MANGA'S TRT-1 ZIRVEDEKILER INTERVIEW ON FEB 17, 2013

MaNga on TRT-1: Zirvedekiler / 17 Feb 2013

MaNga was on TRT-1's Sunday morning program "Zirvedekiler" (Those on the Top) on Feb.17th, 2013. This program is not live. It was taken around the end of January. Efe was not there again with the rest of the band. No comment about that. The host is pretty Ece İncedursun.

Ece: Good morning! We're having maNga today. Welcome, guys. How did you come together?

Ozgur: We had some common friends. Then I invited Ferman to the band, I was like "There is this band. Would you join us?". The rehearsals were very fun. And thanks to Ferman, we met Cem.

Ferman: This is a typical Ankara story actually.

Ece: So you knew one another indirectly.

Cem: In fact, we didn't know one another before that.

Ece: Wasn't that hard?

Ozgur: It wasn't hard, because the music we were making together was so much fun and magical that it gave us power to overcome all the hardships.

Cem: Maybe this was an advantage for us in the first place. I mean we came together just to make music without a previous acquaintanceship.

Ferman: I still remember it very well. When we first came together in Bahçelievler...

Ece: When you first came together, or when you first did your recording?

Ferman: When we first came together at the studio,...OK, I've known Cem and Ozgur before, but I and Cem haven't known Yagmur before. We first met him at the studio. When Yagmur started playing the first notes, it was a very beautiful feeling, because we were after that kind of music all along.

Yagmur: That day, it was something like a vocalist audition for you. (Ferman starts to laugh) We didn't tell you anything about this, but we wanted to see if you're OK or not.

Ece: Wait a minute...An audition without a notice, huh?

Yagmur: It was not anything official of course. We just hung out a little together. And then I don't know what you call it, an attraction maybe, and somehow that was it.

Cem: Our fate lines have crossed...:)

Ece: The Fates were spinning the threads...:) (to Yagmur) But you played a big part on this, because you laid the foundation of everything.

Yagmur: Well, we can say that I made a spark with a flint at first, and then...

Ece: I heard that you particiated in a contest, Sing Your Song. Alone (to Yagmur) or together?

The boys: Together...

Ece: So that was your first job together?

Ferman: That was our first public appearance together on TV and our first recording for the TV.

Cem: When we came to Istanbul for the shootings of the contest, I still couldn't memorize the names of the boys, calling them wrong names. I knew only Ferman.

Ece: Didn't you cheat writing names on your palm?

Ferman: He was still asking their names...:)

Ece: ...like I did now? (showing them her palm)

Ferman: No, we haven't tried it. But I can try it for the lyrics on stage. :)

Ece: Really? Do you forget lyrics on stage?

Ferman: Yes, we all forget things from time to time. Is it not natural?

Ece: Of course it's natural to forget things out of excitement, energy of the audience, but if it's a singer who forget the lyrics, it's something to get the attention.

Ferman: I often forget the lyrics. But most bands' lead singers have a small monitor in front of them projecting the lyrics and their speeches between the songs. The audience doesn't know it. Because you can easily forget out of excitement caused by the adrenalin. Then the interaction with the audience helps a lot, extenting the microphone to them...

Cem: He makes them sing...:)

Ferman: You make them sing instead. :)

Ece: Hmm...We're getting some tips and tricks. When you forget, "Come on! Let's sing together!", huh?

Yagmur: (to Ferman) You're letting out all the secrets of the singers now, you know that? The magicians have an agreement among them and they don't share their tricks with anyone. This is something like that.

Ece: Did maNga manage to make some things be accepted more quickly in Turkey? Let's get to the point.

Ferman: Good question. We think we managed to cross some lines that can't be accepted with our fans. Because there were other bands making similar music like us when we first came out, but they somehow couldn't emerge into the spotlight. I think we became a pioneer band.

Ece: It seems that you made greater strides...

Ferman: But we still try to go beyond ourselves and cross the barriers of rock music in Turkey one way or another. Because the alternative music in Turkey has some tides, high and low. We're fighting against this with our music.

Ece: I wonder why Yagmur has a nickname like "Yamyam" (cannibal).

Yagmur: When I was a baby, I had a habit of biting people I didn't like. When the boys heard about that, they kept on calling it and we got used to it. But generally my very close friends and family of the first degree call me that name.

Ferman: He's trying to say "don't call me that!". :)

Ece: I noticed that. I don't wanna irritate him, because I'm sitting next to him, so...:)

Yagmur: Don't worry. Because I am pretty domesticated now. :)

Ece: Is it hard to be together as five men all the time? Maybe it's easier for a group of men to get along well, isn't it?

Ferman: Definitely. I haven't seen five women getting along well before.

Ece: Me, neither. I think every three months a new member would join...

Ferman: I haven't seen two of them getting along, either.

