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1. FIRST OF ALL, YOU ARE AN OLD BAND EXISTING 15 YEARS MORE OR LESS. SO PLEASE POINT OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS OF THE BAND’S HISTORY TILL NOW AND INTRODUCE THE LINE UP TO THE READERS…
The most important moment in the band’s history would be the gathering, that’s for sure. There were four of us, each one playing in a different band, but we decided to form a new band as a joke for the upcoming festival. All the famous Serbian punk and heavy metal bands were coming there to play and we had in mind to make some kind of parody, to let other “serious” bands look funny, because of their fake dignity. We decided to play grind core, which was quite new back then and very few bands were into that style world wide, but there was absolutely nothing similar in Serbia. Themes for the lyrics were extremely bizarre and sarcastic at the same time. Part of the plan was to wear weird clothes and shock the audience that way too. Anyway, the strangest decision was changing of instruments at the gig - no one should play his main instrument! The bass player became a drummer, a guitarist took the bass and so on. The result of this weird project was unbelievable! We were kicking so good that we got the best reaction of all. People wanted more and we had to go on further with the new band and have more fun. Each one of us gave up on playing in previous bands, got back to his main instrument and band was formed. T his time for real. Another interesting thing is that our line up didn’t change since the beginning: Sale (vocal), Francuz (bass), Dare (guitar) and Boris (drums). We had only one change somewhere in 1996 if I can recall. Our first drummer Sola left playing and dedicated his life to religion. Boris replaced Sola, got adapted in our style very quickly, since he was an old friend who understands our style very well. List of buddies and close supporters is pretty long. Numerous musicians from other bands were playing in SMF. Some were joining us at the recording studios to leave their mark on tracks, some were guests at the gigs, usually to have fun with us or to replace a missing member of the band. However, only four of us are the band itself.
Yes, we are kinda sick. You get it when you listen to some of the harmonies, breaks or the best of all: read some lyrics.
Yeah I would agree with you about the style we’re playing, it surely could fall into crossover genre. Particularly the song you’ve heard. However, we also like to experiment in that manner, so there are elements of many different styles involved in our music as well. For example, the latest influences we got from industrial, break beat and jazz, but all those are only influences. Some elements could be heard in the newest material we are working on right now. Of course, in very small doses and built into aggressive form we are playing. After all, it’s obvious that the energy is at the first place for us, pure and powerful.
As far as the others, it’s amazing how interesting bands they are, playing some very unique styles. I found lots of similar aspects of music we are playing. Best of all, the whole compilation is packed with energy! Now I can’t say that I have a favorite band, each band is good on it’s own special way and I like to listen to them all. I’m absolutely honest about this, really. Anyhow, there are words that are staying in my ears even when the CD stops. Don’t know if it is because of the specific position of the song or because it carries a message that could be easily applied to a lot of us. Anyway, these words are: “Get a job, get a job, get a fucking job…”.
The first album was released in 1995 after the first impact of war, sanctions and general crisis in society. The complete situation in the country reflected on this album on a special way - we treated all the themes a funny way! We financed the studio on our own, recorded 26 songs and got 55 minutes of material. The second album “Lako cemo” was released in 1998. The free translation could be “take it easy, it’s going to be ok”. Indeed things looked a little bit brighter at that period of time, never had a thought that we are going to be bombed soon. We had more serious approach in making music and lyrics for this one; paid more attention on each guitar riff, bass line and drum beat. In general we slightly slowed down the tempo and switched into heavier sounding. Basically it’s the same style as the first one, just it has evolved a little bit, that’s all. I am still proud of all our music. Maybe the final production could be better and mastering wasn’t highly professional, but it was the best we could obtain. The situation was really hard, so from that point of view the final product is quite satisfying.
I have asked people from different countries how the Serbian language sounds to them. Of course I’m thinking of the modification we guys from Belgrade are speaking. The answer was like unusual, strange, unmelodic, flat in accents, hard, rough. So keeping all that in mind, the language is kinda compatible with our music. After all, it could be an excellent excuse for being lazy to make a really good translation on English, hehehe.
Metalheads, skinheads, cherokeeheads… whatever heads there are in audience, it’s all the same to us, we love them all. We are a small band and always had a very close relation with our audience. First of all, they get the energy, no doubt about it. We are delivering lots of energy even there are no walls of amplifiers behind us. We have an honest, down to earth approach. No fancy visual effects, since we like to keep it simple. Tight sound, brutal riffs, aggressive playing. We were made for live shows at the first place, so hope it explains everything.
The similar goes for the painting issue. Our music in general can’t have any kind of adequate visual representation. It’s mainly because each song is telling its own story, having more or less unique sounding atmosphere. Can’t merge them all to one painting. Btw, it would be a way too trivial to paint a lightning to represent the energy of our music. It’s much, much more complex. Now, a particular song could build an imaginary visual representation in the listener’s brain. Something like images created in head while reading a book. But it’s better leaving it to the reader’s imagination to handle these virtual illustrations, thus listeners in our case.
