Pridigarji

Pridigarji (The Preachers) are a seven-piece ska punk band from Ormož in north-eastern Slovenia, formed in 1987 and based there; that is why they are on Muzika-Balkan. They sing in Slovenian. The band grew out of Gnile duše, one of the first punk bands in Slovenia, and its members were among the founders of Unterhund, the Ormož club.

Singer and bassist Davorin Bešvir writes the words. All the lyrics of both Pridigarji and Gnile duše were collected in the book 100 gaziranih opic, published in 2011 by Subkulturni azil in Maribor.

Pridigarji have played more than 400 concerts in Slovenia, the neighbouring countries and the rest of the former Yugoslavia. In 1993 they played Germany for the first time on the Slovenia Six Pack tour, followed by their own European tours, IdiotSKA, DebilSKA, KretenSKA and ImbecilSKA, through Germany, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Switzerland. They played Novi rock in Ljubljana in 1997, Fiju Briju in Zagreb in 1998, the Art & Music festival in Pula in 1996 and 1999, the KST club in Belgrade and the Soča Reggae Riversplash in 2002, and in June 2008 they played the acoustic radio show Izštekani.

Their albums are Zadnji odcep za paleozoik (1990), Podvig z napako (1994), Počasne preproge (1995), Na vrat na nož (1997), Idioti v hali slavnih (1999), Vse ali več (2002) and Nizki udarci na visokem nivoju (2011), followed in 2013 by the vinyl compilation Retro dizajn. They were named band of the year at the Maršev gojzar awards in 1995 and 1996 and won a Zlati petelin for best alternative rock song in 1997.

Their songs also appear on many compilations, among them No Border Jam 1–5, This Is Ska and Ska Factor Positive. Today the line-up is Bešvir with guitarist Domen Obilčnik, drummer Kruno Karlovčec, keyboard player Aljoša Širovnik Vičar and a horn section of Matej Mertik, Sašo Barin Turica and Andrej Rakuša.