corporate culture. The second single off the album was "Kucuk Sevgilim", the ballad. Its video featured Caroline Roy (Craig David - "Fill Me In") alongside frontman Harun Tekin. The song went to 1 on Billboard's Turkish Rock Single Chart for march '07. The band just finished shooting the video for the 3rd single "Ayip Olmaz Mi?". mor ve otesi will tour Europe (heavily in Germany) and the West Coast in the U.S. in autumn to wrap up the year and eyeing next year's festivals -including SXSW- to start of a series of concerts abroad to launch its international career.
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(by the way,band's great)