Location: Kongo tavern / Ljubljana (Savlje) / Slovenia
Interview date: May 15, 2009
Matjaž Predanič, Rok Marolt, and Bor Marolt are the members of Broken Arrow. On a windy, moody day they sat down at the same table at the Kongo tavern in Ljubljana’s Savlje, right after RockLine wrapped up a similar “interrogation” with Greg and Marin from their sister band Cyclone. Broken Arrow is a band that rediscovers eighties hard rock and adds a cheeky dose of “glam” and “hair” to it. So musically, the Broken Arrow story revolves around something that older Slovenian bands like Šank Rock or Pop Design can definitely be proud of, too.
RockLine: I’ve heard from plenty of people that you’re the best glam hard rock band in Slovenia right now. Is that true?
Bor: I don’t know if we’re the best. There are a lot of good bands in Slovenia in this style. Excellent bands. Besides Cyclone, there’s also Hotty MkNotty.
Matjaž: Come on, even Šank Rock are way tighter than we are. There’s no comparison. I actually call what we play “underground” rock.
RockLine: Do you think that comes with years and experience?
Matjaž: Yeah. But if we’re already getting praise now, that’s just a good sign. We’re working at it.
RockLine: You can tell you’re fans of bands like Šank Rock and Pop Design.
Matjaž: Absolutely.
RockLine: It’s interesting how much this eighties Slovenian hard rock has gained in value over the time that’s passed since. You’re kind of rediscovering these older Slovenian rock bands and, in a way, giving them credit for their body of work.
Rok: These days it’s almost alternative. It’s a kind of “flashback” to the years when I was still a kid..
Bor: To your years, maybe, ha, ha, ha… not mine.
Matjaž: Not mine either. When I was little, Kingston and Čuki and stuff like that were popular, ha, ha, ha…
RockLine: Hmmm,…. What would happen if everybody went all-in on Kingston today?
Matjaž: If you took them as your idols, there’d be no hope for any kind of upgrade or progress, musically speaking, ha, ha…
RockLine: At the recent gig in Medvode on May 8, 2009, where you played together with Cyclone, you decided not to use keyboards on stage. You were backed by a backing track. Considering that you, Matjaž, are a multi-instrumentalist and a very good keyboardist, why did you go that way?
Matjaž: We never use keyboards on stage. If we did, given that I’m the frontman, I’d be busy with the keys and the stage show wouldn’t blow up the way it normally does. And if we brought in another member just for that, it adds extra effort again. Transport, coordinating with each other, and so on… Plus, with a backing track you’ve got a member on stage who’s 100% on the money. He won’t miss a note, and he doesn’t even need a monitor.
RockLine: You’ve grown into a quintet and got a bass player, probably so that you, Matjaž, can fully focus on your vocal performance on stage.
Matjaž: Yes. I think that’s really important for connecting with the crowd: the singer should have his hands as free as possible so he can move around during the performance and keep the audience hooked on the band all through the show. That’s why I gave up playing bass on stage too.
RockLine: You’ve been around since 2005. How did the Broken Arrow story begin?
Bor: We all had our own bands back then. Matjaž and I were playing in the power metal band The Whisper. Rok was in Sweet Sorrow. It so happened that an offer for a gig came in from the youth center in Brežice, so I suggested to Matjaž that we jump in and see how things would go. We also got in touch with drummer Janči, who used to play in The Whisper too. We needed a set of songs for two days, with a good hour of covers.
Matjaž: Bor and I had been playing together anyway…
Bor:… and Rok is my brother, so I know him really well, ha, ha, ha…
Matjaž: Rok always wanted to play more rock music too, so he was the logical solution.
Rok: Absolutely.
Bor: Well, that gig went well, so we decided to keep it going, and here we are, Broken Arrow.
RockLine: You’ve got three demos out. Can you walk us through them?