Ece: So you came together, participated in Sing Your Song. Did you get the first place?

Ferman: Second place.

Ece: You didn't make the album right after that, did you?

The boys: Two years later.

Ferman: About two years have passed.

Ece: How did you spend this period of two years, dreaming about an album, or getting ready for an album?

Cem: The first 6 months, yes. There were some promises given to us. We got pumped up so much. We went back to Ankara very enthusiastically and started writing songs, recording our demo. At the same time we were waiting for the call from İstanbul. And we got the bad news. Of course that news made us very disappointed. We thought, "Again?". Because we had some other disbandments before. But we picked it up quickly. We clung to one another, continued to write songs, recorded our demo, came to İstanbul and started to knock the doors.

Ece: The album was released in 2004. What kind of excitement was it?

Ferman: Were we at home when we first have seen the music video on TV? We were living at the same house at Besiktas. One day we turned on the TV and our video was on every music channel. We were eating our meal.

Cem: It was a weird feeling.

Ece: Were you shocked?

Yagmur: A little, I guess. It was not a "Woow!" feeling. But when we've seen the video on 3-4 channels at the same time, we began to feel that it's no longer going to be the way it used to be. But we still ate simit and drank tea at the quay of Besiktas.

Ece: What were you dreaming when you first saw your video on TV?

Ferman: Making a tour of Turkey and giving concerts. That was our only dream then. We didn't dream about getting recognized and making money. We wanted a tour van and to crowd into it like in the movies and go play, play and play everywhere. We did that. Of course we got recognized naturally and started making money. But it was not our default (initial) settings.

Ece: I think this is important. Maybe just because you haven't set your first goal to make money, you have reached where you are now.

Ferman: We have still this kind of dreams now. We've been planning some projects for abroad for 2 years.

Yagmur: We've built our own studio.

Ferman: Yes, we did. Most bands don't do it. Because it costs too much. We invested so much for our studio and our own equipments.

Ece: So does this make it possible for you to make higher-quality music when you do everything yourselves?

Ozgur: It makes it possible for us to create more sincere music.

Yagmur: It is arguable that it's higher-quality or not.

Ferman: Yes, it's arguable.

Yagmur: We haven't reached the time that we can compare our new songs with the old ones yet. It's an advantage to have a place you own that you can use 24 hours in terms of productivity. Most people believe in deadlines. If you don't set deadlines, you can never finish an album.

Ece: So do you have to set a date?

Yagmur: Because it motivates you, but I don't think it's right for art to set a deadline. Or this is not our job. And if we look back, this is when we...

Ferman: ...are the fastest to write music.

Yagmur: Yes, we produce very fast. And this refutes this thesis. I mean our studio is very good for us.

Ferman: It's an utterly different feeling to have the studio's key in your hands.

Ece: It gives you a feeling of comfort?

Ferman: Yes, because you know that nobody can get in but you. It is our sanctuary.

Ece: How did you come up with the name "maNga"?

Yagmur: As the band is forming, I was thinking that we need a band name. I had a notebook that I have lost. I wish I could find it. I had written in it 20-30 names that I came up with, no matter if they were silly or not.

Ferman: Did you show it to us then?

Yagmur: I probably didn't show it to you. I only told you the "maNga". Maybe there were better names, but you've never seen them. :)

Ece: He eliminated them first, guys. :)

Cem: But nobody objected the name "maNga". We all thought it was a fitting name. We believed in that.

Ece: And you used that animated character on the album cover.

Ferman: We developed that character later on. We created a character named "Spa" and it was on the posters and covers with us.

Ece: And it played in the video instead of you.

Ferman: Yes, it appeared also in the video, we didn't.

Ece: You came from Ankara, released the first album. It all went well. Everybody loved it so much. What happened then?

Yagmur: Actually we haven't experienced that state of being a "celebrity" so much.

Ferman: We were not so well-known yet.

Yagmur: Yes, because we didn't appear in the video so much. We ended up on the road and concerts. We constantly gave concerts. Maybe 200 concerts in a year.

Ece: Your second album is Sehr-i Hüzün (City of Sorrows). Did you work with the same people on this album, too?

Ferman: The same.

Yagmur: In fact, we relieved our conscience after we made that album. Because we think that we brought out everything one level up with that album. Also, İstanbul had a huge impact on it. In fact, Sehr-i Hüzün is an album about İstanbul.

Ece: Is that city İstanbul?

Ferman: Of course. It was a kind of response to what we've experienced and felt here in this city.

Ece: Did you have any disappointment? Because there is a feeling of sadness all over the album.

Ferman: No, it was not a disappointment.

Ece: The songs are slower on the second album.

Ferman: But the melancholy and the sadness of this city affected us. Ankara is not like that. There is a gloom over Ankara. There is something else in here.

