Interview with Cem Ozel from WUFI
We interviewed Cem Ozel from the very original and funky electro-pop band WUFI based in Turkey.
How did WUFI begin?
Wufi came about when Can Saban and I started recording our acoustic tracks in Istanbul at Ali Riza’s The FatLab Studios in 2007, (that’s how we met Ali Riza who eventually became a band member later on). I was enrolled in a music production course in the UK (still am) so I had to travel back and forth every now and then to get together with the guys and keep building up on what we had. It took about a year from then to make more tracks and fınalize their evolution in terms of sound design, genre and general attitude towards producing. When it started out it was more of a pop-funk mostly played on acoustic guitars. In 2008 we sort of came to a point where we were much more focused on how we wanted to do things so we named the band and finished the album a couple months before the end of the year.
Inspirations?
Well there’s a lot of stuff we’re all inspired by. But to focus more on the general content of the album, I could say we were mainly inspired by artists who managed to bring together different views of aesthetics and yet create a very unique blend that reflects a great deal on the contemporary music scenes and even daily life.
I guess that’s what we tried to do: feed on our own cultural and personal heritages to bring together distinct sounds that somewhat assemble an abstract-urban dance texture. We love dance music, but I think we also love to mock it.
Plans for 2009?
Go back to London in April to finish my degree. Keep gigging and traveling a lot!
Favorite artists?
- J.S.Bach, The Beatles, Queen, The Meters,
- Radiohead, Animal Collective, Daft Punk, Justice and many more.
http://www.myspace.com/wufimusic
