(car hissing)
(soft operatic music playing)
(operatic music playing)
- My name is Colin Hegna
and I'm the leader of the Band Federale,
from Portland Oregon.
We play music
that's inspired by Spaghetti Westerns from the sixties
and seventies .
Spaghetti Western is an Italian,
Western film
that was inspired by the American Western.
[Inaudible]
Then American Westerns,
the good guy wears a white hat
and the bad guy wears a black hat.
Whereas an Italian westerns,
no one is either good or bad.
They're all somewhere in between.
(horses cantering)
The greatest of the Spaghetti Westerns,
were directed by the film maker,
Sergio Leone.
(ethereal sounds)
the big Trilogy
that everybody knows is the man with no name,
Trilogy
and those are the Sergio Leoni,
Westerns that Star Clint Eastwood.
- It's right.
Fistful of Dollars for a few dollars more
and the Good the Bad and the Ugly.
The soundtracks,
to these films are written by Ennie Morricone.
(ethereal sound)
He is an absolutely fantastic film composer.
(soft ethereal music playing)
He's worked in a lot of genres,
but the genre
that he's most known for are the Spaghetti Westerns,
like the Good the Bad and the ugly.
(operatic music playing)
He would bring,
a lot of Mariachi Trumpet calls in the background
and Electric Guitars.
He would bring in a lot of orchestral aspects,
big drum hits,
choirs chanting
and these operatic vocals.
It's very Italian sort of inspired.
I think by like Operatic Music.
(Operatic music playing)
(gun shoots)
Some very dramatic
(laughing)
that are always been around for almost 15 years now.
And we started this sort of on a Lark,
troop it's amazing.
- That's some good trumpet playing.
- Yeah trying to recreate.
These is insanely difficult.
Me and a couple of my friends had a band
that had just broken up.
And so we decided to form a new band,
but we didn't know what style of music to play.
And we had just been sitting around watching these movies,
the good the bad the ugly was on a constant rotation.
And it was just natural for us to try to like emulate
that we were just sort of screwing around for fun.
I didn't really have any idea
how serious it would become.
(operatic vocal music playing)
[Inaudible]
(operatic music playing)
(operatic guitar music playing)
(operatic chime music playing)
We come up with a story
and a couple of characters,
and then we come up with themes for each of those characters
and we try to develop songs based around those themes.
And as the sort of story progresses,
then we're able to like bring
those themes in
and juxtapose them against each other.
Almost like the characters in this make
believe film are interacting with one another.
(steel drums playing)
We kind of became the band
that would score these films
that don't exist.
Very nice.
I started meeting people who were actual filmmakers
and they were looking for that kind of music,
but like original new stuff.
(operatic vocal music playing)
I met this director Ana Lily Amirpour.
She would send me a rough version of the script
and I would sort of come up,
with little pieces for various characters
or various scenes
that I thought might be cool.
(soft ethereal music playing)
And then she would have the music in mind
when she was actually filming
and editing.
(operatic vocal music playing)
That's how we started,
being in real films,
(operatic vocal music playing)
her film debuted at Sundance
and people absolutely went nuts.
(operatic vocal music playing)
And then we did the music for her film,
The Bad Batch.
She has a new film coming out later this year.
Kate Hudson is in it and we've done some music for
that as well.
I think it's going to be really cool.
(operation music playing)
And we've done a bunch of music for a new documentary.
That's about a community of Black Cowboys
in Compton.
(operatic music playing)
The documentary is really,
interesting.
(soft upbeat music playing)
We also had music in the first Lego movie
that came out a few years ago.
(soft upbeat music playing)
So that was a bit of a block-buster turned for us.
(ethereal music playing)
- Wait where are we?
(car hissing)
- We just released a new record,
No Justice on Jealous Butcher Records.
- Here we go.
- What's up?
And we've been touring to support that.
So we're kind of making the rounds
and spreading the word of the new record.
(steel drums playing)
A lot of people have thought of us as
this specifically Spaghetti Western Band,
but I like to bring in a lot of other genres as well.
(steel drum music playing)
(operatic chime music playing)
(soft jazz music playing)
(operatic music playing)
(operatic drum music playing)
(operatic trumpet music playing)
(operatic music playing)
(operatic vocal music playing)
(operatic guitar music playing)
(operatic vocal music playing)
(steel drums playing)
(trumpet playing)
We have trumpet
and we have these operatic vocals
and the whistling is a big part of it as well
and chimes.
And just all these fun sounds
that you don't normally hear in a rock band,
but they sort of exist in this world of Spaghetti Westerns,
where you can have guitars
and strings and horns going at the same time its cool.
(whistling music playing)
A lot of our topics are very serious.
We deal with scenarios
and films
that we're imagining
that are a little heavy.
And so it's good to have some levity in there.
(string guitar music playing)
(steel drum music playing)
I think things like the whip crack
and the occasional smirk off
to the side gives it a bit of fun.
You know,
(audience cheering)
- We definitely take ourselves seriously,
take the music seriously
and you have to take yourself seriously.
Even, if you're doing something kitschy,
you have to believe in the music in order for
that emotion to come across.
(operatic vocal music playing)
(operatic vocal music playing )
(operatic vocal music playing)
(audience cheering)
[Inaudible]
- What would Ennio Morricone think?
- I think he'd like it,
maybe one day we'll find out.
( vocal music playing)
(operatic vocal music playing)
(ethereal sound)