Ece: Do you think that you got the Eurovision offer thanks to the second album where you reflected that feeling? Because you caught an upswing with this album.

Cem: It was a chain reaction. After Sehr-i Hüzün, maNga gained momentum. We got MTV's Best European Act award in 2009. We started thinking about abroad. After that, came the Eurovision offer.

Ece: Just what you desired. I think you accepted it without thinking.

Cem: In fact, we thought about it.

Ferman: We thought about it a little.

Ece: What is the contradiction between them? On one hand, you want to go, but on the other hand you don't.

Cem: It's a big responsibility.

Ozgur: You're in the middle of recording an album....

Ferman: The album was just released.

Ozgur: Or you've just released an album. You think yourself at the beginning of your career. Ferman was so enthusiastic about Eurovision and he fired us up so much. It was a good thing that he fired us.

Ece: Definitely.

Ozgur: You have 3 minutes and you can't be more than 6 people on stage, etc. These are some of Eurovision rules. You have to convey your simplest feelings to the spectators in 3 minutes. Not a very progressive song, not a very melodic sound...You have to express yourselves in a minimum possible way. You can communicate with 40-50% of the European population in English, so we thought it's the best way to use English.

Ece: It was very good thing that you went. Because you brought the second best result to Turkey after Sertab Erener.

Ozgur: In some online user dictionaries like sourtimes, there were 400 or 500 posts about our Eurovision song. After the final, the half of it were deleted...

Ferman: ...or revised comments...

Ece: Very good. Did you follow everything online? You present something. Even though you worked so hard, it's inevitable to get scathing criticism. Did you follow that online?

Ozgur: The social media is widely used in the last 3-4 years. We are also on that, too. It's not significant enough to affect what we do. We get as much as we need. Yet, good or bad, it ignites you in some way. It's essential to get that.
So we follow that.

Ece: Did this award as a new band open the doors for you to abroad?

Ferman: We met so many people thanks to MTV and ESC. We're still in touch with those people. The Balkans, Northern Europe. We released a single and gave concerts over there. This opportunity opened interesting doors to us.

Ece: Will you have any projects?

Ferman: Yes, we will.

Ece: Soon?

Ferman: Now we are getting ready for a festival in America. We've started to make the English album in the meantime.

Ece: Will you release this album only in Turkey?

Ferman: No, we don't think the English album will be released in Turkey. We'll be releasing the English album for this reason: We have released a single in Denmark before. We've sent a single to MTV and MTV carried our song to the charts. But it was always on the basis of a single. Now we want a whole album and plan to do things over there, without sending music from here. If necessary, we plan to spend 3-4 months abroad.

Yagmur: This is something we've never done before.

Ferman: Now we want to give it a try.

Yagmur: Because it's difficult to do things from here. You have to take up what you do; to interview.

Ferman: It's a big problem to miss them, for instance.

Yagmur: But we don't slack off our efforts on the Turkish album. We're working on them at the same time. Some songs will be probably bilingual, in Turkish and in English.

Ece: Interesting. We listen to the Turkish version here, but abroad English version will be released.

Ferman: This is something that had been done before. Some of the known bands did this. Maybe we're going to do it for the first time in Turkey. It's not that important to be the first to do it, but we're going to do it. Maybe we'll be a topic of thesis some day.

Ece: But every major step that you took got back to you positively. I think this will be good, too.

Ferman: The courageous steps get back to you in some way.

Ece: The festivals would not be without maNga. Do you still plan to take stage at the festivals?

Ferman: We do. We'll be busy with festivals in the spring.

Ece: Both the albums, and the foreign projects, so...

Ferman: The forthcoming festival in the USA is important for us. We're working for that now.

Cem: We totally focused on that one.

Ferman: Then the festivals in Turkey begin in the spring as usual. The municipal festivals begin. That means we'll have lots of festivals.

Ece: You're gonna work without a break, huh? So what do you do outside of work? Are you still together?

Cem: In the last 3-4 months, we often see one another, to tell the truth. We're in the process of producing, so...

Yagmur: Since we have a jointly-owned studio, so...

Ferman: We meet every day except for 1-2 days.

Cem: We meet 5-6 days a week.

Ferman: Even if we do nothing, we get together at the studio.

Cem: We're always at the studio. Even just to have a chat, we go to the studio. There are days we don't get down to the recording room at all.

Ozgur: We watch movies, play games together...

Ece: So you don't necessarily have to work.

Ozgur: It stimulates productivity to spend time together. It's not only movies or games. We talk about a lot of things such as books, movies, music. It's fun.

Ece: And you don't know when you get inspiration.

Ozgur: When we drink our coffee...:)

Ferman: From the books...:)

Ece: How about we show what you're actually doing at the studio, playing games? :)

Ferman: Flash...flash...flash! :)

Yagmur: Our studio is a place to escape from the madness of İstanbul for us.

