Location: Devil Bar Caffe / Bled / Slovenia
Interview date: November 21, 2011
After releasing the album “Self Destruct Sequence” (2009), Slovenian guitar matador and lone musical rider Grega Habič, considered one of the sharpest-profiled Slovenian musical talents, armed with the unmistakable essence of his musical sermon, drummed up a band that backed him on a short Slovenian tour in October 2010. And that’s despite telling RockLine in a 2009 interview that playing in a band didn’t interest him at the moment.
This rebirth into team play was one of the jumping-off points for our juicy chat with this musical mastermind from Jesenice, who this year put out his fourth solo studio album, “Open Heart Surgery”, stretching the creative reach of his own distinctive voice even further. On the new album he tried a few things we didn’t get on his earlier work. With the emphasis on genre variety, and a layered, multi-textured approach, Grega Habič has managed to set up some excellent launching pads for his further development and artistic growth on “Open Heart Surgery”.
So, two years later, Grega and I were sitting down again over a round of Hirter at Devil Bar Caffe in the middle of Bled,…
RockLine: After “Self Destruct Sequence” you finally managed to pull a crew of musicians together and hit the road for a short tour across Slovenia. What did you take away from it, and how did it feel?
Grega: That was the first time we ever played my music live. Honestly, I couldn’t really expect anything special, we were basically laying the groundwork for the future with that dozen or so shows. Well, our last gig at Orto Bar in Ljubljana in mid-October 2010 was already nicely attended… It’s hard to get people in Slovenia out for this kind of music. And still, the tour was a success in the sense that a lot of people now ask me when and where we’ll play again. So we managed to spark some interest in the music I make. They also ask when we’ll play in Jesenice, even though there’s nowhere to play there. No venue. The closest option is, say, Blejska Dobrava, in that corner of Slovenia, where my guitarist Klemen Gasar has played before too….
RockLine: A confidential source from your management camp confirmed to me yesterday that Klemen Gasar has now become your permanent bass player…
Grega: That’s right. And you wouldn’t believe how he “shreds” the bass. We searched far and wide for a bass player. Especially after Matej Sušnik decided he wouldn’t be part of the team. We tried loads of people, there were plenty of auditions, but nobody met the criteria. It turned out that the level of playing my music demands was just too tough a nut to crack for everyone at the auditions.
RockLine: If I may weigh in. The Klemen news is great, and a great solution. Even as a guitarist his energy fit perfectly into your crew (character-wise too), and now it turns out his contribution will be one of the integral parts of your live lineup, which will only gain in consistency and stability.
Grega: Klemen suggested the solution himself. We’d been thinking through everything, even the most impossible combinations. Really. It’s great that it all turned out this way. Especially because rehearsals won’t be a problem now, since Klemen is from Jesenice too. Now we can finally rehearse regularly. Getting on the same page will be way easier, and the result will be better. You know I don’t hand out praise just like that, but when it comes to Klemen, he really does “tear it up” on bass. I’m serious. Last time we tried the combo up in the attic at my place, where I also have my recording space, and we hammered out a couple of tracks together. I was shocked and stunned at how Klemen handles the bass. It was like Matej Sušnik was playing. No joke. If I hadn’t known it was Klemen Gasar, I could’ve mistaken him for Matej Sušnik in a heartbeat. Back when Klemen was in Game Over, he was always hanging around the room where Game Over rehearsed, noodling on the bass. Later when we talked, Klemen admitted he’d always wanted to be a bass player and that bass had always attracted him more than guitar. It’s also a plus that Klemen used to be a rhythm guitarist and knows his scales. For a bass player it’s usually rocket science when he has to double (Grega used the term “duplirati”) the guitar on certain passages, but Klemen has no trouble with that at all. He’s a really good bass player. Just today he went to Ljubljana to buy a brand-new bass. Two days ago he picked up a bass amp in Bled. So now we have a bass player. Finally. Thank God.
RockLine: And he’s even got the cash…
Grega: (laughs) Yeah, yeah. Everything fell into place. For a while Željko from Hari Mata Hari was in the picture (Željko Zuber, author’s note), but it didn’t work out. As for Klemen, we’re on exactly the same wavelength in what we listen to and who we listen to. From Van Halen onward. We even click when the conversation turns to jazz. He really surprised me, and you’ll see when we play our first gig. You’ll be surprised too, and so will a lot of other people.
