Interview with Bei The Fish

Interview with Macedonian indie band Bei The Fish and music video director Georgi Unkovski

A stellar field of 16 new music videos fought it out in a highly viewed and voted contest last month, and the battle to win the title of Favorite Music Video for the month and the $100 cash was tight in every match.

But in the end, it was the unique electronic sound of a band from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia called Bei The Fish and an animated music video for their song 'True Story' that won the fans and judges hearts.

Watch the video for Bei The Fish 'True Story'

Fronted by lifelong musician Ognen Anastasovski with Gjorgjievski Nenad Tonkin, Valentina Minovska and Vladimir Nastevski completing the present line-up, Bei The Fish are a unique fusion of acoustic instruments and electronics with a distinctive air of their Mediterranean culture. A leading light of quality pop music in their homeland, Vest proclaimed that "We should be proud to have such a band representing the modern Macedonian music outside our borders".

Bei The Fish on Myspace

Bei The Fish official site

"True Story" was directed by Georgi Unkovski, a Macedonian filmmaker currently studying in Rochester, New York.

Georgi Unkovski on Vimeo

The music video for "True Story" captures the angular, quirky, and fun sound of the song through the meticulous filming process of stop-motion animation.

MAS: Congratulations to Bei The Fish for your win in the Favorite Music Video contest. First off, tell us how it feels to have won. Are you happy, surprised, releived?

Georgi: Surprised, for sure. I hadn't heard about the competition until a month ago, it was a nice opportunity to show my work. I wasn't planning or hoping on winning, I just wanted to get my work seen by as many people as possible.

MAS: Is there an interesting story behind your band’s name?

Bei The Fish: Well we don't know if it is really interesting. Ognen, a long time ago was making a collage and it turned out to be a fish with some letters B, E and I. So the fish got a name- Bei the Fish.

MAS: What are you or your band’s plans for the year ahead?

BTF: The next thing is shooting a new video for our new single “French Cheese” from our current album “Time to Make Things Right”. We started a collaboration with English hip hop artist Ola Dioss and we are thinking of the way to promote it. During the summer we are planning to hit the road and play some summer festivals and by the end of the year we will launch a new single and video from the next album planned for 2011 when we are going to celebrate 10 years of making music.

Click here to read the full interview with Bei The Fish and Georgi Unkovski