Siddharta

Siddharta is the name of a rock band from Slovenia, who got the name from Hermann Hesse's book, a group of six guys who have devoted the last 12 years of their young lives to making music surpassing all their homeland has heard before.

From the beginning they played other bands' music in small clubs, working on their own as time went by. Their first album ID (cf. Freud) was released in 1999.

It was a huge success, only surpassed by their next album Nord two years later. It went straight to number one of the album-selling charts, breaking all known sales records. An incredibly successful tour followed and lasted until summer 2002. (A remix album was released during that time as well, where Siddharta's songs were remixed/remade by the more or less big names in the business, including Laibach, DJ Umek and others.) After that the band retreated from public life, taking a short vacation and started working on their third album Rh-, which was released in the summer of 2003. A special-edition English version of the album, packed in a bloodbag, was released and sold out immediately.

The tour-opening concert took place in an overcrowded football stadium in Ljubljana, the capital city of Siddharta's homeland, Slovenia in September 2003. People from all parts of the country plus foreigners gathered to see Siddharta who accompanied by the RTV Slovenia's Symphony Orchestra and 60 dancers performed in front of a crowd of over 30,000 people and a few thousands who could not get in as the concert had been sold out way in advance.

In March 2005 Siddharta released an international version of their best-selling album Rh- in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Croatia and Slovenia. With Europe opening up, the journey for Siddharta has only just begun and by receiving MTVs EMA 2005 (Europe Music Award) the band is apt to win wider recognition on the music scene of Europe.

After writing and recording for almost 6 months, on June 4th 2006 Siddharta released Petrolea in Slovenia. Their 4th studio album entered the charts at position 1, stayed there for weeks and got the platinum status in march 2007.

At the end of 2006 they went on a tour through whole Slovenia for around 20 concert to promote their new album and also to please fans with some older stuff. Around 50.000 visitors saw Siddharta in their best way of presentation. The tour ended in front of 15.000 people at an open air show in the capital of Slovenia (Ljubljana). It was also recorded by national TV and Radio and aired in January.

A successful 2007 ends with 2 new albums. The first one is a DVD/CD combination of the acoustic radio show on Val 202 called Izštekani. The release is available with 6 different covers; each with one band member. The second album is a live record of their Maraton concert event held in Hala Tivoli in Ljubljana were they played their whole discography in more than 5 hours. It includes 4 CDs with 56 songs and an additional documentary DVD.