RockLine: So you’ve been putting more effort into the final shape of the backing band?
Grega: Yes. And for that the crew has to be solid. Robert Humar will be on keys again, and Blaž Soklič on drums. Now, a few special stories happened with Blaž. His hobby is paragliding. A month ago he had a nasty crash with his chute. His ankle was smashed into several pieces, his heel crushed, two vertebrae broken in his spine, so now we’re waiting for him. But he said he’d be fully ready by the end of this November. That we can fire up. But that’s the funny part. We could get another drummer right away, a great drummer from Graz came forward who could play with us, but interestingly we’ve always had huge trouble finding bass players.
RockLine: Who will fill the gap left in the second guitarist spot?
Grega: I’ll handle all the guitars myself. I already practiced that successfully with Željko in the lineup. It worked. It’s not that big a problem.
RockLine: So you’ve become a quartet.
Grega: Yes. And that’s great, because we all live really close to each other, so we can rehearse very often.
RockLine: And the cut of the gig fees stays bigger, too. Let’s talk a bit about your new studio album “Open Heart Surgery”. Let me wriggle out of this puzzling lack of inspiration in coming up with questions by asking the classic cliché: what’s actually behind the album title? Was your heart actually bleeding while you were making it, or is the point something else?
Grega: No, no! It’s not. It has nothing to do with a bleeding heart. The album title is a reference, a metaphor for the point humanity’s development has reached, which today can only fill you with great sadness. You know how bands work? Some pay a ton of money to special people who research what kind of music sells on the market, and then they record an album like that. On my previous three albums I also made sure the album carried pronounced metal riffs, to be pleasing especially to the sphere defined by metal fans in Slovenia. This time the goal with “Open Heart Surgery” was to step away from that template and make an album entirely the way I want it most myself. There’s also quite a bit more jazz on this new album, which wouldn’t have gone as well with the arrangements on “Self Destruct Sequence”.
RockLine: The only right way. You have to put yourself on the level of the world’s top, most insightful and expressive artists, with a recognizable, unique character and a personal authorial prism.
Grega: Yes. This time I went into making the album totally unburdened by whether anyone would like it or not. The problem with Slovenian metalheads is this herd mentality. A few people with a certain character who know how to manipulate steer and dictate the taste of the herd. And that’s not okay. I stopped putting my hopes in Slovenian metalheads. This time I couldn’t give a damn. If I felt like jazz, I put jazz in, if the moment of inspiration was pop, there’s pop in the music, and so on….
RockLine: The most interesting part is that, given the basic musical axioms you offer in your own style, your albums should appeal most to the Slovenian metal crowd.
Grega: Yes. But that herd mentality holds them back.
RockLine: Which explains the empty venues at gigs by many excellent bands trying to break through on the Slovenian rock / metal scene.
Grega: Same old story. There are really plenty of examples.
RockLine: Your new album feels and sounds a lot more organic than its predecessors, you’ve dived even deeper into jazz and successfully widened the reach of your musical sermon.
Grega: Yes. And the funny thing is I can already play everything Malmsteen can, and that style of playing just got boring for me. That’s no problem for me anymore. With jazz it’s a different story. There I have to really work at it, things aren’t so simple anymore. Jazz guitarists and metal guitarists, those are two completely different worlds. There’s no question at all that jazz guitarists are much better musicians. Right now I’m more into jazz because it challenges me, I have to try harder at interpreting ideas. It was a necessary shift to keep playing guitar appealing enough for me at all. When you’ve put out four albums of guitar “shredding”, you’ve basically said it all. So you have to set yourself new challenges. And besides, I really love jazz. It opens up more options for expression.
RockLine: As far as I’m concerned, the foundation of your voice is exactly this constant developmental expansion of you as a musician, driven by constant exploration through musical experiment.
Grega: Exactly. Exploring yourself and new musical realms, that’s the only real way. At least for me. And I know the jazz element will be more and more pronounced in my future musical adventures.
