Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Interview date: 23.04.2007
I had a really pleasant evening ahead of me. So did the rest of the crowd in the nicely packed Orto bar, because Ljubljana’s oddballs and music enthusiasts- Intimn Frizurn- were playing their debut set at the traditional, by-now-beloved music festival Orto Fest. I head up the winding stairs to the first floor, and after a short wait outside the door, singer Milan Jerkić, guitarist Žiga Rangus and drummer Igor Iskra, the main talkers of the aforementioned quintet, come out of the main concert room. We head backstage. To the little room where the rest of the lineup is already waiting, the crew that left us for a short while in the spheres of their own intimacy…
RockLine: Hello, all of you. We’re in a sort of waiting room before your debut at this year’s Orto Fest.
Milan: Hello to you too, and to all the readers. I’m really glad we’re at Orto Fest this year. Last year we were whining about why we weren’t here… Anyway- today we’re here. This year I didn’t manage to catch any band from the Orto Fest lineup (I was planning to see Therapy?, but it didn’t work out, because I had a few health problems)…[points to a bandaged hand with a supposedly badly damaged finger…] Kind of on purpose… I dunno… It’s a pretty long story… So… Now we’re here. We’ll play a set that’ll run about an hour and a half. We’ll be presenting a ton of new stuff we made recently. And we’re slowly heading off on a break too. To rest up a bit, because we’re kind of sick of the whole thing, so we can come back recharged and start working on a new record. What’ll come out of it? No idea!
RockLine: Let’s start here: the first time I heard of you- you’ve definitely got a sexy name that grabs attention. What were the beginnings, or what was the spark that turned you from a hanging-out-for-fun thing into a real band?
Žiga: We started around 2000, and at the beginning there were three of us- drums, bass guitar with vocals, no… well, yeah- there were vocals, but they were more on the easy side. We started as a trio out of love for music, and at the very start we began playing without actually knowing how to play anything. It was pretty fun and we had a blast. Then we shaped our own style, somehow got a drummer too, Milan on vocals, a keyboardist, and we tried to pour it all into a new form- the music we’d been making as a trio we kind of melted into a new mold, so we’d get our own “flavor”.
RockLine: What was that first music like? Right at the start you were probably still searching and feeling your way, looking for inspiration and influences in other bands… Where did you suck up your inspiration?
Milan: Basically we were- at least I personally was massively into Faith No More, Mr. Bungle… The big names when I was 15-16. Back then they were the main model for what kind of music I’d make. Then I stumbled on a band at some gig that changed my outlook completely- the band was called Extensor. They blew me away with their varied metal that was sarcastic and goofy at the same time. Another funny thing happened at that gig, when the former vocalist, Boštjan, fell through the stage, and I thought it was part of the show, and what I found out later was that it wasn’t planned… He was just a bit too heavy, right? (laughs) It looked good though, no denying it! Then there was some audition. I came over to Ekstenzor, who then fell apart, then they warmed up to ska, so we played ska-punk, and we were, to put it mildly, unhappy with the results, so we decided to make something new. I switched to drums. We invited the former bassist of Ekstenzor to join us, and then me and both Žigas jammed, smoked a bit (the green stuff, right?), but nothing felt right in a pure form- we tried reggae, ska, funk, but no real result. Then comes the idea to mix it all up and glue it together into some new collage. So we glued everything together and got tracks with really bizarre transitions, with bizarre rhythms. We started playing around with rhythms, started using 9/8 time signatures, cramming ten themes into four minutes, which already borders on schizophrenia…
Iskra: We were messing around like crazy…
Milan: And it was super weird. Moloko feeling, but with a Mr. Bungle flash. Weird by my standards… Something started messing with me… I had heart arrhythmias, because I was smoking too much and during the shakes I couldn’t play the rhythms properly… With the fast rhythm changes I started feeling strange, so I started freaking out that I wasn’t going to do this anymore, that I’d had enough, and that we needed a vocalist too. Then we even had some girls at rehearsal- among them Polona Kasal showed up too, who doesn’t remember us anymore, but I don’t blame her, since we don’t remember that period down to the last kidney either (laughs)… And then the decision was made that I’d go back to vocals. Iskra had a band with us… What was it called again?