Cem: We isolate ourselves in there.

Yagmur: It's like a meditation to be there.

Ece: I understand that you're not involved in that chaos that much.

Cem: That's right. We're not in the daily hustle and bustle, to tell the truth.

Ferman: We don't have extreme outings, I think.

Cem: We have the luxury of determining our working hours.

Ece: That is one of the best things about this job, I think. Well, does each of you have a specific task to do? For example, you sing, you write music, you play guitar, etc...

Cem: Of course we have small task distributions among us.

Ferman: But that's spontaneous.

Cem: Yes, it's spontaneous. When we first found the band, we didn't distribute the tasks, like you do this, you do that. There are things some of us can do better than the other naturally in different areas. We see this and he become the incharge of that task, but this is not a rule.

Yagmur: We reach that maturity much more after each album. Every one of us lets the other do more and this makes things easier. In the beginning, all of us were more conservative about some things. But we've learned how to go with the flow. This is a good thing, because it affects our music in a good way.

Ece: maNga had younger fans when you first came out. But the average age of your fans has increased now, right?

Yagmur: With our latest "e-akustik" album, we have targeted the people who don't normally listen to rock music. We would be happy if we could achieve that.

Ece: Which one of you has more fans? I have read something like that in an interview and I liked it.

Cem: Of course Ferman has.

Ferman: Of course the lead singer naturally has more fans.

Ozgur: Who is the lead singer? :)

Ece: Can this be a problem? When the fans' attention focuses on one of you, do the others think "Hmmm..."?

Cem: No, mostly we even like it. We run away with nothing in our minds , Ferman remains there with them. :)

Ece: Wow! This is a different point of view.

Ozgur: When they see Ferman coming out, they leave us alone.

Yagmur: We sometimes send Ferman out as a bait. :) When he moves with a group of fans, we sneak away.

Ece: This is interesting. I haven't expected to hear that. :)

Yagmur: But Ferman looked a little surprised. He was like "Really? Are you serious?"

Ece: We kept saying that you're getting along very well, but after this shooting we'll be stirred up bad blood among you, I guess.

Ozgur: There is this thing: since Ferman is the front man, so he is better known. For instance, I can go wherever I like with a beanie on my head, unless the very attentive people who really love me recognize me on the street. But this kind of thing happened only 4-5 times in my whole music career.

Ferman: After I had my hair cut, Yagmur and Cem are more recognizable than me now. The people don't recognize me much now.

Cem: We became more eye-catching because of the color.

Yagmur: Cem and I are like chewing gum. :) When we get on the subway, we're getting attention not because we're well-known, but...

Ferman: "What the hell is this look, man?"

Ece: "What's this hair, my boy?", right? Are you getting this kind of reactions?

Yagmur: No, we're not. But normally you look at someone once, but in our case they look once, twice, 3 times, 4 times, 5, 6...

Cem: They lock on you.

Yagmur: It's no problem at all. I'm having fun with myself. I like getting on the subway. Especially subway in the traffic of İstanbul is a life-saver. We all sometimes take the subway.

Ozgur: I have seen some tweet on Twitter the other day, saying "I've seen maNga on the subway. They were using monthly ticket (AKBİL)". :)

Ferman: I had an AKBIL, too. :)

Ozgur: I have a statement to make, everybody! Of course we use public transport, too. Let's use public transport system so that we have no traffic problem.

Ferman: This is so interesting.

Ece: What kind of point of view is this now?

Ferman: We can't overcome our ego in Turkey. There is nothing more normal than a rock singer taking the subway abroad.

Yagmur: I've seen Kate Moss on the subway in New York.

Ferman: You see?

Yagmur: She was talking to the people and nobody was disturbing her.

Ferman: Here they say "What's your business on subway?!" What does this mean? This is actually an insult.

Ozgur: You should say, "I'm in a hurry!"

Yagmur: I have an İstanbulKart and I'm proud of having it. It's very convenient.

Ece: That tweet is really funny. :)

Ferman: We had to be in time for a wedding some time ago. Yagmur and I decided we can't make it by car. Just a helicopter will do. We had a very little time.

Ece: You must have a helicopter.

Ferman: No, we don't have. I said, "let's take metrobus. We got on a metrobus. Something interesting happened.

Yagmur: It was very crowded.

Ferman: There was a sleeping man with his head banging on the window. He recognized us sleepily, but he wasn't sure if we really are. Someone else took his smartphone out and checked our...

Cem: ...pictures online.

Ferman: But we reached there in 17 minutes. This was a miracle. Why mustn't we take public transport?

Ece: I think you have fun when you see people's reactions to you, right?

Ferman: Yeah, it's fun. We like it when people talk to us.

Ece: It was funny that the man checked your pictures on his cell phone.