So, the war started. The army called me to join the troops of old Yugoslav army against Croatia. I escaped somehow and managed not to end up in jail. Can’t tell you how, it’s a secret, hehehe. I couldn’t go in that war, for several reasons. The first one was that my brother, a Serb who is living in Zagreb, was mobilized by the Croatian army against the Serbs. So imagine two of us fighting on confronted sides. Even worse, we could meet directly somewhere on the battlefield. The whole war was cooked on hate among nationalities and revisions of old ownership on territories. What hate? The black market between Serbs, Croatians and Muslims was blooming. Even guns were in trade. Some people got very rich and they didn’t care about the hate and war. Of course, naive people were the victims. Reasons were weak, but media and politicians were giving their best to get the war going with elements they had. Then started dividing territories in smaller and smaller pieces, coming to the level of villages and streets. Can you believe that cities were split in confronted quarts? Certainly it wasn’t a typical war we know from books and films. It wasn’t a civil war either, because it was too big and there were regular army units on all 3 sides, plus private armies. We also had economic sanctions over here in Serbia. That’s a funny thing, no real damage not even to our industry. We had everything like before, just some things were a little more expensive and some were even cheaper. Whatever, it was a nice opportunity for the precisely selected western companies to secretly invest or buy in Serbia, without the real competition and tax free. Again, our and foreign governments had a deal about it all. How the hell do I know? Well, they didn’t even try to hide. It was in the news. For example, “Serbia Telecom”, a national telecom company, was sold unbelievably cheap, for a few mils of $ and we all know that telecommunications are one of the most profitable businesses today. The worse thing happened in people’s minds. I can’t say who else is responsible for that, but the old Serbian government is guilty for sure. It was like side effect of war. We got morality crisis and brain washing. The redneck kind of primitivism was forced through the media. Young kids were poisoned with unbelievable amount of bad music. Typically it was like a curvy blonde yelling melodies out of tune and being followed by sampled modern rhythms. It was on TV all the time and was really scary to see and to hear as well. This mutated musical b/s was a completely new phenomenon and was named “Turbo Folk”. Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with authentic Serbian folk music, which is beautiful. Harmonies in Turbo Folk are defected oriental themes, Turkish like, similar to singing of Muslim priests. In background dance-pop beats, sampled from the latest hits from the charts. Visual moment is very important in Turbo Folk. It’s always a singer, not a band. If it is a woman, she has to be on high heels, wearing short skirts, having blonde hair and lots of make up. In one word – a hooker. Guys have a mean look, fancy clothes, preferably from some Italian fashion designer, expensive watches, lots of gold jewelry, driving a nice car. I would say – a pimp. Those were idols of Serbian youth for a decade and even are today. The music itself was suitable for breaking glasses on the floor or eventually on your head (for drunk listeners). Also adequate in situations like firing from guns into the air on weddings, birthdays and other celebrations. This forcing of bad taste is still happening, maybe just not as much as in 90’s, but Turbo Folk still rules on media, especially TV stations. Generations of teenagers are lost for all good kinds of music. Looks like we have been very strong as a band, since we have survived all that.
First of all, I have to say that I have many good friends in the US. All of them are very nice persons, openminded, friendly and we have a great communication. It’s just like with Croatians. I have friends among them too and my brother is still there with all his family. I will talk about governments as they could be the real bad guys. We had a very bad government with Slobodan Milosevic and it’s not only because of war crimes. He and his family made a lot of crimes over here in Serbia, financial crimes and some political killings. Of course I have to say that US government is a bad one too. They are bad even for the American people, just it depends on the point of view. You know, people who have lost someone close see things differently than those who didn’t. So, you can ask any mother of a dead American soldier what she thinks about politics of US government. Would she like her second son to go to the next war? Hope you get the point. In that manner, I won’t say anything negative for the governments which are not causing wars or crisis, but definitely only a bad person could be a successful politician. I’m sure about that and it’s based on my experience. In modern times politicians are starting wars, but always keep their asses safe, their sons too. Other people’s sons are on the battlefield, fighting for imbecile goals. Is it fair? Where are the good old times when the leaders were in first lines, fighting like everyone else? This way they feel no pain and don’t have to care about the casualties. As far as the latest war we had with US, well it wasn’t a war. It was just bombing. No real war, rather a political joke. It was the funniest war of all the funny wars we had. I apologize to families on both sides, who have lost someone, but simply have to call that war the right way – a joke. Further, I am intentionally saying US, because NATO was only a mask. I know the level of engagement of other countries, because my very close foreign friend was a NATO commander and was directly involved in operations. NATO was a dead organization, but finally they got their first war. Small one, safe and with no chances to lose. It helped USA to prolong the existence of NATO and probably earn even more money. Being a member costs a lot, you know. As the matter of fact, seems that these days Serbia is collecting money for the entrance. Serbian soldiers