Iskra: We were Disenchanted, only… Jambus, some kind of deal- a friend we got to know back in high school, a drummer, was rehearsing at some space and they needed new tenants, so through him we got the space, started rehearsing and… then Milan calls me one day to come try out what our personal chemistry was like. At first I doubted anything serious would come of it…
Milan: We were weird… Totally…
Iskra: It wasn’t exactly music to my taste…
Milan: And I was super stressed out back then…
Iskra: Well, yeah… I don’t remember it quite like that, but it’s true the music wasn’t really my thing, but when we got together something clicked and blew past all expectations. It was really awesome. The first rehearsal was truly phenomenal, and so I stayed…
Milan: Iskra said: “I’m not going to drum on just two songs!”
Iskra: Yeah, well…
Milan: That’s exactly why we called you- so you’d drum on all of them! (laughs) The first proper gig came not long after… You know, I don’t remember where it was…
Iskra: What’s that place near Celje? Not Mežica… Mozirje!
Milan: Yes! Mozirje… That was the first gig where Iskra played two songs and went offstage, there was some switching around and he played all the percussion. At the next gig he played more. I think it was Orto bar…
Žiga: Exactly…
Milan: The first serious gig that we recognize as such was the one at Šoto klub, where he fully took on the role meant for him. Anyway: then we expanded to keyboards, and that’s when our real problems started. Schooled keyboardists- and psyched-out dudes locked up on the first floor of a farmers’ cooperative who basically had no contact with anything but themselves and the rats that chased us at night when we fell asleep at the space, which happened quite often… But we made: some bizarre music and said it was time…
RockLine: To record your debut?
Milan: To make something.
Iskra: Although we fell into slightly too much perfectionism. It’s surely good to have a record polished in every detail. With the keyboards we wanted to sound full…
RockLine: Since we’re on Kokos Kokos Presenta: Intimn Frizurn- what was the main red thread you deliberately pulled through the whole album?
Iskra: The record… That was it! When you’ve got your songs, and the record is just a frame you want to hang the whole palette on.
Žiga: It was music made over several years anyway. Everyone puts their earliest songs on a debut. We didn’t write songs with the intention of them ending up on this record, the record was the result of those creations.
RockLine: You got a ton of positive reviews. How about your own satisfaction?
Milan: For me, along the way, during recording, the first sobering moments hit. When I realized something was still missing and that we had quite a few holes and so on. Already when we went to record in Lower Carniola and even earlier at Metro studio. And the flash was always the same: “This isn’t right. This is… Ah!” Once we’d recorded the thing we got through that phase, but then when you step away and listen to it with some distance after a year… Then it sounds super great. I don’t like praising my own music, but the groove is super great. The thing is, when you’re the one recording something…
RockLine: You always hear it differently…
Milan: Yeah. You take in the music differently than an audience that hears a song for the first time and has a surface-level relationship with it.
Iskra: We always rehearsed a lot and heard the songs even a thousand times.
Milan: Something that was really great to somebody seems kind of funny after so many listens. But the final product is really great, varied, colorful, really… Everything clicked and we got in everything we wanted to get in, we could play it all. True, we had a bit of bad luck with keyboardists, but we made up for the gap with friends who helped us ease the problems- Gal Gjurin, Severa Gjurin, Igor Matkovič and Boštjan Pirnar, and let’s not forget- Jelena Ždrale- those dudes really delivered, they put in the effort and we liked them, and we worked like animals on the drums and vocals… Especially… Igor (Iskra)- hats off! Žiga (Rangus, guitar) – all the praise, because you were the biggest fanatic, and hats off to me too, for not breaking down… (laughs) Often during recording problems can pop up because something gives out on somebody- for me it’s my back, because I’m constantly mixing something left and right…
RockLine: In my opinion, the record is also distinguished by the outer look of the sleeve. Whose idea was the design? How did you arrive at the concept?
Milan: The photos were made quite a long time before recording the record. In some cornfield. I really liked the photos- it’s time to give props to… Oh man…
RockLine: David (Haskaj, amateur photographer and above all a good friend)?
Milan: No… David photographed us a lot anyway… We’re talking about some dude who was supposed to design the cover… Zack Crew! They really, really outdid themselves. The keyboardist was their friend, and we also misunderstood each other a bit… After we talked on the phone, the guy dropped the whole thing and thought we’d call him, and it turns out he thereby left us for good, and then the idea comes up to draw something. We decided on Žiga’s tattoo artist, who, when he wasn’t tattooing in the Netherlands or didn’t have work here, designed covers. Is that right, Žiga?
