Location: Krigl Pub / Ljubljana (Vič) / Slovenia
Interview date: 01.08.2009
Forgotten Eden. A band that cultivates hard rock with a recognizable sound all its own, from the little village of Veliko Ubeljsko near Razdrto, just past Postojna, in the shadow of Nanos, is celebrating its 11th anniversary this August. The band was born when the guys were still in seventh or eighth grade. So we’re talking about a seasoned crew, a potent quintet that released its second studio album “Eden” last year. It took ages to line up this interview with drummer Miha Nedoh, but we finally got our schedules to match, and practically the whole band turned up at the scene of the crime, with the exception of keyboardist Iztok Kocen (no, he’s not related to Richie Kotzen). The interview ran suitably long. After a few bottles of beer our tongues were thoroughly loosened. After an hour or so of chattering into the recorder came another hour or so of drinking, and then, because of the late hour, we got “chased” out of Krigl Pub in Rožna dolina (Ljubljana), and the guys invited me to their flat in Vič for proper Primorska pasta, which the band later cooked up together, using their own tried-and-tested recipe. And the night was long. That’s what it’s always like in the company of these ever-smiling folks from Primorska, whom I hope to pay back one day for that great pasta with a good barbecue and some čevapčiči…
RockLine: The new album “Eden” is out. You can hear progress compared to the debut, though personally I think the production could still be improved a bit.
Jure: As far as production goes, I worked on it together with Jadran Ogrin. We agreed on all the fundamentals. The band is very happy with the sound we got. I think you didn’t listen to the album closely enough, you probably only played it once. Some of the claims in your review (RockLine review of the album “Eden” HERE) aren’t professionally grounded either. This isn’t an album that sinks into your ears on the first spin, you have to dig into it. We’re also very happy with how the recording went. Our Miha, for example, laid down all the drums for the album in just two days. The drums are what they are. No samples were used on top of them. And when you listen, only two guitar lines are used. We didn’t “sample” things the way that was common in eighties-style production. We wanted to catch as natural and live a sound as possible. We spent even less time on the bass lines than on the drums. The vocals were also done in two days. Only the guitars took us longer. We recorded the whole album in ten days. Then we were forced to wait for the studio to free up, because Jan Plestenjak was in there at the time, and after that came the mix.
Edo: A month before recording I broke my arm, but luckily I was totally ready by the time we recorded.
Jure: We also put a lot of money into it, and so far we haven’t managed to cover that loss.
Miha: We’re very happy with what we achieved.
RockLine: That seems like the main thing to me. That you’re happy with your work and believe in it.
Nejc: For example, the reactions from Italian media to our record have been very positive. We got nothing but good reviews there, unlike, say, the RockLine review.
Edo: Yeah, the fact is that everybody hears music in their own way.
Jure: We got something like 10 positive reviews from Italy, comparing us to the biggest bands in the world.
Miha: That’s why it’s a pity we don’t have a proper manager who’d push our name and music out there to the masses.
Jure: And on top of that, of course, we can’t live off our music as professional musicians. Everybody does other stuff to get by. Most of us are studying. Miha also plays drums in Requiem,… And for things like management we just sadly run out of time.
RockLine: What about current gigs? I know that in March 2009 you played in Cerknica in front of the great Finnish band Lordi. Any more shows in support of the new album? Is there a mini tour in the works, packaged with a similar band to Forgotten Eden? From my experience so far, you’re a very popular, in-demand band with the crowd.
Jure: Judging by past gigs, it’s true that the crowd likes us and likes our music. But given the Slovenian scene, from our point of view it’s hard to put together that kind of tour, because it’s hard to find a band in Slovenia that’s stylistically similar to Forgotten Eden. And if we went on tour with, say, Requiem, our Miha would have to play two sets back to back every night. In commercial terms, though, it would be a very good idea that would draw a lot of people to that kind of party.
Miha: At one point there were talks about it with Prospect, but those plans later fell through.
RockLine: True, you Forgotten Eden are stylistic oddballs in Slovenia, but still, if we stretch the common denominators a bit and look at it more broadly, there are other young up-and-coming hard rock bands next to you, like Broken Arrow, Hotty McKnotty, Stone Orange, 7th Angel… They’re obviously different from each other, but still, they help bring hard rock back into the spotlight. How do you see the situation in Slovenia right now?
Edo: In Slovenia we still feel the dominance of extreme metal bands these days. But things can turn around, heh, heh, heh… we’ll see what the future brings.
RockLine: I think the return of Requiem is very important for reviving hard rock in Slovenia. They can be a kind of locomotive that pulls the rest along behind them. What do you think?
Jure: Exactly. But who else in Slovenia even plays hard rock besides Requiem and us?
Miha: Mary Rose.
Edo: Yeah, but Mary Rose play very few gigs at the moment, similar to us.
Jure: There are some talks going on about a couple of shows in Italy, though.