Yagmur: I had pictures taken that day on the metrobus. When we separated by the crowd, you squeezed into a corner, remember?

Ferman: Yes, you had pics taken.

Ece: You are still very young, but what would you advise to newcomer bands who want to exist in this business?

Ferman: Take the subway. :)

Ece: It's the essence of the matter, huh?

Ferman: We don't advise anything. We don't do that. Everybody must find their way on their own. The only thing we can say that we were always unprejudiced and we've always seen the benefit of it. I'm sure that it'll open lots of doors to break down the prejudices. We never forgot the streets and the communication with the people. We benefited from all that so much. If they ask us, we advise these things, but everybody finds their own ways.

Cem: One more thing: Education is a must!

Ece: We put an end with this. Thank you very much for coming today. It was great fun to have you.


You can watch the full interview on the YouTube link below:

 

MANGA INTERVIEW ON TRT HABER ON 23 DEC.2012

MaNga's three members, Ferman, Yagmur and Özgür appeared live as guests on TRT Haber's morning program "Haber Tadında" on Dec.23, 2012. The host was TRT veteran İnci Ertuğrul.

İnci Ertugrul: We have you early in the morning at our studio. What can we want more? It's a little early for you, isn't it? You're working late at the studio, so...

Ferman: Yes, it's a little early. But it's sometimes good to start the day early.

İE: They say it makes the day productive to start early.

Ferman: We're going to go to the studio from here. Maybe it will be a productive day for us.

İE: Welcome, again! We have synopsis of maNga today. Can we call you that? You have been working on your new album for some time, right? We heard that you would release it in March 2013.

Ferman: We plan to release it in March, yes.

İE: How do you cope with that tough process of working on a new album? Do you have inner conflicts among you? You all have different musical points of view. How do you decide on what should be better?

Ferman: There is a modern hierarchy and a fair disribution of tasks among us. For instance, Yagmur is responsible for the big part of the producing music, so in terms of music production, Yagmur guides us through. Yet, everybody has different tasks to do. We manage to distribute them very well.

İE: If you can't distribute the tasks, the bands can't last long, can they?

Ferman: I guess so. I'm not sure.

Yagmur: We reached that point after a certain period of time has passed. We're still in the process of maturing. We don't have a written contract among us. It becomes a reflex in time. We say, you do that, you do this...Some things develop by instinct in time.

Ferman: It's not very different from marriage actually.

İE: Yagmur Sarigul, maNga was formed after you were expelled from your former band, right? The sources say that you were expelled. Is "expelled" the right word?

Yagmur: (laughing) "fired" or "discarded"!

Ferman: (laughing) "dismissed"...

Yagmur: Of course "fired" is a little harsh. We separated our ways due to compromising of interests and expectations. This happens a lot in the music world. We all have experiences with other bands before maNga. We can say that incident conduced to the formation of maNga. I was after a band making its own music and in Turkish, not cover songs of others.

İE: Whatever you call it...At the end, in a group activity if you can't come to an understanding with the other members, disbandment is inevitable. So it was time for you to break up with that band and to found maNga.

Yagmur: Yes, yes...

İE: Ozgur Can Oney, you are the drummer, but today you're going to perform your part more quietly. We want to know more about what is going on at the background of the band. Because we know that maNga...OK, we know the songs, we memorized all of them like school songs. But other than that, maNga is not a band that we know everything about.

Ferman: Do you want us to disclose our secrets?

İE: Yes, you have secrets! MaNga is well-known but not so popular. How do you protect this? Maybe you don't have written rules about it, but maybe you have some unwritten principles.

Ozgur: It's going to be a common phrase, but we're trying to be friendly in a way. As you keep this friendly demeanor, yes, it doesn't last long to be popular in that sense you mean.

İE: But it's like as if you don't want it to be that way...

Ozgur: Well, since the first album was released, we have always wanted only our music to be at the forefront and still want that. We have used all our savings to create our own studio, because we knew that this would give us more freedom in terms of making music. When we were busy making this happen, it was normal that people didn't see us here and there publicly so much. Just TV programs, or albums...

Ferman: Art, art, art...

Ozgur: Art is our life...We took photos on the way here. :)

İE: This means that it's still possible to get recognized by being productive without being "popular" in that sense. This is not a "must". There is a wrong perception about that.

Ferman: But in fact it's also got to do with the personality. We don't like to share everything about us. We're happier if we can keep some things to ourselves. And we can go out more freely. We're more comfortable on the street and in the concerts. We can communicate with the audience more sincerely and closely.

İE: Your concerts are a bit different than the other rock concerts. I saw you in a concert this summer with my daughter.

Ferman: Where did you see us?

İE: At İstanbul Aydin University concert. It was great fun. You're very relaxed and natural on stage, not being arrogant. I know every singer or band has a individually unique posture on stage, but still...It's like some music genres have some cliched view of how the singers should stand on the stage.

