Guca is a sleepy village in central Serbia, and Wacken is a sleepy village between Hamburg and the North Sea coast. Once a year, for a few days, both are engulfed in music fever. The Wacken Festival needs no introduction; heavy metal reigns supreme there. In Guca, the Balkans celebrate a wild high mass of horns at Europe's largest brass festival - with tens of thousands of fans losing themselves in the thunderstorm of metal, dancing, pogoing, and headbanging. Two musical worlds that have never met before.
Now, Balkan horns and metal guitars meet for Balkan metal - in the band "Guca Meets Wacken." Bassist Manne Pokrandt came up with the idea after experiencing the festival in Guca in 2015 - and couldn't believe his eyes and ears. "People were stage-diving in front of the stage like at a metal festival," he recalls. And then there's the sound: "They play completely differently than wind instruments in a big band - with such extreme power that the horn bends when blown."

"Guca Meets Wacken" - this isn't a watered-down crossover, but a crashing, explosive mix: loud, wild, and powerful. The musicians have their roots in Serbian folk music, metal, and Greek classical music; they play in wind ensembles, the Babelsberg Film Orchestra, and rock bands - from Keimzeit, Udo Lindenberg and Engerling to Mitch Ryder and Knorkator.

The first videos with songs from "Guca Meets Wacken" were released in 2021, and the following year saw their successful live baptism of fire in the Kesselhaus of Berlin's Kulturbrauerei. In June 2024, the band thrilled audiences at the Blue Wave Festival on Rügen. The vacationers on the beach promenade, accustomed to the soft sounds of the holiday playlist, initially looked confused - and then celebrated in front of the stage.

First single "Lola" from the upcoming album by Tubareckorz