Bor: We just put out the third demo. The first four tracks on it were recorded in Novo mesto…
Matjaž: Let’s start with the Hit The Streets demo, which is our first. We recorded it ourselves. The drums were recorded on two channels with the cheapest “consumer” sound card. The guitars and bass were also recorded with the same sound card. The whole thing was recorded in one of the bedrooms. We wanted to get through it as cheaply as possible and have something in our hands as soon as we could to present our music to the public.
RockLine: You can hear progress across all three demos you’ve put out. In the sound, too.
Matjaž: Really? Well, let me tell you. We recorded the first demo, Hit The Streets, completely on our own, really just for ourselves. The second demo we recorded at the Podmornica studio in Samobor, Croatia. That was in 2007, and it has the tracks Polet v nebo and Zdaj ko si sama. This latest demo, which we’ve just released, is kind of a mix of everything that isn’t on the first demo, Hit The Streets. The first four tracks on the new demo were recorded in Novo mesto, at the Cigoj studio to be exact, so they differ in sound and production from all the rest. Polet v nebo and Zdaj ko si sama are exactly the same recordings as on the second demo. On top of those two, we added the track V tvojih očeh, which we again recorded ourselves.
RockLine: That very track, V tvojih očeh, is my personal favorite on the third demo, but I’d also like to single out the track Our last…, which has this dark “groove” and stands out on the demo.
Matjaž: That track is written in a harsher way, it sounds more metal. The lyrics aren’t typical for us either, I’d say they’re not the “fun glam guy” or love-song kind…
RockLine: If you can record certain things yourselves, you save a nice chunk of cash…
Matjaž: It’s great when you can record music yourself, independent of an outside studio. You’re not tied to a clock. You can take your time and shape the track at your own pace until you’re completely happy with it. That’s an advantage too.
Rok: When you have the option to record on your own, you can nail everything more precisely, because there’s none of that nervous tension that can catch you off guard in a proper studio. When they start rushing you: “Quick, quick, quick,…”, that’s a sign that doesn’t exactly smell like the best end product.
Matjaž: Well, a professional studio definitely has more potential for better sound production, but it doesn’t offer such relaxed conditions as you get when you tackle it yourself. Yeah, it’d be great to save up enough money someday for our own studio.
RockLine: Based on the vibe you give off on stage and on record, though, you Broken Arrow guys are total positivists.
Matjaž: We basically formed Broken Arrow for fun. To enjoy the gigs and to entertain other people. So that people come see us who want to have a good time in our company and party with us. Say, if we’d gone for a specific genre, like in metal, our target audience would be very specific too. We’d be aiming at a narrower crowd, and in Slovenia that’s even harder for a band like that.
Bor: Basically, if we’d gone into some specific genre, we’d have to concentrate much more on the performance on stage, so at our gigs it’s really about relaxed fun, a party.
Matjaž: Even if we miss a note now and then, the world’s not going to end.
RockLine: When can we expect your first album?
Matjaž: It’s coming, it’s coming… we’re actually deciding between recording in a studio or at home.
Rok: The vision of Broken Arrow is that the album definitely gets recorded. We’re just thinking about recording only the drums…
Bor: … and vocals.
Rok: …yeah, and vocals in a studio. Most likely right at the studio in Samobor where we’ve already been, and we’d record the guitars ourselves.
Matjaž: We’ll try to combine a bit, simply so we can manage our time more easily and not be in a rush.
RockLine: I noticed you like to work on backing vocals too. That seems like a really important thing in glam rock.
Bor: Yeah, true. We actually still need some training when it comes to recording. Once that’s behind us and we’ve picked up the basic tricks, everything will go even more smoothly.
Matjaž: That’s also a factor that comes through best in pop music. That’s why ABBA, for example, were so effective and convincing. Live, of course, they didn’t perform with as many voices as they have on their studio recordings, say 6 to 8, while there were only four members in the band. But it’s a thing that rocks. For example, the backing vocals on V tvojih očeh at our concerts aren’t the same as on the studio recording. In the studio, three backing vocals are added to the lead vocal on that track.
interview conducted and edited by: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Robi Lipej
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