We recently connected with Erkin Sağsen and have shared our conversation below.

Erkin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I was living in Ankara when we first started our most successful band. I was studying law back then. Even though i really wanted to make a career in music since i was a little boy, my future was uncertain. One day when we drinking at our favorite pub an opinion poped in our heads. If we wanted to made a career out of our music, we had to take risks and made bold moves. That day we decided to move to İstanbul where the music industry lives in Turkey. I took a break to my school, we rented a really tiny house in İstanbul and moved as a band for one year. Rest is history. We met great agents, music companies, musicians, studios etc. Because of that year we are still together and we make a career as musicians.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Erkin Sağsen. I am 32 years old an i am a musician, producer, video editor in Turkey. I am performing in two bands. One of my band’s name is “Son Feci Bisiklet” i play guitar and keyboard in this one. We are a pop/rock band. The other one’s name is “Hend”, i am the lead vocal and we are a hiphop band. My professional career starts with Son Feci Bisiklet in 2014. I played in lots of bands and even worked as an intern in a local studio in Ankara untill we started Son Feci Bisiklet. I played guitar in rock, indie, pop, metal bands before but i didn’t created songs that influence lots of people. When i first hear Son Feci Bisiklet’s songs i remember saying “i must join this one, this is not the same music that i am hearing everywhere this shit is different”. In 2012 or 2013 our drummer who is still my best friend introduced me to our lead vocal. We shook hands and start working. Back then i was studying law in Başkent University. First we tried to make it in Ankara. We released an Ep and started to have several gigs in Ankara but there was a problem about that. We can’t expand our work in Ankara. I took a risk with my band and we decided to move to Istanbul even though we didn’t have a network. We knew absolutely noone in İstanbul and we had absolutely little amount of money; but we believed ourselves and took our instruments and moved to Istanbul. I even took a break to my school. We tried several music competitions and met some important people in music industry. We started to have gigs in Istanbul and people loved us. While we were releasing 4 singles and having lots of gigs in İstanbul in 2014, i wanted to finished what i started and returned to Ankara to finish my education on law. In 2015 after I just finished my education we released our most successful album “Vesaire”. That album streamed over 150 million today. We gone national because of that album. We played almost every important stage in Turkey and I was just 23 year old. The funny part of this story is we were independent. Back then social media and music platforms weren’t strong communication tools like today. So music companies didn’t took us seriously actually we didn’t wanted to sign with them either. We were independent, we did what we wanted to do, we released songs whenever we wanted, we didn’t share our effort and art with money based companies. We started to recognized on streets and of course with fame money comes next. We upgraded our instruments and played everywhere like crazy. Thankfully people, especially young people loved us like there was no tomorrow. I never forget one gig back then. After the show we were trying to go to our tourbus and the fans that waited, saw us. I don’t remember the exact numbers but imagine this; give or take 500-550 people running to you to hug you. That was gold :) Anyways untill 2017 we gone independent and released 3 other singles after the “Vesaire” album. Then someday all music companies in Turkey reached to us. Every single one wanted to work with us. We went to meetings and chose Sony Music. Because we wanted to upgrade our production value but we didn’t have that kind of money and Sony Music gave us the best deal. In 2017 first we released a single with them and everything gone really smooth. Then we decided to made an album. Sony Music rented a studio that we liked for a month. Everyday I started to work at morning and finished at after midnight. We recorded 10 song album called “Kötü Şeyler” there. That period of time is the most important experience of my career. After we released our album i realized that I can’t get enough of music. I want more and more. We were a pop/rock band but something was missing. I always see music as a pattern like repetitive sounds dancing together in harmony. Because of that i am a big fan of hiphop. I wanted to unite several genres that i am familiar with. After we released several singles with Son Feci Bisiklet I decided to start my own band called “HEND”. I had some songs that I recorded at home and released them in 2019. At first i didn’t want to play on stage. I just wanted to make music that comes from my heart. Then i liked the taste of it and wanted more :) While i was working with Hend we recorded an amazing album with Son Feci Bisiklet in 2020. It was called “Sistemik”. I said amazing to not flatter myself actually that album was the most satisfying thing to me as an artist in my career. We produced it with ourselves and the first time i didn’t play only the guitar parts. I also play the keyboard. That was the first time for me and since that album i play two instruments on stage. That was a huge game changer for me. It’s like a new world discovered. It was really boring to me to just playing guitar. Anyways after that album pandemic hit the world and we decided to took a break. It was useless to trying to play at gigs and more important we didn’t have the motivation to keep going so we stopped. Mean time i worked on my other band “Hend”. Between 2020 and 2023 we released 10 singles and 1 live performance album. I didn’t earn lots of money but i had more important thing in my hands. I realized that i could create anything i want. That was my happy place. Every single day i worked. Every single day i created beats, songs even social media content called “Beats&Shits”. I don’t even care my financial situation. All i had was my poor savings account and my drive to create. In pandemic i learned how to edit videos, i upgrade my. producing skills, i discover my deepest ideas about music, i find my true self. Sometimes i feel depressed, lonely and overwhelmed but i was happy about the product and experience that i am having. Then in 2023 we decided to reunite with “Son Feci Bisiklet”. Now i am recording, producing songs, creating social media contents and going on tours, playing on gigs with my both bands. This story of mine is actually very detailed and long and i tried to tell the highlights but I learn something in my life that only money based ideas aren’t sustainable, but the passion and the love that you feel to your work is. Work isn’t everything in this life there is love friendship family etc. I know that but I think we came to this world without purpose and we find it on the road. At least that purpose worth to your efforts. It is hard to survive in this chaotic nonsense journey of life but you feel alive when you do something meaningful to you. In my career and my life i always follow my feelings, i try hard and i never fear of failure. I always thought that at worst i go back to my hometown Ankara, work in my favorite pub and smile to my memories…

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Creativity is like a realistic dream that you didn’t want to wake. First you search your soul to find the most irresistible desires, horrible fears, intense feelings about yourself then you give them life. It can be a painting of a clown or it can be a peace of rock it doesn’t matter. Once you give that feelings a life it does something to you. It changes you in a good way. Sometimes non creative person couldn’t understand that it is never about money it is about life that’s the beauty of it. As a creator you give more meaning to feelings. More importantly you make people feel things. That is priceless. Imagine hundreds of people came to your show just to share your imagination about feelings and life. In that show every one becomes one person one mind. That can be a beautiful purpose of life.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think bringing people together that doesn’t know each other is the most rewarding thing.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hendmusic_/ https://www.instagram.com/sonfecibisiklet/ https://www.instagram.com/erkinsagsen/

Image Credits
Koray Kalay Hasan Kodal Fatih Cihangir Selimoğlu Ömer Özçelik