RockLine: When you listen to the album, the first track puts a metal riff front and center, and then quite a few elements from other genres sneak in…
Grega: If you listen to the album, the first track and the last track are metal, the rest isn’t anymore.
RockLine: You’ve shown you can be very sophisticated too, that you know how to arrange notes in improvisation so the motif lands with even more punch and meaning.
Grega: Exactly. That’s what I wanted to point out. That’s the main difference when you compare the new album with its predecessors. That was the basic motive, the desire, the idea for the new album. I literally held myself back, I didn’t sow and scatter notes all over the place. The songs are arranged so that they work first as compact songs, and the arrangements aren’t subordinate to soloing. I know there are plenty of excellent guitarists out there, but few who know how to write and create a good song.
RockLine: For all the studious know-how that really good guitarists have, the problem as I see it is that they don’t understand what atmosphere is. Mention names like Steve Howe or Robert Fripp to guitarists like that and they quickly fall apart.
Grega: The problem with these musicians is that they treat music like math. I was steered toward that way of thinking in my early days too, but today that principle actually holds me back. Music has to come first, not math. So not scales, not speed. That doesn’t make a song.
RockLine: You grow out of it.
Grega: You grow out of it.
RockLine: Of all the albums you’ve released so far, “Open Heart Surgery” also leaves by far the most convincing impression, in the sense that it feels like there’s a real band in the studio with you. The sound is very tight and lively, as if a whole band were playing with you.
Grega: Absolutely. There are also more guest musicians compared to the previous album. That feeling is definitely down to the guests. Every person’s presence in the studio really comes through in the music and on the album. You can’t miss it. All the guests who worked on the new album also have their own defined style. So their contribution isn’t generic, they breathed some of their own recognizable stuff into my album. That’s exactly what I strive for, to set my music up so it gives and offers lots of room for other musicians’ ideas too. I mean their own ideas. The other thing is the mastering. Even when a single person made everything on an album, proper mastering makes a difference like night and day. With “Open Heart Surgery” the effect is even bigger. The key was the renowned Finnish producer Mika Jussila. It’s unbelievable, I couldn’t believe it when I listened to the master version. The difference this man managed to make.
RockLine: Mika has produced a huge number of albums over his career…
Grega: Yes. I read somewhere that Mika Jussila is supposedly the record holder for the number of albums produced.
RockLine: How did you get in touch with Mika Jussila?
Grega: Blaž Soklič, who worked with Dali in Dusk Delight, recommended Mika Jussila. Dusk Delight had worked with him in the past and Blaž said his contribution was truly worth every cent, since he’s one of the best producers around.
RockLine: What’s very interesting is that Matej Sušnik, undoubtedly one of the most talented Slovenian bass players at the moment, didn’t find the right time or the interest to stick with the kind of music you’re making?
Grega: Matej is still very young. The problem with him is that he wants to be a star. He’s too young for the music I make. Simply too young. Now he’s just old enough that it’s starting to dawn on him that Metalsteel and those kiddie songs might not be the real thing after all. Because he’s capable of much more. Maybe that’s why Matej and I never really clicked, because I told him straight, no beating around the bush, what I think about all this. It’s really a waste for him to be in Metalsteel. But he wants to be a star. And not only that. He enjoys playing to packed venues. Even to the point where he doesn’t care who he plays with or what he plays, as long as he gets to step out in front of a full house. He’s too young. But he’ll get it. A few years will pass and he’ll stop playing what he plays now with Metalsteel and Helstar. Trust me. He’s simply too good. Knows too much. Because otherwise Matej Sušnik, as far as I’m concerned, is by far the best bass player in Slovenia. No bullshit. These Janis Haceta types, etc,… that’s not it. Matej left them far behind long ago. And at 24. An album like the one he put out at his age…. Have you maybe listened to his album?
RockLine: Sold! Absolutely. Great stuff.
Grega: When you hear his album, there’s no more doubt about who the strongest bass player in Slovenia is. But he’s young. And I was the same at his age. Back then, being a star was the most important thing to me too. I was the same. Those are the years when you want to prove yourself. Matej is a great guy otherwise, and by far the best bass player in Slovenia. He really enjoyed playing with us. He was also at every single rehearsal. He did everything with great pleasure. But then came the problem, and I totally understand him on this, when we stepped onstage in front of 50 people. That killed his buzz. I think that last fact is the main reason he left my band.
