Location: Mladinski center / Brežice / Slovenia
Interview date: 09.04.2011
Croatian hard rockers Opća Opasnost are back from the dead. They spectacularly revived their mission on 10.07.2008, when they played alongside Divlje Jagode as the first support act for the legendary Whitesnake in Osijek, and now they’ve finally made their first visit to Slovenia too. After releasing their third studio album “Ruski rulet” (1997), the band kind of vanished from the radar and settled into a long break. But when the spark of interest in the classic approach to hard rock came back, its glow also woke this band from Županja, Croatia, from hibernation. Just how hot Opća Opasnost are right now back home in Croatia is shown by the fact that, according to some polls, music fans voted them band of the year for 2010 in Croatia.
Before Opća Opasnost’s show in Brežice on 09.04.2011, we sat down with the band’s singer Pero Galić, whom many of you probably also remember as the former frontman of Divlje Jagode…
RockLine: Let’s start with the classic question. What kind of energy and feelings are running through the band after the reunion and the new shows? The new album is coming out soon….
Pero: You’ll find the same picture as when we first started out. The drive and the desire are still the same in us. Our hearts are racing that we can do again what we’ve always loved most. Of course, after this longer break from playing, the world around us is a bit different today. Case in point, we wasted a whole hour and a half at the border today before we got to you in Slovenia. But we haven’t changed. And so here we are with you today. We’ve done all the prep, sharpened our teeth, and we’re waiting to jump up on that stage…. We’re expecting a great time with the fans.
RockLine: Can you walk us through the decision to put the band on a longer break? It was a full nine years, so what drove you to bring Opća Opasnost back to life?
Pero: No matter how hard we tried, nothing worked. Sure, we had a base of loyal fans, we’d earned a certain reputation, but things didn’t work the way they work today. When we officially stopped playing in 1999, those were times when it was tough to fight all the circumstances that came with keeping a band going and growing. To take a step forward, we would have had to invest a serious pile of money in the band. There was no money. So we all came to the same conclusion, it was an agreement between all the members, that we’d put the band on ice for a while. Creatively we were doing fine even then, but the problem was the gigs. As you probably know yourself, we play for a fee too. And getting that in those days was hard. And so those nine years of break went by. Fate had it that Whitesnake came to Osijek in 2008. The initiative came from the promoter. The whole thing happened without any plan, but we managed to agree, get the band back together and step onto the stage before Whitesnake. That show gave us wings. It turned out people hadn’t forgotten us, that they still liked our music, and new, younger fans showed up, who during those nine years we were off the scene had discovered our music and what it’s worth… It was interesting to watch the reactions. In the first 6 rows the kids were going nuts. 15 years old, no more. Basically youngsters who weren’t even born when we started our career. Only behind them stood the generation of our first fans. They stood in the back, headbanging, a beer and a cigarette in their hands. Of course, all the credit goes to the internet and the fast spread of information these days. I’m convinced that’s how the young ones found out about us. But in any case, it was their parents, the generation of our first fans, who introduced them to our music. Based on how we felt after the show, we agreed that we had to fire up Opća Opasnost again. All the positive feelings pointed to that decision. And so here we are, in our third year already. The energy in the band is excellent. Rock N’ Roll is back, it’s in the audience’s focus again, more relevant again, and in line with that, we feel great and we’ve got the drive. We’ve prepared a new album titled “Virtualni novi svijet”, which has to come out any day now. Everything is finished. Right now we’re just waiting for the label Croatia Records to print and release the album. We’ve done our part. At the moment our band is in big demand, people come to our concerts, they’re looking for us on stages. That’s very good.
RockLine: As for the new songs, are they the product of ideas that piled up during the nine-year break, or are the ideas newer, written after the band got back together?
Pero: A few songs came from older ideas. During those nine years we talked a few times with Mario Vestić, who prepared the bulk of the ideas for the new songs, about how and when we might use some of it in the future. So he put together a few songs that were waiting in the wings to be used. Those have now found a place on the new album. A few songs were written over the last year, in the final stretch of work on the new album.
RockLine: Besides the plan to return to the Croatian rock scene, did you think about spreading your name beyond your home country’s borders too?
Pero: Of course! That’s why we’re here today.
RockLine: And further west?
Pero: Of course, with the greatest pleasure. We all want people in other countries to get to know our music, talk about it, rate it, comment on it and, at the end of the day, which is the main thing here, fall in love with it. Here in Brežice today, for example, we’re playing outside Croatia for the very first time in our career, if you don’t count a few appearances on Bosnian stages. And in Slovenia it’s our first time today. I hope people here will fall in love with our music too, spread our name, and that they’ll get to know Opća Opasnost further west, in other countries as well. If not, none of us is going to lose sleep over it, because we’re really well supported and covered here at home, we enjoy great support. We’ve got time, let’s hope for the best. We’re still young, even if we maybe don’t look it, ha, ha, ha, ha,…
RockLine: Can you tell us a bit about yourself? What kind of music influenced you as a teenager to become a singer, who were your teenage idols?
Pero: Well, basically the rock n’ roll of the eighties, which all of us in the band grew up on. It was key for a whole generation of rock musicians in Croatia. The story of hard rock, which we tried to follow ourselves. Of course people pick up traces of other influential bands and musical directions in our music. That’s normal. Opća Opasnost has always strived to shape its own sound, but our role models were the big rock bands, like Deep Purple for example. Our first picture was a spillover of the reach of eighties hard rock at the time the band was formed, when we started playing, so the hard rock that was current in 1985 – 1986. And we’ve always held on to those roots. We still do today.
RockLine: Did you think about updating the sound for a new era, or did you lean on the classic production mold of your nineties albums for the new record?
Pero: We’ve stayed the same. Sound-wise and style-wise we kept the crew that worked in the nineties too. For the new album. The philosophy is the same, we think the same way, the heart feels the way it did 15 years ago. Of course studio technology has moved on, so you can find a few differences in the sound, but nothing drastic. Producer Branimir Jovanovac definitely brought a new touch to our sound, in tune with the new era and how far studio technology has come, you can notice it, you can hear it. But the foundation is the same. The classic hard rock approach a la Opća Opasnost. You can’t miss it. Ripping it up with hard rock fangs from every side. We did add a few embellishments, though. For the first time we also used the tamburica. It’s an authentic Slavonian instrument that we identify with strongly, since we come from that part of Croatia. There are definitely a few details that are new, but overall we’re true to our legacy from 15 years ago and more.
RockLine: You’ve already put out a DVD too. Before the new album.
Pero: Yes. A live recording from our hometown of Županja. Nominated for a Porin 2011, which we’re very proud of. The release of that DVD was really important for us in getting back on the rock scene on home soil. In the same spirit and with the same purpose, we also put out a kind of compilation, “Best Of…”, which is a historical discographic cross-section of our career and our most popular songs. But we can’t wait for the new album. That’s what will finally bring the real answers about where Opća Opasnost stand in this new era. For us that’s the true yardstick. The feelings are incredible and we’re all hugely positive, I can say impatient, enthusiastic and full of verve. Our expectations are high.
RockLine: One last, very generic question. What can the Slovenian audience expect tonight from Opća Opasnost’s historic first show in Slovenia?
Pero: Full throttle. No matter where, what the venue is like, how many people are at the show, we don’t make any distinctions. We always give it everything we’ve got. I believe and I promise it’ll be like that tonight. I want all of us to have a great time together, we can’t wait to jump up on stage and share our music with the fans. I believe they’ll go home happy after our show. We’ll serve up a heaping helping of our rock n’ roll.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
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