Mr. Resetarits, for more than a year it was not possible for artists in Austria to enter a stage due to the corona. You have been on tour again in various groups since June 2021. How much did you miss the audience?
Willi Resetarits: Actually there is a hunger and that’s why you play very differently now. In all the tentative attempts that I have already made after the lockdowns, I have noticed that the audience has a similar feeling to the musicians. A mood comes together that is somehow new, that is, different, I would like to say, more intense.
They play in several formations. If there is one within the individual groups that can be seen as the follow-up band to the legendary boss role that has accompanied the “Ostbahn Kurti” for decades, it may be the “Stubnblues” with whom you met on July 3rd to be a guest in Linz?
Of course, there can be no follow-up group because “Kurtl” has basically stopped working. However, if the pressure of the petitions on the part of the “kurtologists” gets too great, which may happen every one or two years, we will appear again. We then have to rent large concert venues so that everyone has space. The Stubnblues cannot be compared with that. Now I just allow myself to play whatever I like with friends and colleagues. The important thing is that I really like the people I play with, and that’s where great ensembles come about.
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The Stubnblues combines folk music, rhythm and blues, funk, soul, samba ??
A cappella singing, Croatian music and jazz. We musicians are so happy when we meet again, it’s already half played.
“Half played” sounds good, what can we look forward to at the FrischLuft concert on the Posthof site?
It’s a new program. We have permanent guests, I think you can say that correctly, who keep coming back and want to hear new numbers. With us it’s a bit like the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which we also go to several times. We also bring new covers, by Van Morrison, of course, which is part of the “Stubnblues”, because before we were the “Stubnblues” we had already played a Van Morrison tribute program together. That was really nice. When a band comes together again, they often find each other through common songs. We also first found each other at Van Morrison and then moved on with our own things. Maybe we will play a new Van Morrison cover with “Fast Train” in Linz. But there are definitely completely new songs, that is, original compositions, in the program.
So songs that will be on the next “Stubenblues” album will be tried out at the current concerts?
Tried or, better, world premiere, as you would like to see it. Of course, we present the new songs at the respective concerts as if we were actually playing them for the first time. So when we come to Linz we say “world premiere in Linz” and so on.
Can you already reveal one or the other song pearl that will be on the new album?
There are new HC Artmann settings. So there will only be my own works on the album, with texts by others, for example Artmann.
You just mentioned HC Artmann, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. Why do you keep choosing texts from this author in order to set them to music?
You can take the collected works of HC Artmann, either the poetry printed on very thin paper, but also the collected prose and then, as in the so-called Bibelstechen, select any Artmann book, open it somewhere and you will profit from it. I am a devotee, or let’s put it this way: I founded the Church of St. Artmann and am a chaplain there myself.
At the beginning of June 2021 you presented the new album “Schdean”, in High German “Stern”, with the formation “Molden-Resetarits-Soyka-Wirth”. In the songs you mainly deal with the topic of freedom and sing about everyday observations or wisdom of old age. Why are stories about so-called “little people” so important to you?
Quite simply because I come from there and because I would be stupid to forget that. I know people who have come to something and then believe they are something better. In the past you looked up to a nobleman or said, “But he inherited a lot”. My father worked a lot, that’s an achievement. With inheritance, however, you don’t have to do much. From an early age, my father worked a lot with his hands and took many evening classes. That’s why he died early because he was so exhausted. My sentiment is for these people. I stand by my origins. We don’t give a damn about the nobility. I know a lot of people who were born into a noble house, there are people among them right now and I get on well with them, but I admire people like my father, who worked his way up from below.
To person
Willi Resetarits (73) first drew attention to himself in the 1970s as a member of the political band “Butterflies” (Proletenpassion). In the mid-1980s, Resetarits then slipped into the role of “Ostbahn Kurti”. After the death of the “Ostbahn Kurti” inventor, known as the trainer, Günter Brödl (2000), Resetarits reinvented himself and founded several ensembles, including the “Stubnblues”. In addition to his work as a musician, the Burgenland Croat is also politically active and co-founder of the organizations “Asyl in Not” and “SOS Mitmensch”. Resetarits also founded Integrationshaus Wien, of which he is honorary chairman. The actor and cabaret artist Lukas Resetarits and the journalist and presenter Peter Resetarits are brothers of Willi Resetarits.
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