RockLine: Hard rock is getting popular again in Italy right now, so that idea seems spot on to me. It’s that “revival” wave that started spreading from Scandinavia a few years ago…
Jure: The market here is also much smaller. There’s no chance of surviving a month in Slovenia on this kind of music. Jan Plestenjak?
Edo: Then that’s the end of the story.
Jure: Here it’s more the folk scene that’s rolling, ha, ha….
RockLine: Let’s go back in time. Who came up with the idea of starting Forgotten Eden, and where and when, and how did you find each other?
Jure: Things went very easily, they were simple.
Miha: Basically we’re all from the same village, Veliko Ubeljsko.
Jure: Yeah. That sounds weird, and it’s also a huge stroke of luck.
Miha: In the beginning there were both Počkaj brothers…
Jure: Then Miha came along.
Miha: We had a few problems with guitarists. First Mario left us, then his brother Simon, the keyboardist, left the band too. And then we got Edo and Iztok. We’ve had very few lineup changes in our career. Practically none.
Jure: On the new album too, we played pretty much everything ourselves. Simon, the former keyboardist, helped us out, and Sergio from Requiem (Sergej Škofljanec, editor’s note) contributed a little as well. If we ever get the chance to record one of our live shows in the near future, maybe even shoot a video, we’d definitely invite all the guest musicians, especially the former members who helped make the album “Eden” happen.
RockLine: How do your original songs come together? Do you bring the riff first, or the melody first? Who kicks off the ideas in the band, etc…?
Jure: Mostly I bring all the ideas. Then the others tell me what they like, what they don’t, what could be better and so on.
Edo: We simply trust Jure, so far everything has always turned out well. Sure, sometimes tempers flare, sparks fly, opinions are split, but we always find a consensus.
Jure: Otherwise, music in our band doesn’t start with me bringing a riff first. We approach things more holistically right from the start. The solos naturally come at the end. There everybody has absolute freedom.
RockLine: Jure, you’re a multi-instrumentalist. Do you also contribute the keyboards at the foundation level?
Jure: Yes. Just not the drums.
Edo: Well, you do know how to write the drum lines too.
Jure: Of course, though the basis, vocals and guitar, come from me first.
RockLine: And what about material for a new album? Is anything in the works yet?
Jure: If we stick together, we’ll surely come up with something new.
RockLine: What does that mean? Is anyone of you going into the army, getting married?
Jure: No. But of the new material, which is two songs, we’ve only tried playing together the one that came later. The other track is actually very old, but we didn’t want to use it on “Eden” because it’s a bit different. A really nice piece, but also a bit more complex. It all depends on the band. If we can scrape together the money, the will, the time for rehearsals,… Right now, though, we urgently need to promote the album “Eden”!
RockLine: That’s what I had in mind the whole time, but I didn’t want to pester you like a horsefly with that question, why was so little done to promote the album “Eden”?
Jure: Yeah. There was really no promotion of the album “Eden”. I mean proper promotion. Something was moving at the start, when the song Krompirjeva noč came out. It was the 10th anniversary of the band, and at the same time the 30th anniversary of Krompirjeva noč. First we released just the song Krompirjeva noč, and then a whole CD after it. The plans were big, but in the end they kind of fizzled out and we got very little out of the promotion. We still hope some chance comes up to advertise the album “Eden” as much as possible. Maybe even a video, since we filmed some footage at the Božični rock festival. But of course it all comes down to money.
RockLine: And how do you pull off being a member of four bands at once, Miha? Forgotten Eden, Razvaline, Requiem, and now Lene kosti too? That strikes me as a phenomenon in its own right.
Miha: With Forgotten Eden we only rehearse on weekends anyway. With Requiem we only have two shows confirmed, and nothing’s settled yet about what will happen with the band afterwards. Every one of these bands, when it’s preparing for some project, falls at a different time, so I manage to combine them. But if it happened that all four bands were recording an album at the same time, that would be a crisis.
RockLine: Hypothetically speaking. If an offer came from abroad for a tour of Germany. Would you have the guts to drop all your other obligations and hit the road in Germany?
Jure: None of us would be scared of that.
Edo: Oh,.. I think we’d just go.
Jure: And there’d be no question of whether we would or not if they offered us money for the shows too.
RockLine: Are you Forgotten Eden open to foreign markets?
Jure: Yes. Especially the Italian one. If only because of the proximity, since in a van we’re across the Italian border in no time.
Miha: We weren’t far from playing at the Bang Your Head!!! festival in Germany.
RockLine: Wait, what?!?!? You almost made it there? The organizer of that festival is, among other things, a big hard rock fan. This year, for example, he booked AOR legends Journey.
Miha: Yeah, it was a close one.
Jure: Yeah, since you mention Journey, the new album “Revelation” is great. The new singer replaces the old one excellently. The album itself is great too, it’s inspiring, a source to draw ideas from.
RockLine: It’s a real Journey album.
Jure: You, wearing an AC/DC shirt, must surely understand that this band must not betray its fans and change its style on an album it puts out.