Ferman: Definitely.

İE: What? Am I definitely wrong?

Ozgur: You're definitely...definitely...definitely right. In case of live performance, you're right. It's the stage that we feel ourselves most comfortable. If we reflect this to the audience as much as we can , they can know how we feel.

Ferman: In fact, we barely contain ourselves until we are on the stage. We have something inside us that maybe we can't share with one another, but once we're on the stage, it explodes completely. The stage belongs to us.

İE: In yesterday's newspaper there was an article about a rock band (It was about Mor ve Ötesi). They say that the rock music in Turkey is still searching for itself.

Ferman: Every genre searches for itself. It's not easy to make music in Turkey.

Ozgur: In fact, you asked a very basic question. Actually we are still searching for ourselves or we are being forced to search. At the end, the music is a reflection of society. There have to be a search in all kinds of arts. It's not wrong to search for something.

Yagmur: In fact we are not happy about the general course of the rock music in recent years, either. There is a prototyping. Generally speaking, one of the reasons is that TV and radio channels don't play younger singers or bands much. Of course there are channels that play, but it's very hard now to distinguish oneself among others. It was hard when we've first come out, too. But it got harder and harder.
And there are other things in life besides love, separation, pain and we must tell about them, too. But unfortunately the program makers at the channels prefer to play the songs about these painful subjects, otherwise the ratings are not good. We have to expect the executives in the media world to start thinking idealistically. There is nothing else to do.

İE: The cliches pressure you, huh?

Yagmur: We always did what hasn't been done before. We tried to domesticate ourselves as little as possible so far.

İE: It must be utterly different feeling to be on stage, right? Do you see the audience? (to Ozgur)

Ozgur: Since I'm the drummer, I don't see the audience. Yagmur, Cem and Ferman see them the most.

Ferman: I see the most of them.

İE: Some TV hosts say that they see each one of the audience during a program. Some say that they don't see any body and present the program without seeing anyone in the audience. So you don't see them, huh? You're at the back, so...(to Ozgur).

Ozgur: Since I'm on the drums at the back, they don't show me much.

İE: You don't stand up and say "hey, I'm here!"?

Ozgur: No, I'm not a drummer who stands up.

Ferman: Eye contact is important. Because they come to see you live; it's unlike the albums. I try to make eye contact with the audience as much as I can. Of course it's not possible to do it with everyone.

İE: How about you? (to Yagmur)

Yagmur: I don't communicate with the audience much, because you know I try to communicate with my guitar.

İE: Is it the lead singer's task to do it?

Yagmur: Generally, yes. There might be exceptional cases but...in case of us, Ferman carries this responsibility.

Ferman: It was not that easy to get there.

İE: In Turkey, we are getting the chance to see live world famous foreign rock bands or singers in the recent years more and more. Do you follow them?

Ferman: But they come after the prime of their careers. Not all of them, but I wish we could see them here just when they swept the world with their music. We could have a different musical point of view then.

İE: I guess it's proportional to Turkey's recent economic upswing. Now it's easier to organize concerts than before. It's not only a demand in terms of music. If Scorpions would come to Turkey ten years ago, you would definitely go.

Yagmur: I was just thinking about Scorpions...

Ferman: Me, too.

Yagmur: It was great! In fact, I went to their concert at the last moment. Some friends said "come on, let's go!" and we went. Glad that we could go.

Ferman: I still can't believe they are German.

İE: Why?

Ferman: It isn't like German music; they are unlike other German rock bands.

Yagmur: It's incredible to be at their age and to have that kind of energy on stage! It seems that they looked after themselves very well. Because they should have looked after themselves very well in order to perform like that on stage.

İE: To get the same sound...

Yagmur: It's not easy at all.

Ferman: Our biggest wish is to still be on the stage performing and be on tour at that age.

İE: We also went to that concert with my daughter and she said excitedly that it was just as in the albums with the same sound.

Yagmur: It was a great concert.

İE: This has got to do with the respect to what you do and good care of yourselves, right?

Ferman: Definitely.

İE: Let's talk a bit about Eurovision now. You brought Turkey a second place, but you deserved the first place in my opinion. I'd like to say this first of all. TRT has announced that Turkey doesn't participate in 2013 due to some irrelevancies. How was it to represent the country? Some singers and bands try to stay away from Eurovision, but you participated and brought back a succesful result. What did ESC bring to you or take away from you?

Ferman: We don't make a lot of calculations about participating in this sort of competitions. Of course we talked about what we gain from this... Will we be able to play our music out there? Yes. Will TRT let us do this? Yes. Will we have fun? Yes. And above all we'll represent our country. There were a lot of merits and positive feedback we would get. We were sure about it so much no matter what the result was. We accepted the offer in this mentality and had great fun.

