Timpani allo Spiedo presents you a very nice interview to the Serbian thrashcore bulldozer Nadimaĉ through the words of their singer Danilo "Dača" Trbojević. You have to expect an incredibly passionate interview full of serious thoughts, socio-political themes about Serbia and...no, stop with the introductions and read it from start to finish!
Hi bro! How are you? I have to say that I enjoyed a lot with your last album! Now, what was the writing process of “Besnilo” and where its recording were?
Hey man, thanx for your interest and support! Well, to be honest I'm a little hangover and it's 40+ degrees in Belgrade so it's hardcore. Glad you liked the album.
Well we were working on it for 2 years, 99% in practice studio where we made the songs. We almost never make songs at home but in studio since we can exchange ideas and energy on the spot. As for recording experience, we recorded it in Citadela Sound Production Studios in Belgrade, same as last 2 times, and we are happy with the results.
Your thrashcore seems to me a lethal but inventive mix between Razor, Slayer, Cryptic Slaughter and Wehrmacht without forgetting the death metal tones caused by your vocal style. So, what are your main musical and lyrical influences?
Well, we listen everything from punk and hardcore punk, grindcore, power violence, thrash metal, speed, etc, ranging from bands like Assassin, Terrorizer, Anal Cunt, Cripple Bastards, The Exploited, Tankard, Spermbirds to artists like Malmsteen or Scott Walker. Too much influences to say which one are major.
As for me, in time I realized it will be very boring to play and try to sound like Kreator, Sodom or Cryptic slaughter because they already did it, and it will be pointless to duplicate it even if it's perfectly done. Therefore, I think its much more honest and creative to incorporate totally different musical influences into the final product. Also for me it was always important to feel some level of honesty of experiences or attitude or idea in music but also lyrics.
That's why I take serious making album lyrics, and that's why there are no lyrical themes bigger than life, but mostly personal experiences and observations on world and society around you. The idea is to change yourself, that your neighborhood, society and in time the world I guess.
The idea of the cover art concept was at first little different but much more detailed. But to make point more understandable we put an accent on multinational corporations and their role and presence in our everyday lives, in every aspect of it.
On the cover it was stated that multinationals' media strategy led to state of reality where we can see symbols of this everywhere, even in our imagination, everywhere we look, in our private and public space, controlling or steering our thoughts, actions and interactions in patterns which is much more slave like than free persons in any sense. The symbols of these corporations are used also because the people know and trust them but much due to their presence in every aspect of their lives than based on some other logic, like for example quality and moral values. We don't think who stand behind these corporations or from whose hard work they collect profit and gain more and more power. In today's globalized world, money, profit and moral led by these values are better represented in power that such corporations have, sometimes stronger than the whole countries, obtained on the backs of cheep working force with products intended for sale to first world citizens. With that kind of production, money and resource monopoly, these corporations have the political power and influence to change the structure, culture and politics of 2nd and 3rd world countries into slave entities (for example - united fruit company).
Also, the cover is dedicated to TV, medias and internet advertizing, and also reality tv and similar new age phenomena which make an average person an average slave of habit with no alternative ideas and freedom of choice. Except the choice of what one consume.
Speaking again about the cover artwork, it marks the return of your mascotte (or whatever it is), a thrasher with a killer face clown. But what is its name and how was it born?
Well, most of people didn't notice but the clown is on every release cover of the band except the first demo. On our last album the clown is there and his narrative role into the cover art is important although he is not in the center. And that was the point, we didn't want some boring mascotte just for sake of having one. In every cover he appears with a some kind of role. I mean he is the one from which angle rage and lyrical themes you can hear on the release. He represents all of us and his name is Sarcastic Clown.
