Giorgio Fekete, the frontman of Carson Coma, was a guest on the Telex 2026 program on Wednesday afternoon. Both as a musician and as a private person, he was afraid of the possible victory of Fidesz, Fekete said in the interview, which now mainly deals with public issues. It felt good that it didn’t end up being that, he said. He also said that he was not there for logistical reasons at the System Overturning Grand Concert.
According to the singer, the fact that they wrote texts critical of the system did not harm their career, but it also meant that they were not often invited to city events, for example. In addition, there was talk of Zsolt Bayer, who has written about him several times, and that he did not expect anyone to take a public position, but those who borrowed hundreds of millions in the weeks before the election were, in his opinion, rats.
Fekete had previously vowed not to follow the news as if it were about his favorite soccer team, Torino, but in the end he slipped into it, and even weeks after the election, he checks the news before his friends’ messages. As he said, it was like two teams playing against each other, and from that point of view, he was happy because his team won. He hopes that changes will follow so that following the news will no longer be a second job for him in the next period. According to his knowledge, construction has been going well in all sectors so far,
and according to him, for the first time, his generation can feel that tomorrow can be better than today, and that if there is an important public event, it can be good now, while until now it was always about what was stolen again, what was being made impossible again.
According to the singer, the past 16 years have absolutely had an impact on the music industry, even if it is a path that is difficult to prevent, since relatively little capital is needed for someone to release a piece of music. According to him, they didn’t really want to effectively prevent this, they tried to discredit them, but in his anxious self he knew that if another four years like this were to come, Fidesz could take measures such as with the anti-gay law on the booksor that it will not be possible to play songs with an LGBTQ theme or even songs that violate sovereignty – which, of course, he thinks may be stupid, but they were really into such things before the elections.
Fekete is 26 years old, his generation grew up in this system, and many of his acquaintances felt that if Fidesz wins again, they will have to leave the country. Now, however, there are many people who are considering moving back, although there is no one who has already decided on this. According to him, the change of government was an important zero step, but nothing will change overnight, it will have long-term effects. He later added that this is also true for their musical careers, they didn’t suddenly start inviting them to city events, company year-ends, maybe Petőfi Rádió, which has been dusting off their music since the election, is the only one that can be said to have changed immediately.
Incidentally, Petőfi Rádió was discussed at length when blacklisting was the topic. You have to look at mostszol.hu, where you can follow, for example, when and how much they were played on the radio, he said. Previously, with another member of the band, Héra Barnabás, they had already seen that Petőfin played Carson Coma for the last time on the very day when Last summer, Tamás Deutsch thanked him with a long list for a bunch of speakers, the dirty work. Even before that, they only played one or two tracks by them, so the number of plays was not really in line with the band’s cultural relevance. He also talked about how their previous management, Gold Record, did not protect their honor very much,
and it was also said that when they wrote the openly LGBTQ-themed Peti and I in 2019, their management at the time told them that they should change the text, which they did not go into.
By the way, Carson Coma was at Gold Record until the end of 2022, and they also released their third album, Digital/Analog, on which we became Immunis, which brought them their greatest success up to that point. According to Fekete, after this was published, they realized that they had to make do with concrete blocks tied to their feet. They then operated as an independent band for two years, and last year they moved to Supermanagement, which also manages Azahriah. The singer said that, by definition, they didn’t even try to tell them that they could be a little more system-conforming, after the songs that reflected on public life in recent years, this would have been counterproductive.
Fekete talked about this in more detail than he said, in his opinion, his involvement and that of other musicians may have played a role in the fact that young people became much more active in public life, but according to him, the main reason for this is that a generation grew up constantly being looked at as stupid, but people are not stupid. He also said that they were more likely to receive messages in LGBTQ themes about how, say, Peti and I or Pók opened someone’s eyes, or helped them explain to their family what they were feeling. Fekete added that their motivation was not that many young people like the band, the lyrics were mainly created from joint conversations.
Regarding how necessary it is in the future for them to deal with lyrics that are critical of the system, or at least active in public life, he said that they talked about this a lot, and that they plan to reflect on public life in the future, if they feel it is necessary, since they have not been specifically anti-Fidesz until now. They will play their existing songs as well, but they don’t want to be political activists, so now the plan is to write one last song summarizing and closing the last 16 years, and then step back. They wanted to do this before their latest record, Purgatorium, but due to the state of public life, they couldn’t hold back.
It also came up again that after a public appearance in 2023 canceled their concert in Brusselsand even then it happened that their performance, which was theoretically on track, could not be realized. It was also mentioned that they previously performed at the Válvölgyi Zsúr, which is connected to the NER, to which Fekete said that they always tried to balance what else to take on, for example, they never went to the MCC Festival, but most of the events ended at the NER, the only question was how many steps. Thus, if they wanted not a single HUF to go to NER, they would not have been able to maintain the band. The singer added,
the red line for them is drawn at party political events, and they have never gone to the extent of not playing certain numbers somewhere.
In terms of public speaking, according to Fekete, speakers who live on the basis of subject rights and on a market basis have been on the same platform in recent years, but he did not blame anyone for not speaking up. On the other hand, those who laughingly, they raised one hundred million forints before an election“of course they’re rats”, as he said, he can’t say anything else about them. He also learned about these NKA grants through Áron Molnár, as he said, they have always applied for the announced tenders for the past 7-8 years, and during this time they received roughly HUF 15 million, which according to him sounds like a large amount, but broken down into years, it is not necessarily what could cover the expenses for which it was used.
They don’t expect any kind of pat on the back, they don’t want Petőfi Rádió to suddenly only play them, or the NKA to give them money only, they want to be able to do their job and for the audience to spontaneously start talking dirty to disappear from concerts, because it’s not a good feeling that they are there as musicians, they want to perform their music, which of course has a political aspect, but not at a political rally there are The for him messaged Zsolt Bayer several times at most, he said that it’s not so funny anymore, otherwise, according to him, the focus should not be on the witch hunt. For this reason, it also arose that perhaps his ratting is excessive, as he said, perhaps he is looking for compensation for the trauma caused by Bayer, but he himself is trying to focus more on recovery.
At the end, it was also mentioned that the Valley of the Arts will carry on the Bánkitó Festival, which was interesting because the Valley of the Arts is led by Natália Oszkó, who was the director of the Liszt Institute when the institute canceled Carson Coma’s concert in Brussels, so that there would be nothing in its place that day. To this question, Fekete said that he is curious to see what Bánkitó will be like in this line-up, because it is a bit like Elefánt taking over Carson Coma, but he thinks it might be good anyway. He doesn’t know yet if they will play there, they will see.
