Location: AKC Metelkova, Gala Hala, Ljubljana
Interview date: 12.04.2012
“How do you describe evolution without burning a thousand words? All it takes is half an hour, an open mind and a willingness to surrender to music that’s anything but ordinary, delivered on a record that comes in anything but ordinary packaging. Nothing is the way you’d expect, because what’s expected is clichéd, bland and pointless, and just two years after the superb five-pack of gorgeous songs on their debut EP, Grrizli Madams have risen to the task of offering the world a full-length like no other. SNTNTN is a wordless mantra and perfect communication of the senses that stays true to its organic roots, a geyser of crazy ideas and seeds of a brave new world in an age of hopeless grey, painting the sky with the colors of the heart chakras of three individuals who stay true to themselves – no bowing down, no giving up their creative urge! How hard does the heart of Slovenia’s loudest and most stoner-dreamy bear beat? We checked for ourselves, backstage at Ljubljana’s Gala Hala, where the trio was getting ready for the fiery baptism and launch of their long-awaited debut. There’s only one word that sums it all up – passion!”
RockLine: I have to say I’m really honored that, with your first full-blooded studio album out, you took the time to talk about what Grrizli Madams are, what you’ve been from the very start and what you stand for today – in 2012. First off, sincere congratulations on the debut. After the EP V vrtincu vsemogočnega miru, which came out in 2010, we get a logical or not-so-logical follow-up, since the difference between the two is obvious. How do you see the whole thing yourselves?
Miha Vodušek: Holy cow! It’s like old school and new school.
Matej Hočevar: We’re growing up! (laughs)
Gašper Prus: I agree with you.
Matej: Yeah, we’re growing up, maturing in music, discovering its new breadth, trying to go a bit wider in the very concept of our songs than we were used to years ago, and it seems to be working, and we’re really enjoying it!
RockLine: Personally I feel (talking about the EP V vrtincu) that the beginning was built more on feeling, which grew into longer structures; the tracks were conceived as longer from the get-go than on the new record SNTNTN. The new record strikes me, at least at first glance, as tighter but more varied. How did you manage to go in a completely different direction in such a short time?
Gašper: You know what’s interesting? Quite a few tracks are from the same time we recorded the EP – for instance Khakhua Kumu and Prehodna kuhna (Transitional Kitchen) are two tracks we already had done back then, and Chapinero Alto is from that time too. It’s funny, we put those five tracks on the EP, and I don’t know why we picked exactly those five, but it seemed right at the time, and looking back now I think we chose well, because the EP and the record are completely different. But there are also two tracks on this record that stretch past six minutes. On the first record only one went over six minutes. Maybe the tracks on the debut were more drawn out, with less going on inside each one.
Miha: Personally I’d say we expanded in spirit, but not so much in sound. I think the EP is a broader record that crawls along in slowness, but it has a beginning and an end. Everyone expected the fifth track on the EP to be the end, but it could have actually been a beginning, and a similar feeling kicks off right on the new album.
Gašper: The end of Darkota (the last track on the first EP – ed.) should have been the start of this record.
Miha: Maybe if a double album ever comes out … (laughs)
RockLine: The EP was actually my first encounter with Grrizli Madams. The various influences that forged your musical expression kept shifting and shedding skin. At first your sound had more of a thrash tint. From 2008 on, Grrizli were thrashier, and then all of a sudden they sailed into stonerier waters. How come?
Matej: Yeah, we grew up! We didn’t feel like playing such fast music anymore, and that much distortion didn’t fit anymore either. We took a step forward here, slowed down, went for a slightly mellower sound, and that’s our logical next step in creating.
Miha: I never even listened to thrash … (laughs)
Gašper: Miha is actually an outsider …
Miha: I come from more rock-ish waters, more acoustic, flamenco-rock, more guitar-driven waters. I actually started playing bass about seven years ago, and I’ve got a solid twenty years of guitar behind me.
RockLine: You can hear that in the track Emotionless Euphoria, which gives your debut a really emotional acoustic touch. I was convinced you and Matej played it together, and then I find out it all came from your fingers, Miha. A nice interlude that gives the record a moment of calm, followed by the big finale …
Miha: I invited Matej to come along, but a lack of time probably got in the way … (laughs)
Matej: I overslept, actually … (laughs)
Miha: So I had to record the guitars in a hurry, and twice at that … (laughs)
RockLine: The reason for our meeting tonight is, as I said, the release of the debut SNTNTN. What’s the red thread running through the album? Is there a story? The CD has quite a few little stories that can be a great provocation and a starting point for digging deeper, so I’m wondering whether there’s an overarching story that makes the whole thing solid and lets it stand as a self-contained narrative?
Matej: No! It wasn’t made that way or with that concept. The songs came together gradually over long months and years, and there was no initial idea steering it all. Everything came along as we went, with new ideas, and when enough songs had piled up, we said: “OK, guys: let’s go to the studio, record this and throw it on a record!” And that’s what came out!
