Interview date: 24.06.2008
Milko Lazar may be a little less well known in Slovenia, but among avant-garde fans he’s earned a reputation as an outstanding saxophonist and woodwind player with Quatebriga, a band many consider the only unofficial Slovenian rock in opposition group besides Begnagrad. Even before Quatebriga he played in the Big Band, which he later returned to, and in between he also studied harpsichord. These days he spends a lot of time composing orchestral pieces, he’s also a pianist, and he has a new jazz band, Dedu za petami. He definitely doesn’t lack for work.
Rockline: You had some kind of event at Cankarjev dom on Monday, right?
Milko Lazar: Yeah, with Edvard Klug.
Rockline: He’s a choreographer.
Milko Lazar: Exactly. Choreographer and dancer, though he didn’t dance this time because he got injured. I wrote the music for the event, and he did the choreography for the ballet.
Rockline: Did you play piano?
Milko Lazar: Yeah. We had two pianos, me and Bojan Gorišek. It was a nice show. It lasted an hour. It was more about minimalism, ultra minimalism.
Rockline: What does minimalism actually mean?
Milko Lazar: For me it means the music develops very slowly. There are repetitions in there. Philip Glass, for example. And on Friday we’re playing with the band at Krakov Trn, at a festival.
Rockline: Jazz?
Milko Lazar: Yeah, kind of jazz-rock.
Rockline: What’s the band called?
Milko Lazar: Dedu za petami. Jani Hace plays bass, Igor Leonardi guitar, Aljoša Jerič is on drums, and I’m on keyboards.
Rockline: You don’t play woodwinds?
Milko Lazar: No, I’ve put the woodwinds away for now. I neglected the keyboards for a while. I started out on piano, then I studied harpsichord in the Netherlands, and then after a long time I started playing piano and keyboards again.
Rockline: Which do you like better – piano or woodwinds?
Milko Lazar: Hard to say. The woodwinds started to limit me. On one hand, woodwinds can be much more expressive than keyed instruments, but on the other hand, because they’re monophonic, because you can’t play chords on them, they’re totally limited. For me, the guitar, for example, is the ideal instrument.
Rockline: You play it too, right?
Milko Lazar: No.
Rockline: Didn’t you play it on the album Barbara?
Milko Lazar: I did. But that’s not really it. I’m not exactly a guitarist. It’s more my weak spot.
Rockline: Are you more into classical or jazz at the moment?
Milko Lazar: Actually more into classical.
Rockline: Do you write music?
Milko Lazar: I write music for orchestras. Right now I’m working on a ballet with Klug, the premiere will be in Lisbon on October 22. Klug is the choreographer. The music will be performed live on piano and violin.
Rockline: No orchestra?
Milko Lazar: Yeah, just piano and violin. It’s minimalism again. Basically I’m always working, always writing music.
Rockline: Is that what you live on?
Milko Lazar: Yeah, that’s what I live on, I have to make a living.
Rockline: Do you also work with any pop artists for some extra income?
Milko Lazar: No. The commissions have kind of settled into a pattern. Every so often I get a commission for some bigger orchestral piece. The last of those popular artists I worked with was Siddharta. Compared to some other stuff going on, on TV for example (all those symphonic variants), that was a real peak.
Rockline: What exactly did you do for Siddharta?
Milko Lazar: Slavko Avsenik Jr. and I each did half of the orchestration.
Rockline: Jani Hace, a member of your new band, also plays in Siddharta.
Milko Lazar: Yeah, he’s an excellent bass player, very solid. Igor, Jani and I had been talking for a while about starting a purely non-profit band. I’m having a great time, we play really open music.
Rockline: Do you rehearse at all?
Milko Lazar: No.
Rockline: Improvisation?
Milko Lazar: You know what, we’re actually so good that we had one rehearsal, and now the music gets built at the gigs. We have songs, so it’s not pure improvisation.
Rockline: Will there be a record?
Milko Lazar: There will, but it takes time. We already have 10 to 12 tracks, and they get played differently every time. There’s a kind of positive tension between us, you never know what’s going to happen. And that’s the only thing going on for me in jazz right now. I left the Big Band.
Rockline: Why’s that?
Milko Lazar: Because there’s no real interest, on their side or mine.
Rockline: What were you doing in the Big Band most recently?
Milko Lazar: I played woodwinds and I conducted. I’d had enough, I’d been in one place too long.
Rockline: You were already in the Big Band at the start of your career.
Milko Lazar: That’s right. Then I was free for a while. Then I went back because of a loan. Now I’m free again. Musicians like us get by on things like music for theater and film. I don’t have to deal with the commercial stuff. I’d happily do some quality pop, but I don’t have the time.
Rockline: What about Quatebriga? Is there more to come?
Milko Lazar: No. It went on too long, at one point it just dragged on way too long. When I left the band, Aleš Rendla and Nino tried to hang in there a bit longer. Plenty of other musicians came in who had nothing to do with the original lineup.
Rockline: Do you know that you’re now ranked among the unofficial rock in opposition bands? Along with Begnagrad, the only ones in Slovenia.
Milko Lazar: Great. I’d heard something about that. Makes me happy.
Rockline: Against the commercialization of music.
Milko Lazar: Definitely. Even though that record, The Choice of The New Generation, was very polished, but on purpose. It was made when MTV was breaking in, and we were making fun of it. The slogan (The Choice of The New Generation) comes from one of their ads too.
Rockline: Have you done anything else in your career, any different style?
Milko Lazar: I recorded one album with the metal band Xenophobia, which had an Arab-Slovenian singer and really tore it up.
Rockline: So you’ve practically done just about every kind of music?
Milko Lazar: Yeah, a lot, really a lot. Except Slovenian folk-pop (narodnozabavna).
Rockline: Would you ever want to?
Milko Lazar: No. Though I’ve got nothing against the folk polka. But that’s a different thing from narodnozabavna music. In Slovenia we have good folk music, but you rarely hear it. We also had a more folk-leaning band, Štefbet Trifi. We were the only ones playing truly original, off-the-wall music in that ethno jazz style. We had accordion, saxophone, violin and double bass
Rockline: Who else played in it?
Milko Lazar: Drago Ivanuša (accordion), Nino de Gleria (double bass), Jelena Ždrale on violin and me on woodwinds. That band was great. We played intensively for six years, then we stopped because there wasn’t enough support. We also played abroad a lot.
Rockline: Thanks for the chat.
During the conversation there were also plenty of sharp remarks about various Slovenian labels and institutions, and about slimy pop. The talk also turned to possible CD releases of Quatebriga, Joe Zawinul and more.
Interview by: Rok Podgrajšek and Aleš Podbrežnik
Edited by: Rok Podgrajšek
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
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