Goran Bregović: 'Balkan brass is punk – more madness than music'

The composer of Three Letters to Sarajevo discusses religious and Gypsy inspirations, the power of communist rock – and why he’d like to move to Manchester

Goran Bregović sits in a French hotel lobby considering the battered history of Sarajevo, once his childhood home and later the scene of the most lengthy, brutal siege in modern European history. Hundreds of thousands were trapped, and more than 10,000 died, as Bosnian Serb forces encircled the city between 1992 and 1996 in the violent upheavals that marked the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. But life had once been very different there, Bregović says, back in the era of communism and President Tito.

“We were a little bit poor, but if you look back, this was probably the best time in our history. It was a peaceful time. My mum was Serbian, my dad was Croatian, and the only problem in our house was my father’s drinking … He was a Yugoslav army colonel and they drink too much.”

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2GPPMjv