Interview date: 09/19/2007
Tomo Jurca, guitarist and mastermind of the freshly born Ljubljana melodic hard rockers Stone Orange, firmly rooted in the legacy of classic Judas Priest & Accept-style metal and a doctor of cultural sociology by trade, joined me for a chat at Cutty Sark, a well-known Ljubljana pub, to drink to our reunion after 13 and a half years, since the days when we were “banging away” together in our long-dead band. At first it was a huge amount of fun for both of us. Later life carried me off for good, away from band membership, while Tomo set things up on a much more professional level, which is now paying off nicely and cashing in through his baby, Stone Orange, who released their debut studio album “Nori mlin” this May (2007). It was unforgettable to dig up some memories of two old comrades…
RockLine: Tomo, to start off, tell us who Stone Orange are, how and when did you get together?
Tomo: In 2003. It took a good two or three years to figure out what suited whom, and the lineup kept changing the whole time. It’s a phase of feeling each other out, calibrating, where you work out what works for you and what doesn’t. The biggest birth pain at the start is that you absolutely have to get the right people into the crew, people who click together. Once you pull that off, the whole thing finally becomes doable. Early on you also get people who just want to noodle around a bit, and then when the moment comes that you can actually record, it really crystallizes who’s in for the real thing and who isn’t.
RockLine: So the Stone Orange lineup is clicking perfectly right now?
Tomo: Yeah. We’ve got a really good lineup now. Okay, we’re still kind of fumbling around with who covers the keyboards, but the rest, both guitars, drums, vocals, bass, all work together really well.
RockLine: On the album I noticed the keyboardist isn’t credited as a permanent member, just as a guest on the record. Are you looking to bring a fifth member into the band?
Tomo: Actually, our current keyboardist is already a member. We do cultivate a style that needs a keyboardist. For the foundation, the ambient background, the atmosphere. It doesn’t have to be Ivo Pogorelić himself, if you know what I mean.
RockLine: Who’s behind the music on “Nori mlin”?
Tomo: Me and the singer. I wrote 6 songs, and the other 4 were written by our singer Marko Erjavec.
RockLine: Tell us a bit about where you’d place Stone Orange genre-wise, and what the vision is for the band’s future development?
Tomo: Honestly, I never even thought about what genre we represent. Marko grew up on the nineties, grunge and Britpop, while I’m a fan of the heavy sounds of the eighties. I listen to classic metal acts like Ozzy, Accept, Dokken and so on…
RockLine: You can really feel that in the Stone Orange style.
Tomo: Yeah. Take the Dokken song Unchain The Night, if you know it, from the album “Under Lock and Key”? That served as the reference for the opening part of our album “Nori mlin”.
RockLine: Melodic hard rock (Dokken and bands like them) is pure exotica and an alternative today, so with Stone Orange you’re basically plowing a field that’s been overgrown with weeds and abandoned for ages…
Tomo: Well, I’m genuinely sorry that the nineties turned out the way they did, bringing that shift where bands like Nirvana showed up and drove musical virtuosity and melodic intellect away from listeners… The scene we follow floated off from the mainstream into the underground long ago, and now we’re waiting for it to resurface.
RockLine: But all those bands that were hugely popular in the second half of the eighties, they’re all still alive. Okay, “underground”, but reunions are happening, like Ratt are back together, Hanoi Rocks are together again, Poison too… Sure, it works given the brews that flowed in unimaginable quantities through the cock rock veins, the ultimate reunion of worn-out warriors before they finally keel over into retirement, but still, something’s going on, something’s moving…
Tomo: Yeah, true… The whole thing has potential to come back. Van Halen are going on another European tour too, and with David Lee Roth back in the fold.
RockLine: Are you going to see Dokken in Salzburg at the end of this month?
Tomo: It sounds really tempting, even though George Lynch isn’t at the core of the band anymore. I don’t know yet.