RockLine: How have the reactions been so far, from the media and from the audience, to the new album?
Grega: Very positive. You can tell we’d been gnawing away for a while, with your help and RockLine’s help too, so today people already know who Grega Habič is. It’s no problem for us to get on various media, like 24 ur or RTV Slovenija. But with this album we’ve laid everything out on a grand scale, we’re trying to get noticed abroad too. Mainly abroad. At home there are simply too few people, or none at all, who’d be interested in my music.
RockLine: Can you tell us a bit more concretely about your collaboration with Jesse Adams?
Grega: Jesse helped me an enormous amount on the new album. You can tell, because I sent every track I recorded to him first for a listen, and then we discussed all the details of the songs right down to the end. What’s good, what’s usable, what could still be fixed, improved, and so on… he was also an important factor in holding me back when I went nuts with arrangements that were oversaturated with soloing. Now the situation has flipped, he’s recording a solo album and I’m helping him with it. He feels music really well, especially rhythm. So he was an important factor who corrected me while I was making “Open Heart Surgery”. There’s a bridge of great trust built between us. That means you trust someone’s advice because you know they wish you well and you know that if you follow that advice, your original idea will end up having an even bigger impact.
RockLine: When and how did you two figure out that Jesse’s hip hop element would elevate some of your songs?
Grega: It just happened on its own. We didn’t overthink anything at all. Simple as that. It just happened. It’s kind of been there since the very start of our collaboration and we both really like those additions. The interesting thing, though, is that now that he’s recording his own solo album, he doesn’t even want to hear about rap. Jesse used to be a rapper in Indiana. He’s already built a name for himself, because he’s really good. Jesse was a drummer first. He played five years in his father’s country band. That’s why Jesse is a very rhythmic musician. We wanted to get the effect of hip hop working in the music as an extra instrument, where its job isn’t primarily rhythmic, like it normally is in hip hop. What I especially like about Jesse is that he writes proper lyrics. He writes about real life, doesn’t waste time on nonsense about expensive cars, women, money,… Jesse also works at a radio station, as a radio “speaker”…
RockLine: So he spins Grega Habič’s music too?
Grega: Yeah, of course. And then he gives me a shout-out between his shows. I wonder what the people listening make of that? (laughs) It was funny when I spent a full two hours teaching him over the internet how to pronounce my last name properly. In the end he got it thanks to the English word for a slut. That is, “Ha-Bitch”, and then he finally got the joke.
RockLine: Do you already have a rough idea of where you’ll head musically on the next album?
Grega: The next album will be 100% played with a band. I’m not doing another album alone. Right now, for example, Blaž Soklič is recording drums for my previous album. The difference is incredible. When I heard how he did the drums for the song Revolution, the positive surprise almost knocked me off my feet.
RockLine: So this transition toward teamwork is a completely natural and logical move for you, the one you’ll take as your next step.
Grega: That’s what I’ve always wanted. And I’ll make it happen 100% on the next album. Grega Habič will probably rename himself GHB (short for Grega Habič Band, author’s note). Gasar shocked me, Soklič shocked me with what he did redefining the drums for Revolution, because Blaž is a perfectionist, he sweats the details, and that’s great. The feelings are really positive right now.
RockLine: When will we be able to catch you on stage again?
Grega: At the start of the new year. That’s the first plan now. I’m leaving that to my manager Robi Lipej. Count on February 2012! Orto Bar in Ljubljana will definitely be on the list of new show dates. The Orto Bar management is also very interested in our new gig at the club. One of the options is also a show at the Austrian club Bluesiana Rock Cafe in Velden in Carinthia. The club’s owner Gudrun Kofler immediately said it’s no problem at all if we come play at her club. Anytime. We just have to decide. Gudrun is one of the few people who’s in it with her heart. She listened to my music and liked it right away. For her it’s not just about “booking” you a gig, her point is that she herself enjoys the music being played in her club. I’m really glad there are still people like Gudrun at Bluesiana in this world
photos: Mirjana Čirović
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