10 years ago the Faktor rock band had a grand concert at the National Palace of Culture. Now they have new songs and ideas. Vesselin Todorov, aka Vesso Kokala /Vesso the Bone/ established Faktor four decades ago. The cult rock band has released 10 albums over that period, earning the name of the most awarded Bulgarian rock band abroad – the USA, England, Ireland etc. Several generations have grown up with songs like Friends, The Tall Girl, while back in 1989 Faktor took the award of the audience at the Melody of the Year music contest with The Lonely One.

“We decided to have this concert at the Mixtape 5 club downtown Sofia on January 14, because we miss the stage,” says Vesselin Todorov /bass guitar, vocal, composer/. We do think that it is a good idea to sing some of our old songs in these times of tension. We pay attention to different social and emotional issues at many of our pieces. Of course, we intend to bring joy with new compositions. Right now we are working together with Ognyan Tsolov, vocal, on the recordings of a forthcoming album. We want the project to be released by the end of the year. Georgi Markov from the Shturcite rock band is also a part of the formation. We are currently working hard on the concert. It will be audio and DVD recorded, in order to be broadcast by different TVs. We would like our fans to have fun with our old hits, such as The Main Street, The Tall Girl and Friends, also enjoying our latest pieces. We have always looked for contemporary issues and we try to keep the trend. We do want to turn this concert into a spiritual temple for each guest. The 7edem /7even/ band will step onstage as well. Last year we played together in the towns of Stara Zagora and Vidin. I do believe that the audience will hear and see something a bit different on January 14.”

“Whenever I return to Bulgaria from the USA, or each year, I have concerts with Faktor,” says Ognyan Tsolov. “However, the truth is that our latest major concert was a long time ago. We’ve had only small things ever since. We played at the rock concert, organized by the BNR due to the media’s 80^th anniversary. I had an acoustic evening at the Studio 5 club with a colleague of mine. Now we are seriously preparing for our concert at Mixtape 5. It is a prelude to a forthcoming tour, accompanying the release of the album that we are working on. The emotion is real – to see people sing the songs they have grown up with…”

The working title of the new album is Faktor 2015 and 10 songs are ready. Vesselin Todorov also said that the album will be most likely presented in the summer across several Bulgarian cities.

Besides that the Faktor musicians have the ambition to release an Anthology with all their hits from the past 40 years…

English version: Zhivko Stanchev