Funeral Oration was a melodic hardcore punk band from Amsterdam, Netherlands. They were active from 1982–83 until the end of the 1990s, putting out highly influential records on Dutch, German, British and American labels. Their singer was Peter Zirschky.
After listening to punk rock for a couple of years, Peter Zirschky decided to start a punk band. It was 1980 and they called themselves Art Protexion, probably because Zirschky's favourite band at the time was The Art Attacks. Drummer Ferry Fidom and bassplayer Mike de Veer joined him a year later in Last Warning. They soon changed their name to Funeral Oration, with no thought behind that, but broke up two months later.
In 1983, Zirschky placed an ad in the Dutch punk magazine Koekrand, saying: "Need a bassplayer, don't have to be good, but has to be pretty fast", recruiting William Steinhäuser to play the bass and forming the core of the revived Funeral Oration. The band went on to release numerous EPs, two cassette-only albums and 7 full-length LPs, the pinnacle of which was their debut album "Communion" (1985), and also toured the States three times during the 90s.