Friday 17 July 2009

Verszerzodes interview

We say hello to Geri, the singer of the Hungarian band Verszerzodes. Your band has already played in Bulgaria, but please gives us a brief history of your band. As far as I know the band is on stage for more than 15 years.

Hello! Well, the band was formed in 1992, by some young guys in a small town in North-West Hungary, Sopron. Just like in any other bands we had changes during the years, and nowdays I am the only one in the band from the original line up. We have 4 our own CDs released (Szent Haboru-1997, Ez vagyok-2000, Hate Parade-2003, Politikailag nem korrekt-2007), 3 splits with Archivum, Brainwash(EP) and English Rose, and we have songs on several Hungarian and international compilation CDs.

What are your impressions from your visit in Bulgaria, both from the demonstration and the gig which was held in Plovdiv at the end of November last year?


We had a great time by you, your hospitality was really nice. The demonstration was good organized, the march with the torches in the city was powerfull, but to be honest, from the speeches we couldn’t understand any words. The gig was also okay, there was a good atmosphere, and hopefully you liked our set. The only thing what we didn’t really like, some chauvinist attitude at the gig. But as I wrote before, we really enjoy that weekend by you, and hope, that we could visit you again in the close future.

You are also connected to a Hammer skins nation on personal level, please tell us more about this matter?

That’s right, I am connected on personal level, and I am the only Hammerskin from the band, so I can’t really say much about this. Anyway, I am not sure about what do you interesting?

Few years ago in Hungary were just few bands playing, but nowadays I can count more then 20. It seems that what scene is growing very fast. What’s the reason for this?

We have all the time 5-6 ns bands around in the past, but that’s true, that in the last 1-2 years more bands were formed. I don’t really know, what’s the exact reason why, and why now, I’m just guessing, that there is a new young generation in the scene who have much more interest to play music. Another reason could be, that the nationalist movement and the nationalist feelings in the people is got stronger in the last few years, so all these bands are getting a bit bigger publicity.

How many gigs VSZ played abroad, do you have some moments that will always stay in your memory? You have some bad experience with the Swiss authorities.

I don’t really know the exact numbers of these gigs, but we had a few abroad in the following countries: England, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Greece. We got the invitation 2 times to Switzerland, but both times the cops already waiting for us at the border and the airport. They had a report about us, that we are an “evil xenophobic nazi band”, so we can’t entry to Switzerland, otherwise we will spread hate speeches from the stage and do any other crimes. It’s crazy, haha! So first time we got 1 year long expelling, 2nd time just 4 days. This could be thank for the Hungarian ZOG too. I can’t really say which of these gigs were the most memorable, I think so we have good memories from most of the places, despite the fact that for example in Germany it’s very difficult to play, and had some problems with the cops there too, but we are still going back to play time to time. The worst was maybe in Slovakia, as we were arrested when we were standing on the stage, and spent 1,5 day arrested at a police station together with other 80-90 comrades. But of course we already laughing on this, what doesn’t destroy us, just makes us stronger!

You was a singer in another well know Hungarian band – Arrow cross. What was the reason for you to left the band?


Hmm…that’s a bit longer and complicated story, and I don’t really want to explain all the details here. The 2 biggest reason were, some personal disagreement, and that I don’t really have time for this band in these times.

What do you thing about Straight age culture, which firstly appeared in non political HC scene? Does “sXe” have a place in our movement?

I have big respect to those people who are living healthy, don’t drink alcohol, smoking, etc. But I don’t really like when it’s over reacted, and people try to force their opinion on you. We don’t have to propagate drink alcohol, that’s not the right way too. Everybody have to know the limit. There isn’t any problem with alcohol, but we don’t need alcoholic people, for who the priority in their life is drinking! And I could see some people already in the movement, who were proud sXe few years before, and spread this message in our circle, looked down on comrades who drenk alcohol, etc. and just few years later they started to drink again. So, where are you now?! Or people who call themselves sXe, but using steroids at the same time…

Some years ago your band had c close connections with English rose. What are you memories from those times?

This started back in 2002, when we first time met with Jonesy at a gig here in Hungary. He saw us play, and next day asked the musicians from our band to play him at the final ER gig, as he wants to close the band. We agreed of course, so the plan was, that we will have 2 gigs, one in Hungary and one in England. But as the news circled around the scene, we got more invitation, so on the end we had a small tour in Europe in 2003. That was the ‘Dead to SHARP’ tour, and we played in England, Hungary, Italy, Belgium, Slovenia and France. Then we played one more time together in England, and released a split CD ‘United Forces’. We have really good memories from these times, and we could thank a lot for this project, as we could get lots of invitations from abroad because of this, and got many new comrades and contacts. Otherwise, our guitarist PPH is still helps for Jonesy in some other projects.

