VLASTA POPIC

I'm really amazed by the millions of pictures on fb you took while touring. How many times have you gone abroad to play shows since your inception in 2007?

This was our fourth European tour, the first one on the east. We started doing real tours two years ago, I think. We've played middle Europe twice, once western, and now the Balcans. There is another western tour planned for September. After that we want to play in Spain and Portugal, Baltics, Scandinavia… Well we just want to go around and play, this continent is getting small.

What has changed regarding touring if you compare your last travels to the early days?

Obviously more people knows us and we know more people, so it's much easier to book shows. When I started booking Europe, it was hell. Million mails, no one ever answers, but you just need to crack it and then it's easier. We get more invitations now, people inviting us on festivals or tours. The booking part is pretty much enjoyable right now. And slowly, but steadily, more people are showing up on our shows.

What are you lyrics about if you had to generalize them? Can you choose one song that represents the band best?

You can check that out on bandcamp. I've translated every song in English. They are usually about me vs. the world. A lot of things that go on influence me heavily, but I refrain from specifying the exact events, or people, or making anything really clear. It is always buried under poetical and artistic perception. This album is more political in its core than the first one, but it is not all about that. There are quite a few songs which describe my own feelings, not toward the world in general, but my own personal world. These songs are intimate, not political.

"Mastanje" reminds me a bit of SONIC YOUTH and I was wondering which network you operate in when touring. Is there a considerable noiserock scene or do you mainly play show in a hardcore-context?

We play in all kinds of contexts, it really depends on the promotor. Because indie promotors label us as indie, post-hardcore promotors as noise or something, and this genre label definitely attracts different kinds of audience. So we've played with everybody, from grindcore to indie-pop. We really don't mind, and the people showing up always find something about us which they can relate to their favourite genre, so it always works out.

How did you get in touch with Moonlee Records, I mean, you're Croatia, the label is based in Slovenia?!

Yeah, well, we had a country together, right? :) And Croatia and Slovenia are so small and so unsignificant on the world map, and so close to each other that it's really easy for music to transcend this stupid border. It's really only a couple of miles. We wanted to release for Moonlee because everyone who did something with them was really positive about it. And they are definitely the most prominent independent label in ex-yu region, if not the Balcans. It's really so much easier with these guys around, doing promotion and distribution for you, even booking you shows, it's a bliss, really. And they really have the know-how.

Do you have a political agenda? Is there any message you want to get across? Which one?

I refrain from being really specific in our music. But, political agenda? What does that mean? I heard a great quotation the other day. If you're not ready to do politics, politics is gonna do you. So, it is something that we all have to participate in and realize that, as long as we don't care about it and just whine all the time, nothing is going to change and we'll have these evil morons ruling our lives forever. But I can't tell people what to do. I can only speak my mind and hope it gets through to someone. I personally really have problems with the situation as it is right now, be it global or local scale. Still, the "evil politicians and the corporations" are not the root of the problem. It is an individual who doesn't want to think, and just goes on in his life as if he was sleepwalking. Buying and using up stuff without realizing this can't go on forever is a sure way to self-destruction. As Fugazi says, "it's not what they're saying, it's what you're buying". If we stop using stuff that hurts us, the animals and the environment, if we boycott it, that's it. No more buyers, no more money. Game over. Because, let's be honest, people don't have any political power, this democracy narrative is fake as it gets, but they do have the power as consumers, which is the basis of the system. If we stop consuming like ignorant idiots, things are going to get much better before you know it.

Croatian has a very smooth, round sound whereas German tends to sound horrible because it's pretty sharp I think it's lacking vowel qualities or something … on the other hand many bands in Germany have German lyrics at the moment which is kind of a similarity between you and them … why did you opt for Croatian?

I can't express myself in a foreign language as in my mother tongue. This is the languge which is hard-coded in your identity, you think and feel through this language. It's really powerful stuff. English can't get to you with that intensity as your mother tongue can. You grow up with this language, you grow up through this language. It is not something to be taken lightly. So, there was really no question about it. I write only in Croatian, because that's the only language I will ever really understand.

Are you guys math fans or why did you call the album "Kvadrat" and does it mean square in the first place???

Hahaha, well, Mišo (bassist) and me are math fans, not heavy fans, but we like it. Yeah, it means a square. The square is something artificial, there are no straight lines in nature, and this points to the human perception, actually, to the listeners perception of the album. Because when you start listening to something, you always put it in tidy little boxes and you think that's great and it really works for you. This is how perception works. It's squares all over the place. But this is not true. There is so much more, and if you only let go of prejudice or the preconception of someone's music or a genre, you'll get so much more out of it. You just have to take it as it is, and you'll see it's pretty good. Anything, not just this album :)

Could name your ten favourite albums?

Whoa, let's try, but this is going to be an improvisation. I can't name the albums, but the bands. Nirvana, Fugazi, Minuteman, Xaxaxa, Bernays Propaganda, I discovered Warpaint and Coathangers recently… I listen to a lot of awesome bands from our region, this is really the best place to be right now. Pridjevi, Žen, Denis Katanec, Rens Argoa, Moskau, Ivana Picek, Nikki Louder, Repetitor, Marinada, Bebe na vole, this is what comes to mind right now.

Thomas Eberhardt