RockLine: Well, the openers in Salzburg are Germany’s Kingdom Come… What do you say?
Tomo: Yeah, of course I know them… they had a really great album, In Your Face (1989). That’s great music…
RockLine: Okay, one of our writers is heading down there, so the option is we squeeze you into the car if you happen to decide to join…
RockLine: Tomo, tell me, you used to play bass, what happened, how did that transition come about, your leap over to guitar and then some. You’ve become one of the main pillars of Stone Orange, one of the key players. You’re the soloist, the riff-maker and so on…
Tomo: Well, when did we stop? Do you remember?
RockLine: 1994. In February of that year we got robbed, and all that was left was Leben’s drums in the “rehearsal room”, the boiler room and bomb shelter in the Institute for the Deaf and Speech-Impaired on Vojkova, brrrr, it still gives me chills… well, at least I graduated.
Tomo: Well, after we stopped, I didn’t move much for a year or so, and then I got back in touch with Andrej Leben. I was still playing bass back then, Vili was around too, and we played a lot on stages, and then Leben wrapped it up. Vili and I wanted to start our own band, but that didn’t work out, so I started learning guitar… In 1997 I bought an electric guitar and I haven’t put it down or let it out of my hands since. It cost me three years of university, which I put on complete hold…
RockLine: That’s really great. Great that you have that kind of drive.
Tomo: It’s not drive, it’s that I “fell in” so hard that I can’t live without it, without the guitar…
RockLine: Part of your lifestyle… it’s your outlet…
Tomo: Yeah. And then on top of that comes pouring the money I’ve scraped together into all sorts of Marshall amps, effects, I’ve got two rare limited edition guitars, one is Petrucci’s, the other is Lynch’s ESP model, both “signature” ones, of course…
RockLine: Okay, let’s get back to Stone Orange. How come you decided on Slovenian lyrics?
Tomo: The next record will definitely have lyrics in English. People who listened to the album also recommended switching to English, and the wish for a potential breakthrough abroad is convincing me more and more too. Somebody even suggested we send the material abroad to some foreign labels that have bands cultivating melodic hard rock and heavy metal under their wing…
RockLine: I don’t know if I caught this right, but “Nori mlin” is distributed by Dallas, right? The album itself is self-released.
Tomo: Yeah, Dallas only does distribution. The thing is, labels here don’t sign deals with bands like us. We signed the distribution deal three months ago, and so far there are no concrete results in getting our music out there…
RockLine: Tell me, where did you get the idea for the album title “Nori mlin”? Madonna, don’t take this the wrong way, I keep mixing up “Nori mlin” with “Rdeči mlin”. The cover is red and black, socialist-looking, with a Native American figure, and Native Americans had Crazy Horse and Red Cloud… sorry, that’s our subconscious for you… very punk cover…
Tomo: How did you figure out that this Native American was taken from an abandoned factory in Moste, Ljubljana?
RockLine: I did a bit of surfing on the net, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha….
Tomo: Ha, ha, ha, ha… No, because that’s something people usually don’t know. What happened is my buddy was once wandering around totally drunk, for once, if I can call it “usefully drunk”. Anyway, in that part of Ljubljana he was looking for some bar and stumbled onto the Native American on that building, and passed the info on to us. And we used the idea. As for lyrics and song titles, that’s really painful for me, so for now I’m leaving it to our singer Marko… Right now we’re not a band that builds that much on lyrics, for us they’re a necessary evil for the time being.
RockLine: Then do a 15-minute instrumental, why not?
Tomo: Yeah, really, why not? As far as I’m concerned, I literally have to force myself to squeeze out any lyrics…
RockLine: When I listen to “Nori mlin”, the riffs are polished to the point of real punch, and with a bit of an upgrade, meaning some extra polishing, ironing, decorating, they could really grow atmospherically. I could easily see you sticking some hooky backing vocal arrangements or an atmospheric curtain of keyboards in the background. From what my ears took in listening to “Nori mlin”, Stone Orange have the potential to drag some forgotten, well-tested tricks of AOR doctrine out of the mothballs, what do you say? And there are no bands in Slovenia, especially young bands, with your stylistic leanings, right?