Yagmur: But Ferman had the big part of the responsibility in this process. He was the one who went to the preliminary negotiations with TRT and we had an urgent meeting. We were in Ankara by chance and we gathered in a hotel lobby urgently.

Ferman: (laughing) Secretly...

Yagmur: We can say that it was Ferman who convinced us to participate. We were a little...I mean our new album was just released then and there were some things uncertain yet. Ferman was thinking positively. We had a more cautious approach. We had talked about it that day and I remember I went home and examined my song drafts. We have a good habit. We can take action right away. We like that about us. We can become one flesh and brainstorm like "what can we do about this? The first thing we thought was what kind of song we should make, how we look and do on the stage.

İE: And you got a beautiful result. (to Ferman) Now you're making a program on TRT. It's a different format. What is it like to make a TV program?

Ferman: (laughing) It's hard. I realized it was hard. I admire all of you now.

İE: What part of that is hard for you?

Ferman: Generally speaking...There are a lot of things on the way that don't match with what you think.

İE: There are too many variables involved...

Ferman: Yes and they aren't things that I can predict beforehand, so.. Fortunately, I have a very good producer and he helps me a lot. It is hard, but at the same time it's fun.

İE: It's an interesting format.

Ferman: I'm having fun making it and I think I convey beautiful messages and music, so it's going well.

İE: I wish you good luck and keep up the good work. You're working on your new album that's to be released in March. Do you have other concert plans in winter?

Ferman: We don't have so many concerts in the near future. A few. They're going to be fixed soon. We're going to concentrate on the album from now on. Because we don't have much time. And we have a project for abroad which is an English album. We're going to work on that one, too. We're taking it more seriously now. This new year will be interesting. In fact, we say the same thing every year, and it passes interestingly.

İE: So you're saying we'll get 2 albums from maNga in 2013. Wow! And you have TV program going on.

Ferman: (laughing) If the world doesn't end...we plan to do all of them...

Yagmur: It passed now.

Ferman: You never know. Maybe we get more calendars.

İE: How did you think about that predictions?

Ferman: It was fun. It was good for Şirince at least.

Ozgur: If you recalculate it according to the Mayan calendar, two months have passed from that date.

Ferman: Ozgur studied astronomy, so...

Ozgur: According to the Mayan calendar, December 21 was two months before. And the predictions about the Planet called Marduk enters our solar system and NASA didn't see that are a bit utopian. Mayan mathematical calculations are generally very accurate but this is like some joke.

İE: Thanks very much, guys, for joining us in our studio this morning.

Ferman: We thank you.


MaNga members performed three acoustic songs in the studio during this interview: Yaranmaz Aşık, Cevapsız Sorular and Ben Bir Palyaçoyum. You can watch these songs on the YouTube links below:

Yaranmaz Aşık

Cevapsız Sorular

Ben Bir Palyaçoyum

And you can watch the full interview in two parts below link:

TRT Haber interview, Part 1

TRT Haber interview, Part 2

MANGA INTERVIEW ON TRT MUZIK'S POP SAATI ON JAN 4,2013

MaNga's 3 members; Ferman, Ozgur and Efe appeared live as guests on TRT's late night music video show called "Pop Saati" on Jan 4, 2013. The host was a TRT veteran, Erhan Konuk. Yagmur and Cem were working at their studio recording, so they were not there.

Erhan makes a joke. "If they are here, there is no room for them to sit though, huh?"

Erhan's first question: Was it luck that brought you together? Because you have a beautiful chemistry among you.

Efe: It was kinda luck...

Ferman: It was definitely good luck, but if you don't have the right dreams in common, I don't think good luck will help. I mean, the good luck brings the people together who have common dreams in their minds. This is what happened to us.
We were playing in different bands and we were all in pursuit of music. One day we left our bands to make our own music and this brought 5 men together.

Erhan: So you found the lowest common denominator. In Ankara.

Ferman: That's right. In Ankara.

Erhan: Today your fans bombarded our social media addresses with tweets and messages. They didn't leave you tonight. Your fans love you so much! This is fantastic! (INCI: These fans were us and we bombarded internet with messages to maNga! We tried to attempt a TT event. We couldn't get into TT list interestingly, but we finally were able to deliver our messages to maNga publicly on TV).

Ferman: Definitely.

Erhan: I believe you got the good luck with success. The luck might have brought you together, and maybe it was a big factor in your success. You took the 2nd place in ESC 2010. You won MTV's Best European Act award. This can't be just luck! What do you think about this?

Ferman: These are good opportunities for the bands and artists. In order to get the chance, you have to...I mean if you don't work very hard, your luck might leave you very fast. If you continue to work hard, the luck is on your side one way or another. In case of MTV and ESC, our team and we were very focused. We made good use of our luck so far. 