are already fighting for the USA in the Middle East. Ok, the war. This is how it was. First, a few Serbian military officers were paid good to work as spys inside the Serbian army. US government wanted to make sure that Serbs don’t have some Russian missiles, SS-300 they were named I think. If we had them like the rumors were spread, US airplanes would NEVER come here to bomb us. It would be way too dangerous. But Serbia is a small country, those rockets are very expensive and we had government which was secretly cooperating with all our so-called “enemies”. Russia would never give those rockets for free, why would they anyway. Just there was a hope, people expected help or at least a voice raised . Even more, an unusual monetary help was given from US to Russia after a few days of bombing. It was $10 bils, just in case, although Russia was never supporting us in any way. USA just wanted to make sure Russia won’t complain about anything. They are at the same team now. There were hopes about China. Now China and USA have enormous trading amount, so why would Chinese spoil that? Practically the whole world was against us and highly united. We became an easy target. I think the war was already arranged with Slobodan Milosevic, at least it looked like that. Our army was never fully engaged as it should be in wartime. Maybe 10% of troops were at Kosovo to make it look like a real war. Others stayed in military buildings and shelters. They were hiding and Americans were intentionally avoiding them. I saw it, really. Also, have to say thanks for that. They could bomb us and our army much harder, no doubt about it. Sounds ironic, but we should be grateful, because our regular soldiers are kids mainly from 18 to 20 years of age. No professionals, except for the commanders. Here is an example: the building of Military Headquarters in the center of Belgrade was smashed easily and very precisely with two Tomahawk rockets. The building was empty and probably “arranged” to be a target (Btw, foreign companies are buying those smashed buildings these days. Quite interesting!). On the other side, almost NONE of the buildings or shelters where soldiers were sleeping has been bombed. But Serbian soldiers were bombed hard on Kosovo. Those were sacrificed. Since the main targets were buildings and bridges, significant percent of civilians got killed too. The specific fact is that we never saw our enemies. There were just bombs falling. It was impossible to do anything about it. Strange, but people got used to it very soon. The fear was present at the beginning, but melted down after a couple of days. We got adapted. The bomb could hit you anywhere, so there was no sense to hide. Especially because some bombs were unbelievably strong. People continued to live as usual. Even more, had fun like never before, because every day could be the last day of life. People became kinda relaxed and were living fully, like they are going to die tomorrow, since it was quite possible. It was an amazing situation: people having fun, on the streets, in café bars, smiling, music everywhere, parties in clubs, at homes and in the shelters. The best of all, lots of things were for free. Things became much easier then before. Oh, and you could break any rule in traffic and pay nothing. Anyway, the bombs were falling every night. We were waiting for Slobodan Milosevic to sign up some kind of contract and stop the bombing. It was the condition. Excuse me, but I don’t believe in the official story. True, the bombing has stopped after he signed, but I’m sure it was just for the masses. Some secret jobs were done. Clever people are saying that enormous amounts of used and worthless Uranium were dropped all over Serbia, especially on Kosovo. Also they say that the handling and keeping of that Uranium is enormously expensive, much more expensive then to simply drop it somewhere. Besides, it could be that someone was paid very good to accept the dropping of it here. It was in the news once, that western European governments are paying very good to eastern governments only to receive the used nuclear fuel and place it somewhere in their countries. Of course there could be more reasons. Our army and NATO became friends very soon, right after the war. Even more we are going to NATO now. Just if that happened a little bit earlier, the war would be impossible. Personally I don’t care much about the Kosovo itself. Never been there and never will. There is no simple solution for the mess made and war didn’t bring any good. Just can’t figure out why my hometown was bombed. Lots of innocent people died for nothing. Some kids were killed by US bombs and there can’t be any explanation for that. It’s a crime. I think the reason was breaking of famous “human rights”. If any Serbs or Albanians have done any crime in Kosovo, they should be arrested and sent to jail. Quite simple. Also, ideas about the independence of Kosovo could always be solved peacefully. For example, with methods of US government used for solving the idea of “Texas Republic”. Bombing of Belgrade was unnecessary. If the intentions of US government were honest and they were really concerned about the situation in Kosovo, they could help on many different ways. Should I mention… money? It’s helping them in many situations and people at Kosovo are very poor, so they wouldn’t have to spend much to make them all happy and stay together, Serbs and Albanians. It would cost much less than a war. Finally they could help Serbian people to get rid of Milosevic’s regime long ago, the same way as they actually did at the end. You know how he felt? Very simple. A couple of key people in police got the money not to react against the demonstrations. Can’t be easier! Obviously US government needed him for some reasons and Serbian people were suffering because of that. Guess it’s all over now and we are out of focus. Sorry for the long answer, but I had to point out those facts. I hope this will help for better understanding of our situation and getting the clear picture about modern wars.
Dare (guitar), SMF - May 24th, 2005, Belgrade, Serbia. Christine Parastatidou
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