Tomo: Yeah. There really aren’t, not here. As far as the mainstream goes. It’s similar abroad too. What you hear in the trendy variety is some oppressive, muffled chords, simple three-chord scrubbing, boring, without the slightest spark or wit, and incapable of keeping the listener engaged. You get the feeling that nobody in the mainstream today knows how to play guitar anymore. You find no harmonies anywhere, and I personally just can’t identify with that kind of approach in the modern mainstream.
RockLine: Melodic hard rock lives, but in total obscurity. For example, the Italian label Frontiers Records shows the most support for melodic hard rock in Europe today.
Tomo: Ah yeah, Frontiers, I remember buying albums from that label by bands like Giant and Great White…
RockLine: There you go, a great example, since we’re on Great White. They’re another band that just rose from the dead with a new record… anyway, Frontiers is really strong, even bands like Toto, Survivor and Night Ranger signed deals with them, and then there are others, a bit smaller, that don’t even have a distribution deal in Slovenia, like Escape Music, AOR Heaven, Metal Heaven, MTM Records, Lion Records… there’s an option for Stone Orange… Okay, let’s move on. What more can you tell us about your guitar playing style, your influences?
Tomo: Yeah, I forgot to mention Judas Priest earlier. I’ve also piled up instructional DVDs and books, not exactly for Satriani and Vai, whom most people mention, but Paul Gilbert, for instance, is very close to me…
RockLine: Did you catch the Paul Gilbert concert in Maribor this year?
Tomo: No, I didn’t even know he was playing here, I didn’t see any promo anywhere. I’m really sorry I missed that show… I’ve studied quite a lot of Petrucci too. Each of those shredders has their own tricks, moves and approach… it’s exciting to explore them.
RockLine: Back to the band. The main thing is that you’ve got the album out. And now the question: have you already worked out in your head how you see Stone Orange in the future? Are you already forging the realization of new ideas, future visions for the band?
Tomo: Yeah, we’ll keep going in similar waters. But it’s a bitch. The target audience. Right now our music goes over best with people a little over 30, and the labels aren’t exactly warm to us. It’s really hard, I mean the ideas are there, but when you look ahead, realizing them in the current market situation is going to be very hard. You ask yourself whether to stick it out or to bend…
RockLine: It would be a shame to go the roundabout way, bending over backwards to please others. Stick to it. You know what a terrible record TNT made this year, the legendary Norwegian hard rockers. First they swap the singer, who has a voice trained for opera and came from the excellent British hard rock band Shy, and make him mumble his way through effects more or less, the riffs came out deliberately soft and trendy, the record is just a pile of nonsense, simply something that doesn’t suit this band at all. Like the otherwise excellent Tony Mills, you or I could have croaked on TNT’s new record. And I get the feeling they’re not the only hard rockers who can play and who have tried, unsuccessfully, to sell their soul… Well, Europe, for example, are among the few who squeezed through the eye of the needle on this one, one of the few successful melodic hard rock bands from the eighties who pulled off the chameleon act on their comeback with two new records.
Tomo: Yeah, but everyone does that today, Dokken too, well, Lynch Mob kept moving in that old direction for a while, but otherwise… What I wouldn’t give for an eighties band to make a record today like they used to put out in the eighties, but times are just different, things change…
RockLine: I think it’s best that you stick to what you are.
Tomo: Yeah. We’ve got no other choice. Anyway, we’ve found the creative core of the band, now we have to build on it. I’m in charge of riffs, solos, more of the music side of Stone Orange. I’m a classic metal guy at heart, the singer is more of a rocker, like the song Ne gledam dol fits him like a glove, and stuff like that… he’s more the manager type in the band, in charge of logistics, while I bring the musical ideas.