Miha: I think we’ve got enough spiritual breadth that every listener can let go, close their eyes while listening to our music, and it can take them – on a bad trip or a great one. But there’s no set direction where folks dance for the first three minutes of the first track and then not anymore. We’re a bit dreamy, a bit jazzy, a bit headbangery, and the cycles close …
RockLine: The record was recorded from November 2011 until this January. I assume the months flew by as a string of weekend scheduling, and with your calendars lined up you sat down in the studio and got to work. What was the studio experience like compared to your first excursion among the consoles?
Gašper: I’d say the principle was similar, if not outright the same. First we went up so I could record drums one weekend, then Miha recorded bass the next weekend …
Matej: We went to the studio with the same crew and the same producers, in the same order as we’d gotten to know on the debut. It was cool!
Miha: I’d say that on this record we knew a bit better what we were bringing to the studio and what we wanted – sound-wise, recording-wise …
Gašper: We upgraded the gear a bit in between. Really …
Matej: Sonically it’s a really different record!
RockLine: What did you renew? The guitar is probably new, the amps, the drums …
Gašper: I bought the drums after we’d already recorded, and the bass too we …
Miha: I bought the bass after we recorded everything too! A week after the record was done, all three of us went to Italy for some team building, bought new instruments, and once the whole record was in the can, we came back with all that gear. Me with a bass, Mate with a new head …
Matej: Except for the guitarist, who already had everything!
Gašper: You got lucky because you recorded last!
Miha: We could pre-amp you …
Matej: But it’s true – maybe we’re a tiny bit different sonically now too, and that leaves a mark on the music.
RockLine: So tonight’s christening will be SNTNTN, but in a completely different way?
Miha: Like every one of our gigs!
Matej: Exactly, like every gig!
Miha: We’ve been playing very similar songs for two years, only a couple are new …
Gašper: Three, because a couple of them we’ve only played twice … One we’ve even played live just once … Vitogneva …
Miha: So the real fans will know everything we play today! Nothing new …
RockLine: Will both the EP and the full-blooded debut actually be on the setlist?
Gašper: Yeah, the EP won’t be completely …
Matej and Miha: If you want it, audience!
Matej: If you dance and show your feelings, then it’ll go …
Miha: We didn’t bring acoustic guitars with us …
RockLine: That’s exactly why I’m slightly disappointed, since I was hoping for a gentler medley between wild sonic usurpations and full-on pogoing … (laughs)
Miha: I don’t know if it’s worth setting up guitar gear for 40 seconds. We barely got the amps in the car as it is! (laughs)
RockLine: A real man has balls and dares, right? (laughs)
Miha: If a real man has a truck, then maybe! (laughs)
Matej: You’re challenging us well, but we really couldn’t fit an acoustic guitar in as well, because we don’t own a camper van …
RockLine: The record is here – as it is, and nothing can change, because the mastering’s already done …
Gašper: Exactly, yeah! Everything’s polished and done and dusted!
RockLine: When you first put the CD in the player and listened – did it completely meet your expectations, or do you already feel changes on the horizon, with Grrizli Madams heading in a totally different direction on the next studio follow-up?
Miha: I’ll go first: I personally had to put the record in the player six times before I felt it.
RockLine: It clicked with me the first time, so that scared me at first, because if something goes down that smoothly, something must stink somewhere …
Gašper: You weren’t there for the process when we listened to it, and the final product was the tenth mix, the one that came closest to perfection for us …
Matej: The record isn’t pro, and you can hear it, but …
Gašper: Exactly for that reason, because we didn’t want a slick version, we went into the studio and did what we did. We play this as a hobby and we don’t dream of going …
Matej: We’re not a technical band! We don’t care if a string or three ring out at once sometimes.
Gašper: Even if I hit the snare wrong sometimes … That’s the charm, the tiny mistakes that let you feel life and humanness.
RockLine: You’re organic.
Gašper: Exactly!
RockLine: That’s exactly why I fell for your sound and your studio outings, because you managed to be charmingly un-mathematical, unburdened by metronomes and nitpicky dryness. You can feel the sweat, the energy and your communication with each other, which simply has to be there in a band … Grrizlies, you sound like anything but a dictatorship, more like a democratic setup – am I wrong?
Matej: You’re totally right!
Gašper: I’ll sign that! (laughs)
Miha: Yeah, of course – the majority beats the minority, right? (laughs)
Matej: Our outlook is like that too – in mindset we’re alternative people, free modern global citizens who do alternative music and represent a subculture.
RockLine: Is there an ideology you warm to? Not in some negative sense of isms, but do you back any political faction or idea with which it would, in your view, be possible to improve the world and move it in a better direction?
Miha: Above all, free-thinking is important!