Žiga: Yeah, Reinhard did this mammoth design job!
Milan: He made a living, when he had no tattoo work, drawing covers for metal bands.
Žiga: Yeah. In the Netherlands he did a few sleeves for metal acts. We’re a refreshment- we were, I can say, the first non-metal band he still designed a cover for.
Milan: He put in the effort, he was precise, the printing went super smoothly. When you get this (holds a CD in his hands) in your hands, your heart skips and it hits you… “That’s my CD…” You expect the feelings to be different, but… (laughs) In the end we figured one thing out: when you’re recording and preparing something, it can be super great, but it can always be even better. We stopped constantly putting ourselves in the shoes of a damned fanatic.
RockLine: Part of the promo was low-budget videos, small costs but still lots of rotation on TV stations.
Iskra: Now we’ve got three videos out. There’s also a video for the song ‘Hide, Baby!’, which I like best of all our videos. Now it’s come out, I dunno, I think it’s already been on MTV.
RockLine: …your first one was even crowned Video of the Week…
Milan: ‘What the Fuck’?
Žiga: Was it on Videospotnice?
RockLine: I think it was also in their video rotation…
Iskra: Holy crap, dude! (laughs)
Milan: There haven’t been any Videospotnice for quite a while…
Iskra: That’s why you’ve got to bet on something new- on ‘Snow’ and ‘Hide, Baby’, like Žiga already mentioned…
RockLine: There’s definitely a constant progression visible in what’s happening with you, from song to song. From gig to gig… Every show (and I’ve already seen quite a few of the Intimn guys) actually builds a totally different world as far as musical expression goes. What’s the vision for “Intimn Frizurn of tomorrow”?
Milan: We’re confused, so…
Iskra: If you want to know, you’ve just got to take the time and dive into the new songs… What we’ve got right now, this moment, is an old song. Tomorrow we’ve got a new one in the works.
RockLine: Which differs from what you did before in…?
Iskra: I think…
Žiga: There’s a bit more rock in them.
Iskra: I’ve got the cymbal a bit more open, and it does its thing, yeah! (laughs)
Milan: It’s a lot more of a journey through feelings. We just wanted something new and not to make music by some basic rules. I wouldn’t want to exclude anything, since next to the conventional there might come some really, really stretched-out stuff…
Žiga: When we get into the studio, the position of the individual instruments will crystallize, along with the place we’ll bring to the new album… But you’ve got to know the feeling will be different. All the songs are rehearsed down to the last detail and the only thing that changes is the repertoire, the order of songs at a gig.
Iskra: And the feeling is like this… In principle we’re sober- at least me, well, because I can’t play any other way, but the chemistry between the crowd and the sound does its thing more…
RockLine: Besides your home chemistry, you’ve also tested the chemistry of stages abroad… Last year, if I’m not mistaken, it was France. This year England…
Milan: Basically yeah… At the end of 2005, during the big riots across France, as part of the festival ‘The Molt Of Balkan’. The party was truly unique. At least for me. The first day. Then I was stiff, but when I saw the French were wasted, it opened up our registers. A totally unexpected party from a crowd that had no idea who we were. Some girls, for example, just sang along, even though they didn’t know what we were singing (laughs)… I had no clue what was going on. It definitely helped that they were celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau, the new wine. That’ll stay with me. We’d like to thank Arnauld from Ducky Dub, who basically made it possible for us to play at this club Intermedierre. We had a two-hour, decibel-limited repertoire and we “blasted through” the second part like you’re supposed to- way harder than the first…
RockLine: Well, that makes sense. France has a much higher tolerance for reggae, funk, dub experiments.
Milan: For craziness…
RockLine: What about England, which was the latest excursion of the IF sound abroad?
Milan: That was a different feeling! The English were super dynamic and a lot more demanding. There weren’t as many of them as Japanese and Slovenians who live there, but the party was super great. Only… it was a pretty fresh festival, so we didn’t completely fill up the last corners of those halls, which I think we could have. Two great gigs. Darbooka. Everything was great except the owner, who was…
RockLine: …a reserved Englishman?
