Interview date: April 27, 2008
We sat down with Janez Zmazek at Klubar in Kranj, where one of Slovenia’s best guitarists fired up the machinery of the famous Don Mentony Band in grand style last Saturday, after six years away. Janez says the future doesn’t weigh on him. Free of media hype, he’s calmly planning future victories, and he’s managed to gather an enviable musical family around him once again. “Rock & roll is a way of life” still rings out as the essence of Zmazek’s message, and after twenty years it seems more convincing than ever.
RockLine: Don Mentony is back in action after a long eight years. What has Janez Zmazek been up to until now?
Janez Zmazek: These last few years I did a lot of thinking about what else I could actually do. I wanted to put out a “best of” compilation, but since Don Mentony released albums through three different labels in the past, getting that project out the door would probably have gotten pretty complicated. Later I came up with the idea of recording the material live. I talked to people at the radio in Ljubljana, Val 202 to be exact, about doing this “best of” in Studio 14, which is a little hall for 200 people, over two evenings, so, live! I put together a lineup of these new guys for that purpose, and I’m insanely happy with them..
RockLine: they sound great..
Janez Zmazek: Exactly. Super, really musical. For a while I was also haunted by the idea of dropping Don Mentony, but on the other hand that seemed pointless. Don Mentony is a name people know. In recent years all kinds of stuff was buzzing around in my head. But right now I feel really good.
RockLine: Janez Bončina announced you in December for the traditional Sagittarius and Capricorn get-together, but in the end you didn’t show up.
Janez Zmazek: I’ve already apologized to Benč. I was going so nuts in that pre-New Year stretch that I simply forgot…
RockLine: presents and all that..
Janez Zmazek: Yeah, well, of course we gave each other presents. Come on, give me another drag too, we’ve exchanged gifts. (laughs)
RockLine: What was the experience with Buldožerji like?
Janez Zmazek: Like sleeping with your ex-wife. It was nice. We played 10 or 12 gigs, one of them in Zagreb and two in Belgrade. Considering that over the years you shake off the baggage that weighs on you as a promising twenty-year-old, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We had a blast. A dozen gigs was just the right dose. But we really are old dudes now, so by the end the whole thing was starting to feel like kindergarten. It could happen that we’ll play the opening of Kino Šiška with Buldožerji. But anything substantially new with Buldožerji is out of the question.
RockLine: Some kind of one-night stand, then?
Janez Zmazek: Exactly. We played our thing, it was great, and that’s that.
RockLine: What was the bigger challenge for you, playing with Buldožerji in the ’80s or Don Mentony later in the ’90s?
Janez Zmazek: You know, that’s hard to compare. I was really lucky to land in a band that was at the top of the Yugoslav scene back then. I’d even say among the top five, and in its own way even number one, because it was so different from the rest. We didn’t play so-called shepherd rock. We played way-out, funked-up music. At Buldožerji I learned a lot as a musician. But in Buldožerji I only played guitar, while Don Mentony demands much more in that respect. That’s my baby. And you have to understand that I started my career purely as a guitarist, and if someone had told me back then that I’d one day be a famous Slovenian singer, I obviously wouldn’t have taken them seriously. But, as you can see, things turn out in interesting ways. Every musical experience gives me a certain amount of satisfaction, so it’s hard to say which one I liked best. Maybe Don Mentony by a hair, because it’s my project.
RockLine: Over the years a whole string of excellent musicians has passed through Don Mentony Band.
Janez Zmazek: Yeah, never enough money (laughs)!
RockLine: What’s the formula for keeping the music at a high level when the lineup keeps changing so much?
Janez Zmazek: I actually learned that at Buldožerji. We always worked professionally. And when I saw after Dobra Mrha that this was getting serious, I demanded a certain amount of responsibility from each individual, even if they weren’t amazing musicians or anything. I was also lucky with the musicians I picked, some of them were truly superb, like Matej Mršnik. This latest crew, without dissing the earlier ones, is the most musical yet, the guys are really on it. With them I started enjoying playing songs again that I’d had up to here with six years ago.
RockLine: Is it hard to find good musicians today?
Janez Zmazek: Hard. I was very lucky.
RockLine: How did the collaboration with Tomo Jurak come about?
Janez Zmazek: Tomo and I work together out of necessity.
Tomo Jurak: I lent him some money once, and he still hasn’t paid me back (laughs).
Janez Zmazek: He loves Tomo to bits, he’s just sometimes too honest! You know how it is, if you’re true at heart, then there’s no problem. Jurak and I have known each other for years.
Tomo Jurak: What Janez plays today, I was already playing back in ’66..
RockLine: Before Led Zeppelin, then?
Tomo Jurak: Obviously. Then a family and kids slowly came along, so I left it to Janez instead (laughs).
RockLine: There are a lot of blues elements in Don Mentony’s music.
Janez Zmazek: Of course, that’s the music I grew up on!
RockLine: One of the most recognizable Don Mentony tunes is actually a spin-off of Clapton’s Tulsa Time. Your guitar playing in general also reminds a lot of people of Eric Clapton.
Janez Zmazek: As far as Dobra Mrha goes, I got it wrong. On the album I wrote that Eric Clapton was the author, but he isn’t. It’s actually some country musician (Danny Flowers). I got to know Clapton’s version first, and it stuck in my ear right away, even though in my opinion the original is much better. I wrote the lyrics in fifteen minutes, and that was that. And Clapton is Clapton, of course..
RockLine: Lyrics have always been an important part of Don Mentony’s message. There’s a lot of sex, social criticism, in short, elements you don’t see in the Slovenian rock scene today.
Janez Zmazek: That’s true. I wouldn’t comment on today’s rock scene. Take Siddharta, for example: I can say I really respect what they do, but I don’t get them. I like to take life as it comes, and rock & roll is a way of life. People like to hear you tell them things they carry inside themselves.
RockLine: Would you describe yourself as a blues musician, or a rocker in general?
Janez Zmazek: Somewhere in between. I really like primal blues, but I can’t play it all night because I start to get bored. So a bit of rock, a bit of blues, and you’re sorted.
RockLine: Which direction will Don Mentony Band take in the future? Can we expect a new album soon?
Janez Zmazek: On top of what we plan to record live, I’ve already piled up enough songs for a whole album. So there will definitely be an album, and what happens after that, we’ll see. For myself I can say that I’ve experienced more than half of what I ever imagined as a beginner in this business. I’ll play as long as I enjoy it. When you stop enjoying it, it sucks!
RockLine: Janez, thanks for the chat.
Janez Zmazek: Thank you.
Interview by: Daniel Pavlica
Photos by: Mojca Perdih
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