Creation of this character is due to the fact that, for many metalheads, Nadimač was too unserious, too happy or too not metal seriousness like. And that was the way we liked. Dragan, our drummer, and me were working on the cover art of our first EP ("Metal je rat", 2009) and we were brainstorming about which character or symbol would fit band's attitude in the best way. Sarcastic Clown was perfect since he was angry, a sarcastic drunkard who would prefer to act and change something rather than to just sit and shit about what's wrong with the today's world. Many metalheads in the world try to look too serious and dark, and for us energy and honest attitude was more important than one way kind of look/attitude that made a lot of metal bands same and boring. At the end, it seem that the bands that are represented by a sarcastic clown like us have more to say about reality of life and struggle than most "serious" predictable bands that sing about nothing and just pose.
Considering your very serious lyrics, do you want to do a lyric track by track describing every theme faced on “Besnilo”? For example, what is the “Shopping Revolution”? Is it maybe the sterile compulsion to buy alternative and revolutionary stuff?
The first two songs, that are the intro and "Palikuca", are about extreme frustration by the system and the way our society has sunked in to deviant moral cesspool. "Palikuca" is not just a song about setting fire to buildings earned by criminal or nonethical ways, but also about thrauma that individual carries for its whole life. For example, the first part of the song tells a story of us as children in country which was and is in wars since we can remember, and our destructive way of dealing with poverty, sanctions, blackouts etc... In the New Belgrade blocks (and I presume, in other parts of the city) children gathered money, and go around and set fires and burn things that would catch a fire. In the song that group's thrauma is dramatized through the motive of politicly and ethicly motivated vigilantes - firestarters that would burn symbols of the new elite lifestyle and every monument of corruption.
"Kapitalizam je kanibalizam" and "Jednom nogom u gradu" are connected by the idea of multi-national corporations conquering alternative production and life space. "Kapitalism..." is a song with an obvious accent on dehumanization of human civilization, and the process of unification of global human population into one, slave consumerist society. Instead, "Jednom nogom..." tend to point out the problem of losing the village and agrar culture nursed in our culture for centuries. Not only that it's a problem concerning the despairing of villages as a migration and centralization effect but it deals also with the way the country undervalues domestic products and imports low quality products from abroad, not forgetting the crucial theme about the multinational corporative business in post-socialistic countries such as ours. For example, big business makes its branch office in our city and hires 10 000 workers. There will be new jobs and good paycheck (not the same as in the west, but good). But as the consequence of this, young people will decide to leave, for example, smaller towns and family business in the villages to go to city and work. But these companies can in any moment choose to close their offices or factories so to move to other even cheaper countries, and what happens with the workers? What would happens with villages and manufacture, fields, production etc...? First, because of people leaving the village fields and houses and infrastructure deteriorates, and on the other hand, some other corporations buy these lands and exploites them. In both cases, we are on the losing streak.
"Revolucija u izlogu" is the song about tradition of periodic mass outlets of social tension towards the ruling elite. But also it deals with the people who come to these rallys just to they can get some gain from it. In this case, broke market store window and steal something like dress or shoes.
"U podrumu zute kuce" is about real life actual horror story about decade(s) of kidnapping Serb, romanians and other non-Albanians people from mafia State of Kosovo (at this moment the south part of Serbia occupied by the terrorists) transported into the “Yellow house” in the north Albania, where victims are killed, organs harvested and sent to the west organ black market. The worst part of this story is given by the blind eye which western officials kept for long time for political, economic and selfish reasons.
"Analni ovcar" focus two major concepts in, for example, our society: in fact, this song is about how people are scared about freedom and free thinking, how we are obsessed with “traditions” and how we love to have cult of leader. Of course, this kind of mentality provides us with a lot of people trying to exploit these factors to be the shepard for the stupid flock.
The song "Teraj se u kurac" is a short outburst to a conciliatory attitute towards mysteries and injustices in life. You can't be just accept things in life as changeless, or as fate but you have to fight for yourself and others in need instead.