Milan: No! A Lebanese guy who was doing his own thing…
Iskra: An oriental café where you perform acoustic…
Milan: There it’s more about music being presented, not HC…
Iskra: A funny combination was three dances and a bunch of bands that totally burned. The thing was, he never listened to recordings of the bands he invited to the festival…
Milan: And he was a bit shocked… (laughs) Then the seats were full and in the end he was dancing…
Žiga: When he saw the money coming in he was happy, you know…
Milan: He was smiling and in the “More! More!” phase. Clockwork as a club wasn’t as nice or to my liking (at least personally). It looked not so professional, but the tech guy and the rest of the staff really made an effort so everything ran fine. I’m sorry that, given it holds 300 – 400 people, it wasn’t full. Around 150 – 200 people came and thank God they all packed into the front rows and danced, I had a bit to drink and danced with them, totally goofy… (laughs)
Iskra: For the first time we had guests on stage. Two Slovenian girls who happened to be there at the time jumped up on stage. Actually only one went up, the braver one, while the other one was wildly camping out under the stage…
Milan: It was a hell of a party because we played totally relaxed. It would be an honor and a joy for us if something like that happened again. London is a great place for young bands. Especially if they’re doing something original and can pull it off. The only condition is that you’re at the trough- always!
RockLine: Do you plan to go back?
Milan: Right now we’ve got a buddy up there studying- he’s actually a DJ up there and he hinted we might arrange something. Maybe that Balkanizer Festival we played will be organized again next year and there’ll be more help from the English so the promotion gets done more confidently.
Žiga: The thing is that there are really way more clubs, and way more young people can influence what’s going on, usually there are 19-year-old managers already running their own clubs. The thing is, you’ve got to find yourself and get heard… We’ve got some connections, but we just have to get on board, organize and promote it… It’s tied to the crowd’s response, but judging by the response on MySpace, it’s pretty good, or rather very good!
Iskra: Apparently it’s mostly Americans who are digging our musical thing and trip…
Milan: USA! Born in the USA! Oh yeah… Only the Balkan folks sing that… (laughs)
Iskra: We’re hoping for the best, but with the Americans we’ll have to push way harder… Do a lot more on promotion and everything, and also put out as much music as possible and polish things down to the last detail.
RockLine: Just two more questions and then I’ll let you breathe before the gig… From the festival lineups I’ve seen, the summer festival offerings, you’re not on any big festival. What’s the reason for that?
Žiga: Here’s our manager… Best to ask him…
Tešky: I don’t know… Actually we’re on the list for the pre-selection to play the Njoki festival, which isn’t a big festival, but it’s close… The catch is that in the summer we’re basically gone for two months (the Intimn guys…). We need a little break to recover…
Iskra: Better a little break to get ourselves together than no break and ending up killing each other… Existentially useful…
RockLine: But you get along well…
Milan: Well, depends on the day…
Iskra: Funny… Since we decided on this, in the last two weeks we’ve made two new songs. Somebody explain that to me… I don’t know…
Milan: Today we again have a problem calibrating the new members and conflicts are popping up. Something flares up somewhere, then in riot fashion it spreads into every sphere… I think we decided just right. We’ll squeeze better stuff out of ourselves!
RockLine: And the grand finale… Let the last victim be Žiga! Analysis of the present and projection of the future…- where are you now and where do you see yourselves in ten years?
Žiga: Intimn Frizurn now €500 a gig, in ten years €20,000 a gig. Is that a lot?
Tešky: No, not a lot… Pretty normal price for veterans…
Žiga: Sweet- €20,000 a gig (laughs).
RockLine: Let’s wrap up with something more intangible and more emotional for our readers- your message to our readers?
Milan: I’d say: whatever you do and however you do it, and folks are telling you it won’t work- …
Žiga: Sorry, sorry… €80,000… (laughs)
Milan and Iskra: Yeah, yeah… Sounds better…
Žiga: Love each other! And spread love around as much as you can… (laughs)
Iskra: Be who you are and do what suits you, and don’t pull crap on others, okay!
Milan: Stay true to yourself and you will never fall! (laughs) And don’t beat each other up…
Tešky: Don’t beat up musicians! And support music a bit more, if you can, okay…
RockLine: Thanks a lot for the nice and very thorough chat. And have a blast at tonight’s gig.
Milan: Thanks to you, and enjoy yourself with us again sometime… (laughs) Thanks, RockLine!
