"Nena Nizlopi was a Hungarian, Sagitarian, real sexy, crazy one, Di Nizlopi was her mum. Check out Nizlopi.com to see where the real gigs are on. We want to speak to you up in your face with double-heart and double bass." (Nizlopi 2003).
For me, music started from some spark of joy I found in singing. Particularly the full hearted soul singing I heard coming out of my folks' home made speakers. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Otis Redding, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Van the Man, folk music, and the magic of my Da playing his tin whistle on our walk back home from school. I got to sing my lungs out, and love the feeling of my body being so full of sound and breath. Being in a family where the tradition of music and song and story were part of our identity and the main way we would celebrate, relax, or mourn, was incredibly good for soaking up music by osmosis. Folk culture makes music yours. Everyone joins in. No-one need feel excluded, outside, or not good enough. We represent this vibe with all our hearts wherever we play, or do workshops.
Me and John linked on our love of this soul in music. The magic of melody. The passion of a band. The spell of a great song. We made good friends and related to some deep similarity. An Anglo-Irish thing? A dyslexic, artistic ecological / idealistic similarity? Or some soul recognition thing? Well, we became friends. And the strength of that friendship, and the strength of the music mirror each other. We felt our dream of making music as beautiful as 'U2 Live ('Rattle and Hum'/'Out side Broadcast')', 'Astral Weeks' by Van Morrison, Or Tom Waits' whole career (and later Rory McLeod, John Martyn, Bjork, Immortal Technique, Talib Kweli, and many more), as pretty far out. But our passion for music just made us play and write and play again.
It's all been evolution: John taught me guitar at 17. He started beat boxing at 22. We played lots of diverse music as we grew up and found out (and are still finding out!) who we are as Nizlopi. What our sound is. Our sound is: going for it, singing from our souls. Being of service to the song, each other, our audience, and to the very magic and mystery of music. Being true, and pushing to create new relevant funky shit in the moment. The label FDM evolved out of my parents support and belief in us. And our ethical stance came from our feelings and the example of Ani Di Franco, Rory McLeod, and Immortal Technique. Everything evolves. And we are sure we are in for some adventures and tough times on this path which is about staying true to our art, and our ethics, and our people. But we hope! We have hope that we can do just that. Sing your song mofo's.
Luke