RockLine: Ne gledam dol is a really neat song on “Nori mlin”, goes down great in the ears, a very good synthesis of chorus and pre-chorus, hooky.
Tomo: Aha. The video could have been better, though. But the main thing is that there is a video and it’s getting played.
RockLine: So “Nori mlin” is out. How’s the promotion going?
Tomo: The so-called bosses who order music for the stores here, they’re a real cross to bear. For example, if some little tin god doesn’t feel like he knows the band, or hears the name for the first time, he won’t order the record for the store. I personally visited a few stores with a dozen of our records under my arm, and they took them on, those are smaller shops, like Rockerija. Even Mueller supposedly took a few copies, while the Big Bang store, for example, didn’t take it on.
RockLine: I feel like quality music today just doesn’t reach listeners, here in Slovenia, and sadly that goes for the offering of local acts too. The saddest part is that the state has no ear for young, talented local bands…
Tomo: It’s all interconnected, the circles are closed, sealed off. Unless you’re Atomic Harmonik or Plestenjak, you simply don’t get in, because you’re a risk, you won’t bring a guaranteed profit upfront. It’s hard to even land distribution. Here all the distributors are fighting for survival, they have no time to place quality on the market, they spend everything just to fill their own shriveled stomachs. A lot of water will have to flow before we reach the cultural level of the Western European continuity that stands behind rock music. Maybe a whole generational turnaround, who knows.
RockLine: Can you imagine today’s reality where the artist of a successful and influential band tells fans at gigs to rather “download” their music from the internet than leave money for original copies of their CDs to a usurious music industry? I have in mind the recent statements by Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor…
Tomo: At the labels here, for example, CD sales drop by 30% every year. Constantly.
RockLine: And prices stay steep anyway, too many people are lined up between the stamping machine in the factory and the shelf in the store, all dipping their little pot in…
Tomo: Restructuring of the existing major Slovenian labels and distributors into some kind of management houses is on the horizon, I’m caricaturing, of course… But I think there’s another very important factor here. A band is only as good as the PR person it has. You can simply see that bands without great quality can be very commercially successful, because behind them stands a capable manager, aggressive and persistent, who pushes the band into the media. We lack that and it’s hard for us to get any advertising. Really. One outlet, for example, told us they had to push the announcement of our CD’s release to the next issue of the paper, because they ran out of space in the current one. So the agreement wasn’t carried out. Mind you, we’re talking about one mini line in a print publication. Unbelievable. It’d be easier to simulate the genesis of planet Earth in a lab. I’m left speechless. As long as you’re unknown, they just don’t give a damn…
RockLine: Okay, let’s go back to Stone Orange for a bit. Is there a desire to break through abroad?
Tomo: Well, already with the next album, where we’re also planning English lyrics, we’d like to send the material out to a few foreign labels. We’ll see what the reactions are. But right now it’s hard because we’re not in the mainstream, I mean stylistically. It’s hard when you’re on your own, let’s hope the situation turns around as soon as possible. If you’re running the scene solo in opposition, it’s hard to crawl out of the shadow into the sun.
RockLine: What are the short-term plans for Stone Orange? You’ll probably throw yourselves at the stages in particular, to push your name and the album “Nori mlin”?
Tomo: Until the new year we’ve got a few gigs planned, some are confirmed, other dates are being negotiated right now, but we’re pretty much covered gig-wise until the end of 2007. So, lots of gigging, gathering experience, cementing the name. We have to fight and persevere, we’ve got to make it.
RockLine: That’s the essence, faith! Tomo, sincere thanks for your time and this interesting conversation. Would you like to add a final thought, some advice for the readers of our RockLine magazine?
Tomo: Heh, heh,… It won’t be that complicated. People. Listen to eighties music!
photo: Vasja “Beast” (Chaosstar)
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