Please tell us more about your last album “Politikailag nem korrekt”. For the people outside Hungary is hard to understand the lyrics. Can you please tell us what you sing about?

This cd came out in October of 2007. Musically I can’t really definite it, as we have songs in RAC or punk style, and also some like hardcore, so we mixed together a bit all the influences of the band members of that time. About the lyrics, I think so it would be difficult to explain each song’s lyrics, but in general, we have songs on this album mostly about the political situation in our country, about our fight against the system, and also about our movement, our feelings and how to live our skinhead way of life. The songs, what’s also the title of the cd, is written about the band and what we represent, a kind of a mirror to this sick society and system. But I think so it’s title tells everything, Politically uncorrect.

What do you think about downloading music of our bands for free from I-net?


Our 4 CDs were released by ourself, from our own money. We collected the money to go to studio, go to press the tapes (when our first album released the cds weren’t so popular in Hungary yet), and paid for the booklet. And our stuff were sold by us at the gigs, and via comrades. As we never ask any extra profit for playing at the gigs, only the money for our real costs (petrol, food, sleeping place,etc.), we could make some money only from selling our CDs, and collect it for the next studio project. But lots of people, who call themselves “comrades”, just click on the internet, download the music, and don’t care about the work of the bands, which work is sacrificed for the movement. So we simple call this stealing. And that’s the fact. I don’t know why these people think, that they have right to do this, or why they think, that all of these bands are full of money and living from band? I can tell it for sure, that non of the bands from the movement living from the music, even got rich from it. So all what I could say, it’s the biggest disrespect to the bands to steal their music! Maybe I will be now an unliked person in these people’s eyes, but I don’t give a damn!

What do you about chauvinism? Is the “Europe of the Fatherlands” possible having in mind that there are large minority of ethnic Magyars living outside the Hungarian borders?

I judge chauvinism. It’s a senseless hatred between white nations, instead of solving the problems, and see trough what’s behind all of them. In the other had, chauvinism is a good tool in the hands of our common enemy. While white nations of Europe, or the whole world, fighting against each others, they will never stick together, and fight together against the real enemy, who actually created the reasons of chauvinism. I know, that just us my nation, other European nations have problems with the neighbor countries. But instead of fighting against each others, we should sit down, and try to understand each others point of views and problems, and find the way together. Otherwise it could be just a never ending war, and we know only who could be the winner on the end. Both parts could have offences from the past, or from the present time, but we must try to understand each others somehow. I know, that it’s not easy, I could see in my own country, by my own nation and in the neighbor countries, but for us national socialist have to step forward, and working on that ‘Europe of the Fatherlands’ wouldn’t be just a dream, but became to reality!

What is your opinion about Christianity? Do you follow any religion?

In my opinion the religion is everybody’s personal business, and it can’t be topic of arguments in the movement. Personally I am not Christian, but better believe in Odinism. But I have a lot Christian comrades, who are very good friend of mine, we trust each others, so it never causes any different what kind of a religion we have. The problem is, if somebody try to force his religion on me, as I will never do the same to him. We have more important things to do, than fight against each others because of the religions.

How do you see our movement after 10 years? May be Verszerzodes will celebrate 25 years on stage at that time :) ?

It’s hard to say, as lots of things changed, sometimes very quick, in that last 10 years too, so I can’t really tell what the future brings for us. I could only which and hope, that our movement will be still exist and more stronger and united as today. I will working on! About my band, haha, yes, I hope that we could celebrate our 25 years anniversary on the stage. That could mean, that at least I could still go up to the stage,haha!

Any future plans about gigs, recordings, etc?

This new line up is exist more than half year ago. Sadly we could have chances to practice very few times, as we all are living in different towns, some of us more than 200km far. But for now we arrived to the point, that we got accustomed, and fit a good gig set together. That means, that it’s time to start to write new songs. We are planning to release a full length English cd, maybe it has better reality, than a new Hungarian. But it’s a question of time when…

Any final comments? Your message to the readers of our zine?

Thank you for the interview and for the good questions. Keep up the good work with the magazine, hope you could continue long. We send our regard our Bulgarian comrades, not just those who stand closed to us (I don’t want to write any names, you know who you are), but all of them. Hope we could visit you again, or see you in our country. The fight goes on!


June 2009

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