Author: Rok Klemše
Location: Rock Cafe, Postojna
Interview date: 04.02.2010
After a few months of creative downtime away from the stage, the heavy metal crew from Kamnik came back with a bang, playing their first gig since the break at the Epic Rockline Contest in Postojna. The break definitely did them good, because the show proved they’re fresh, reborn, full of energy and, above all, even better than before they left. Read on to find out what they had to say after the gig!
RockLine: Hey Use Less! The Postojna gig is behind you. How are you feeling?
Rok: Phenomenal! It was probably our best gig so far!
RockLine: So why did you even sign up for this contest?
Primož: To win, duh!
RockLine: (laughs) Solid reason!
Grega: Nah, we told ourselves we needed one really good song and that we’d write it, but only on the morning before the final. So if you wanna hear that song, we have to make it to the final.
RockLine: No worries, we accept envelopes… not empty ones.
Rok: But how are you gonna fit a crate of beer in an envelope?
(roaring laughter)
RockLine: A big envelope!
RockLine: This time you debuted two new songs, which are quite different from the ones on the demo. Especially Challenge of Love, which is a seriously powerful heavy metal ballad.
Grega: We’d actually played Challenge of Love before, but it’s true that we played three songs that aren’t on the demo, and two of those were real premieres tonight.
Rok: The two new songs came about during our time away.
Matej: Ever since Tavčar joined the band, our style has been redefining itself, we’re moving forward, and the new songs are definitely a step up. After the creative break we introduced the two new songs, while Challenge of Love, for example, has been in play for a while. Because of the break there were no gigs for a bit, but we’re going down this road and I hope we’ll have plenty of material by mid-summer.
Primož: Rok is a really great guitarist and contributes a lot to how the songs come together.
RockLine: So what’s Challenge of Love about? Some member of the fairer sex?
Primož: Rok wrote the song, so he can tell you himself.
Rok: The song is about something from my own life, one of the tougher experiences, and I poured whatever was left to pour into this song. It’s very close to my heart and I think it’s pretty honest, because an honest song, a song that talks about things you don’t want to talk about, is pretty hard to write.
RockLine: The direction of the new songs is quite different from the demo tracks. At least from what I heard today, the new songs are more complex, more fleshed out, and the vocal lines are improving a lot.
Primož: We keep getting better, and even though heavy metal is our guiding star, we also play around with touches of thrash, power metal, prog.
Matej: Besides heavy metal, each of us has other musical tastes, from me, who’s more prog-leaning, to pure heavy metal and other genres. After the demo we managed to find a better balance between these styles. Before, the songs were pretty one-dimensional, all in one line, but now we’ve found a better balance between these elements, from the vocals to the rhythms and solos.
Rok: We don’t have a set idea of what a song has to be like. You write a song, and if everybody likes it, great, and if not, you add something.
Matej: Actually, the second-to-last song came about like this: we already had one song completely finished and just needed to rehearse it, but it’s a bit harder and we preferred to play it safe. So in two rehearsals we put together a whole song and we really like it. For me it’s even my favorite of all our songs.
Rok: That’s just because he wrote it (laughs).
Matej: Well… It wasn’t a planned song, it just fell out of us and that’s that.
Grega: The song just happened, everything clicked and bam, done!
Rok: Okay, I lied a little, you two wrote the song.
Matej: Yeah, it was quite a bit of co-writing.
Grega: The others went out for a beer, and we two made the song.
RockLine: So more or less all of you write the songs.
Primož: Sometimes it also happens that someone makes a song at home on the computer.
Matej: There are plenty of methods, from a riff or chorus getting cooked up at rehearsal to someone preparing something at home. But usually at least half of a song gets built at rehearsal, once we’ve got everything prepared.
Primož: It took us about a year of playing together to get used to each other. Now everybody knows exactly what everybody else will do, even on stage, you just look and you know what needs doing.
Matej: The band has also grown technically and can play harder stuff than before.
Rok: When we were working on the ballad, I was in Germany for half a year. I wrote the lyrics, Matej wrote the riff, and then we emailed the basics back and forth.
Matej: And when he finally came home, we rehearsed 6, 7 hours a day before the gig.
RockLine: As far as genre goes, you’ve got quite a niche over here. When it comes to the kind of heavy metal you play, there aren’t many bands in Slovenia.
Use Less: Yeah, it’s a shame.
Grega: Metalsteel, and then it’s pretty much over. We like our songs melodic, we’re not angry, we play happy metal.
Matej: We try to be likable, not angry.
Primož: Although we’re not kidding around.
(laughs)
RockLine: Fair enough. Where does this obsession of yours with surf and Hawaiian shirts come from? Already on the demo you warn people that you don’t play surf, but something harder.
Matej: This story goes back to the beginning, when Grega and I joined the band. For the first gig I just put on a Hawaiian shirt. What else can piss off heavy metal guys even more, heh?
Grega: He was so embarrassed that he had to say it.
Rok: I thought it was insane. Back then I was still watching them from the crowd. I was like, check out this guitarist, tearing it up and acting like he couldn’t care less. He was totally static back then, and he had a Hawaiian shirt on (laughs).
Matej: A week after that we had another gig, which our sound guy recorded for us, and Primož, still our vocalist back then, said that line. We liked it so much that we kept it. And from that demo on, I always had to be dressed in a Hawaiian shirt anyway.
Rok: Doesn’t it suit him?
RockLine: Yeah, it really suits him (laughs). So what are the plans for the future? When can we expect a new demo, an album?
Primož: First we’ve got a gig at Rog, then the plan is to finish the songs we’ve already got half done, and after that we’ll be hanging around the stages more. And in spring, if the studio and the producer who recorded our demo are up for it, maybe an EP, but that’s still more of a pipe dream.
Matej: If we keep up this pace, I’m pretty optimistic.
RockLine: And what if you don’t make it through? No new song, as promised?
Grega: There’ll be a song, just not that one, haha!
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