Edo: Right. There’s a modern tendency for old bands to change their style on new albums as a rule. Most of them. And everything that comes out of that is terribly uninteresting and soul-crushingly dull.
Jure: Journey’s new album is the opposite of that. It continues the tradition of their classic albums and doesn’t care about trends. That seems very important to me. All bands should stick to that. Especially older ones.
RockLine: Jure, have you ever thought about focusing only on singing at gigs, for the sake of the performance itself, and getting an extra rhythm guitarist in the band for that?
Jure: Yeah, I’ve thought about it. Being free on stage is a really important thing, running back and forth, keeping the crowd with you. For a song like I Can’t Wait that would work great. And when shooting a video, for example…
RockLine: Does breaking through abroad tempt you?
Jure: It’d be great to get some offers to play in Italy. Like I said, we got very good reviews for our new studio album. There were some talks in that direction, but nothing concrete has been settled yet. We’ll see. It’s kind of tough, though. The Italians already have a ton of their own bands. But it’s also true that there’s nobody quite like Forgotten Eden.
RockLine: But hard rock is coming back. Do you get that feeling?
Jure: Yes. Especially in the Primorska area. Rock is practically ingrained in those people, they love listening to this music, they come to gigs. The Ljubljana area has more of a “fancy” scene…
RockLine: Ljubljana is a chapter of its own. As far as the musical taste of most people goes. That kind of taste puts Slovenia in a bad light….
Jure: But there are real music lovers in Ljubljana too, who hear music and get it the right way. Over all these 11 years, with the exception of one gig way back in Nova Gorica, where seven totally drunk dudes watched us from below the stage, we’ve had really great concerts. Full houses, people knew the lyrics, sang along. I don’t know where from, but that’s how it happened and that’s how it is.
RockLine: Let’s jump back to the album “Eden” for a bit. What are the messages in the lyrics, and which songs are especially close to your hearts?
Jure: The lyrics are about everyday life, pure realism. And of course about girls. Otherwise, all the songs are equally close to my heart, it’s hard for me to single out any in particular…
RockLine: And the others?
Edo: For me, for example, Electric Night is a great track, great to play. At first we wanted to tie all these verses, the lyrics between the songs, into some kind of meaning, some kind of story…
Jure: The intro to I Can’t Wait itself is built from verses gathered from all the songs on the album, and actually announces the whole point of the album, its message, right at the start. Really the intro and the first track.
RockLine: So there’s a concept behind the album?
Jure: Indeed. It tells of a night that happens. A rocker heads out for some “action,” you step out, meet a nice girl, win her over. But then things get complicated, and you can take that one night as an actual single night, because everything between the two of them gets tangled up and untangled in that night in the end, or also as a longer-running relationship between two people, from the beginning to the moment it falls apart.
Edo: Electric Night is exactly the climax of that story.
Jure: Yes. Electric Night is the climax…
RockLine: Shame that isn’t written down somewhere in the album booklet…
Jure: But it is. On every page, symbolically, in the design of the booklet pages, you can clearly see the “red thread” that’s supposed to tie the content of the songs together.
RockLine: And what does the cover of the album “Eden” represent?
Jure: What’s on the cover is an artificial paradise.
Edo: That little guy drawn on the cover is walking on glass, with a greenhouse underneath, really a fake, kitschy paradise, in a way.
Jure: Yeah, that little guy is lost. The one on the cover. He looks lost, searching for himself, wandering…
RockLine: How did you get to know Jadran Ogrin and choose him as the album’s producer?
Edo: We didn’t know each other. It was our wish to record an album in his studio.
RockLine: What about acoustics, does that appeal to you? Have you ever thought about an unplugged album?
Jure: Definitely. But right now we’d rather release a live recording. As a DVD. With 2000 or 3000 people gathered in front of the stage. We’d prepare an hour and a half of solid material and record it. We’re a band that comes into its own on stage. Even if the crowd is reserved at first, or doesn’t know us, during the show they connect with our music and “fall in” as we play. Like I say, our concerts always turn out really well. That’s how it was when we played at the VPK hall in Ljubljana, before Within Temptation. At first people were reserved, but then they gathered in front of the stage during our set and supported us.
RockLine: Is there a Slovenian band worth singling out that recently left a special impression when it showed up on the scene and when you saw it live?
Edo: They’re not hard rock, they’re thrashers. Negligence. Pure madness. It’s just a shame they play so rarely, because it’s a real pleasure to watch what those guys do on stage. I hope they get their big break. Their debut is really excellent.
RockLine: What do you think about the current mainstream? For example, the stuff that gets played on MTV today?
Jure: I’m not exactly thrilled. There’s a lot of that extreme growling and screaming, with no feel for melody. Forced playing, without feeling, cold, rational. On the other hand there are loads of bands going for some emo, goth mourning “pussies”. I feel nothing in this music except total shallowness. Then those bands achieve some success, I mean commercial success, leaving the quality of their music aside, they grow wings and spout complete nonsense in their statements to the press… Or maybe we’re just that old by now.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
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