Matej: And we’re hippies too, right?
Gašper: Alright, fine! (laughs)
Matej: And metalheads in our sonic expression.
Gašper: We still go to jobs where we have to be a bit more buttoned-up, so we’re hippies more in our thinking, let’s say.
Miha: I’d say we’re planted in the ground more than in the sky!
Matej: But as for politics, it has nothing to do with any politics … (laughs)
RockLine: Another thing that stands out is that the design is anything but forgettable, and the debut looks like everything’s been flipped around, since the back is the front and vice versa. Was it on purpose, or did the print run go horribly wrong and it was too late to fix? (laughs)
Miha: It’s a mistake, yeah … (laughs)
Gašper: I pushed for that, and I’ll say it honestly. I first saw it on the record The Maggot by The Melvins, a band I love. They were the first to try it and started running with it when they went to the label Ipecoc (a legendary alternative label run by former Faith No More frontman Mike Patton – ed.). With the trilogy The Maggot, The Crybaby and The Bootlicker they decided on reverse printing, and when I saw it, the idea was truly phenomenal. The back has a bigger surface, so you can make more use of it for the sleeve.
Miha: Maybe we’ll be known for the CD opening in a screwed-up backwards way … (laughs)
Gašper: I just don’t get why they didn’t start doing this sooner.
RockLine: The emphasis is more on the songs than on dazzling people with a pretty picture. That’s secondary; what counts is the music and the messages …
Miha: Though the nicest picture is inside, in the sleeve (a group photo – ed.).
RockLine: Minimalism in every respect is cool, but I’m missing one piece of info. On the record I heard a female voice that shows up like an apparition, but she isn’t credited on the sleeve …
Gašper: That’s Luka! That’s her! We listed everything inside! Nobody was left out!
RockLine: Then I was really sloppy reading the credits on the CD …
Matej: Nice of you to admit it! (laughs)
RockLine: So Luka has a very feminine voice …
Gašper: She’s an announcer from Radio Študent – her name’s actually Katja …
RockLine: And Katja evidently studies Spanish, or at least has a handle on it?
Gašper: Actually, no …
Miha: The pronunciation she does have, I think …
Gašper: The pronunciation is the real deal.
Matej: So did you like the vocal or not?
RockLine: What really pulled me in was the intro of the song Stop by Jane’s Addiction … I rolled right back into the nineties …
Miha: Bamby Molesters have a similar Spanish gag on the record Sonic Bullets. That’s how we came up with the idea of having not singing on the record, but a recital. Today will be the first time we present the album as a whole in front of a Ljubljana crowd, though the songs we’ve already played for a Ljubljana crowd, since Channel Zero heard about six of them way earlier.
Matej: Let’s face it – we’ve been playing these songs forever! (laughs) We’re not like Floyd or the Stones, who have 25 records and so on …
RockLine: And do you wish there were so many songs that you’d start fighting over the insane number, with the drummer rooting for the exotica of the first album, the guitarist for the modernism of the 26th record, and the bassist for the avant-garde of the thirteenth?
Gašper: What about Pearl Jam, who can play a completely different setlist every single day of a tour? On every tour they can play 50 songs.
Miha: The Stones have a good 200! (laughs)
RockLine: Which is exactly why – in 20 years, if we drift into a virtual projection of the Grrizlies 20 years from now. I’m playing with the idea that this year is the apocalyptic 2012 and it’s bringing, to my taste, good records, both in our Slovenian sub-Alpine corner of paradise and globally. You can trip with the whole world to the bitter end on 21.12.2012, but if we survive and the world doesn’t end – what are your aspirations for the future? What are your long-term and short-term goals?
Miha: We’ll probably make a couple more songs by then, I reckon … (laughs)
Gašper: We should manage that, yeah …
Matej: Maybe there’ll be a bit more vocals.
Miha: We’ve already got half a song written. The song’s on its way, and we’re still trying out the lyrics. We’re only at the start, but small steps take you far.
RockLine: And the next record will go, I’m guessing, at the same speed, since the debut followed so soon after the EP.
Miha: No, nothing yet, not even close.
Gašper: Right now we have written …
Matej: Zero! There won’t be a record for three years, that’s the minimum, so get used to it – we work slowly, at our own pace and by feeling.
Miha: Let it be enough that today’s concert will be the first where Grrizli use vocals.
Gašper: Yeah, this is the very first gig of its kind!
RockLine: Did you at least test that beforehand at rehearsals, or will the innocence of your vocal cords be lost right on stage, exhibitionist-style?
Gašper: We did, of course …
Miha: About four times, yeah! (laughs) It all depended on how many mics there were at rehearsal! (laughs)
RockLine: So the organic experiment of eternal surprises carries on live too. Before we wrap up, any closing thought or mental vocal mantra you can share with RockLine readers?
Miha: See you Wednesday in front of the parliament!
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