Location: Celje
Interview date: December 19, 2012
Kronika are an up-and-coming rock band from Frankolovo (near Celje), who never run out of dirty “roll”. They’ve been on the scene since 2006, and this summer they released their first album, called “V napačnem letu” – RockLine review HERE.
RockLine: Hey! You recently put out your debut. How does it feel, and how happy are you with it?
Pinč : Sjeos! We’re all really happy with our debut and proud of it too. Honestly, we’re still pleasantly surprised ourselves by how the album turned out, since we’d never had any serious studio experience before. The release party gig turned out fantastic too, a proper rock ‘n’ roll bash that no one who was there will ever forget, even though hardly anyone actually remembers it. The audience reaction has been great as well – and not just from our local horde of rockers, but from pretty much everyone who’s heard our music. CD sales are about what we expected, though it’s also true that we haven’t played a single gig since the release party, and gigs are where people like to buy them straight from the band.
RockLine: Why did you even decide to release the album physically? In the internet age, fewer and fewer music fans are buying physical formats.
Vid: In my opinion we’re a bit old-school, and it would be a shame to rob our fans and ourselves of something you can actually hold in your hands. I’m sure every old rocker is happy to show off their dusty CD to their kids. In today’s consumer society the world is so robotized that it’s definitely easier to fill a USB stick with MP3s than to take the time to listen to a record from start to finish, properly, with a cigarette and a cold beer. Which one’s sweeter, you can judge for yourselves.
Pinč: That’s also why we only released the album at the end of November, even though the master was finished back in August. The reason was money, of course, since we funded the whole project ourselves.
RockLine: Let’s stay on the album a bit longer. Who else worked on it? How long did you record, and where?
Vid: We recorded the album from around mid-July to mid-August 2012 at Danchi sound studio in Ljubljana. We spent an insanely hot month of pure fun with the producer Danči. We recorded the whole record by ourselves, with no guests – their time will definitely come in our future work. We said the first record had to be a true one hundred percent mirror of ourselves, and that it had to sound like something we can play live as close to the recording as possible.
RockLine: The album title is very meaningful. Do you really feel you were born in the wrong time? Would things be any different for you if the album had come out ten or twenty years ago?
Pinč: I can’t really pontificate about the situation thirty years ago, since I wasn’t even around back then, but judging by today’s conditions and what the older folks tell us, that feeling gets stronger every year! Especially when it comes to the music scene. The state of rock ‘n’ roll today is one big tragedy. Listening to old recordings and the stories of old rockers, sometimes I’d just like to drink myself silly. Good luck convincing us that the »good old days of rock ‘n’ roll« are bullshit.
RockLine: How have the fans taken to the debut? Are there more groupies backstage now than before?
Vid: We’re not exactly at the stage of signing the cleavage of female fans with markers, but there are more security guards at gigs, so we’re actually worse off
RockLine: Which bands were the key inspiration in shaping your musical identity, as represented by the album “V napačnem letu”?
Vid: All of us in the band are very open genre-wise, and we’re into everything from hip-hop, Irish folk and electronica to heavy metal. So the range of bands we look up to is extremely wide. Our sound has definitely been shaped most by the garage champions of the former Yugoslavia, like Majke from Vinkovci, Belgrade’s Partibrejkersi and Velenje’s Res Nullius.
Pinč: The biggest influence on our sound today was Žan coming in as lead singer. The lineup only reached stability two years ago, and that opened the door for us to create our own original material. In the early years we were still “searching for ourselves” by playing covers. We tailored them to the singer who was part of our crew at the time, and the repertoire ran from classics by bands like Guns N’ Roses, AC/DC and Pankrti to Bijelo dugme.
RockLine: Who writes the lyrics in your band, and who does the arrangements? Where do you draw inspiration from?
Vid: We all write the lyrics, so there are fewer complications with SAZAS. Somebody brings material to rehearsal, we crack open a beer, and after a while a song is born. Not necessarily, though, if the energy isn’t right. You won’t find a recipe for a good song with us, since we swear by spontaneous creation. The lyrics cover a lot of social issues, quirks of the local scene, nostalgia, and then there are various personal confessions of love, hedonism, melancholy…
RockLine: Do you feel you’ve changed a lot as a whole from the beginning until today? Have you gone through a lot of members?
Pinč: When we first played under this name in 2006 at the Center high school in Celje, the lineup was just me on guitar and Ulipi on drums. We were both still high-school rebels back then. Since then, we’ve swapped bass players and singers twice each, and we’ve also had one change on guitar. While we were looking for new members, Žan helped us out in different roles before he finally settled in on vocals. Before joining Kronika, Žan and Vid also played in a grunge band called Neovera, with whom they even recorded an album while still in their tender years.
Rockline: Do you already have any material for the next album, or would you rather play as many gigs as possible in the future so the album can settle in with people?
Vid: Right now we’re still in the phase of celebrating the debut. None of us expected this celebration to drag on so long.
RockLine: I wish you lots of success and packed crowds at your gigs!
Kronika: Thank you.