Efe: And there is one more thing. It's not enough to reach somewhere. You have to work very hard to keep yourself up there. The work never ends. And of course you work in an enjoyable field of work: music.

Erhan: The best work on Earth.

Ferman: It's not a work actually. It's something else. This is our life!

Erhan: For instance, do you work right now? How nice! Ozgur, you're very silent.

Ozgur: My friends are expressing themselves very well. I'm going to step in when they can't find words. I'm courageous enough to say this. :)

Erhan: When you compare yourselves with European or American counterparts, who were your idols whom you looked up to in Europe and in Turkey? How do you see yourselves? Because you were successful in MTV and ESC.

Ozgur: We followed or looked up to some bands when we first started making music. There were some whom we covered their songs such as Korn, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, ..

Erhan: How about Cold Play?

Ferman: No, we weren't into Cold Play at all. We were affected by those kind of bands or imitate their sounds or song structures, of course. This was around 1995. 

Erhan: What about British bands?

Ferman: I don't think we were affected by the British bands so much.

Erhan: Muse?

Ferman: We like Muse, but I think we don't have any remnants from the British music from that time. But it's all changed now. For instance, we find some inspirations from the old and new British bands in the music of the new album which we're making now. We listen too many albums now. We're all ears.

Ozgur: To tell the truth, change and improvement continues all the time in terms of music. Because one is inclined to change, develop, mature or turn to different things due to changes where they are affected. I mean you may be affected by a certain kind of music for some time. A certain book or a movie may affect you at some point.

Ferman: We don't want to lose our California Sound as an infrastructure. But now we add something else to that and we mix them in our minds. This is something we haven't done before. And then we say "let's record it!". We make the new album in that way. We've gone beyond all limits. We feel restless and uneasy sometimes. But we like this feeling. We're like "What have we done?"

Erhan: All kinds of music styles are mixed with one another in the world now. We had pop music once. Now R&B... Hip hop is on the rise now.

Ozgur: A Korean hip hop singer can become world-famous at the end of the day.

Erhan: This is very interesting. He has a global view count over one billion. This means that every one person of 7 people watched that video.

Ferman: Only the babies don't know about it! :)

Erhan: How do you define your music? What do you call it? Is it pop-rock, real rock, hard-rock, or a peculiar maNga music?

Ferman: Now we ask this very question to ourselves, too. We're searching for that. This is why we have this endless excitement inside us. Maybe we are at a time when we the most ask this question to ourselves. Because what we do excites us so much and we can't define it easily. We always called it...maybe it's a bit large or premature definition, but we're on the way to what it's called maNga music. At least we feel that way.

Erhan: I have a simple question: Pop Saati?

Ferman : I was 8.

Ozgur: 7.

Efe: I was 8, too.

Ozgur: For years, you drew so many different audiences that everyone found something in you. You undertook a big mission and you're doing it very well in years. Thank you very much.

Erhan: How do you spend one day of your life? You are a busy band. We send you a message, but can't get a reply from you. It must be hard for you to get together. Because each of you has different projects.

Ferman: The hardest part is to find the available time slot for each of us. Around these days, we're busy at the studio recording. But each of us are involved in his own work at the same time. Maybe 2013 will be the busiest year both for maNga, and for each of us. We have projects for abroad and also the new album in Turkey, and other personal projects. I don't know how this year will pass by.

Ozgur: In fact, we have an advantage for this year. After we built our own recording studio this year, it became our headquarters. We often gather in there no matter whether the music involves or not. In the process of making music, even though all of us can't be there at the same time, most of us are there. We spend time together and it's great fun.

Ferman: So we can say the shop is always open.

Erhan: 24/7, isn't it?

Ferman: The heater is always on. :)

There were questions via internet flowing into the program. One of them was "Will there be a concert in Sweden?"

Ferman: We don't have many planned concerts right now. We have a few, but they are still in progress.

Ozgur: The fixed concert dates are on our website. 

There were fun moments during the program...

They drew lots to fix the winner of the prize which is a watch. Just as Erhan extended the glass bowl to Ferman to draw a name out of it, Ozgur asked "Can I draw?". Erhan said OK. Ferman laughed and said "The person whom I was gonna draw will be very upset about this". Ozgur drew a name and said in a loud voice "Ferman Akgül!". Ferman said, "How long have you been planning to do this?". Ozgur said, "Since the beginning".

Another fun moment:

At the end of the program, they were supposed to show the official video of "We Could Be The Same", but they have put a wrong video with a black singer in it. Ferman turned to the big screen behind him, and said "I've changed a lot, huh?" and then to Ozgur, "this was a better joke, right?"


This was the first public interview that maNga did in the new year. We hope they will continue to appear on TV and radio, or in the newspapers and share what they do with us, worldwide maNga fans.