Next song talks exactly about that. A track about drugs for mom is not just wierd or funny but also a bitterly true story. In fact, "Prvi put..." shows the situation where a parent or an important person in your life is seriously or terminally sick, but since you don't have the chances to pay for medicine, treatment etc..., you have to stand and watch that person suffer or die. The worst thing in this case is that you are aware that stupid thing like money or class/status could make that difference between life and death. In case of this song, the focus is on the pain of the person that you try to help or feeling, and the problems you are ready to get in to just to try to help ease this at any cost. This topic is especially serious critique of medical and farmacological business and ethics.
"Rodjen u ofsajdu" is about drinking and playing PES, a situation which can escalate in group violence. Especially if you drink Rakia (in according to Wikipedia, this is the collective term for a very strong fruit brandy popular in Southeastern Europe) and play.
"Zemlja povraca" tells about exploitation of Planet Earth but from a point of view which describes the Earth as a mother.
"Crna stampa" is a song about the counter-culture based on modern turbo folk music and lifestyle culture which is popular in Serbia and the near regions. Also this song deals with human passion of making and worshipping modernday idols, and perverted delight of seeing the idol fall and crush.
Finally, the last song "Bez ograda, bez barijera" is about absurd egos and hierarchy construction in small underground scene.
I have always appreciated the bands that sings through their own native languages but, since the seriousness of socio-political messages, don’t you think that they can be understood in a better way by everyone if you sing, instead, in English?
Well, we sing about our society and in our society most of people speak Serbian, also our lyrics are understandable into the EX Yugoslavia countries. As I said before, our lyrics are mostly pointed to local social and political context of everyday struggles and life. I don't think it would be effective on that level to someone living in Portugal, or Germany etc... They have similar happenings due to same problems of the globalization but these similarities are understandable through an usage of symbols that directly point out united downtrodden societies around the world. I think that the band should sing about worldwide and bigger problems, but I also think that the passion is more evident in stories and lyrics that deal with small but important personal observations rather than too wide and too usual world problems views.I mean, there are million of punk bands that angrily sings about too abstract and wide topics, therefore not making any real points or creative strategies to fight the problems. I think that if you face too wide and abstract points and topics, you actually become part of conformism rather than to be an entity that causes any problems for the system. If you use personal approach and connect with people making groups, that in some way act differently, but do act, that you in time can achieve more than millions just talking and not doing anything.
We salute people, therefore bands too, who act, create, struggle and live according to their own moral views and ideas, fighting against moral, economic, political and slavery of thought.
What is the sense of an anti-song called “Go Fuck Yourself”?
This song is a reaction to people that lead their lives based on ideas of fate and destiny, dealing in such way with bad and worse happenings. It is also dedicated to people who always whine about how hard their lives are, not seeing how fucked up other people are, or trying to help anyone in the time of need.
Are you planning some promotional music videos for your new album? I know that, for your 4th album, you shot a very funny video for “Retarded for Sk8te” [you can watch it below]. How was this experience?
Haha, the recordings of "Retardiran za skejt"... well we and our friends came in to skate park in the morning, got drink, fool around and recorded about 50% of material needed for the video. We were lucky that some skaters were making and recording some competitions that day so they gave us their recordings and we finished the video haha!
Through the years, you shared the stages with big names like Municipal Waste, Sodom, DRI and many others but I know that you love to play also into the squats, that are places maybe more proper for your kind of lyrics. But what are the differences between playing on the big stages and into the squats?
Yeah, we played with biggest names of the genres, and you can learn about the bands more than through their music. I must point out the gig with Accused, a really cult and old school band but they were standing and watching our soundcheck, they builded the stage with us, they supported all the bands, and they later sent us messages of support for our last album. You can learn a thing or two about honesty and ego from these dudes, and especially about playing instruments. Other bands were great too, especially dudes from Tankard and Onslaught, very nice people. Hmm, well it was an amazing experience when we played in Romania into an arena with Sodom since we never played in front of so much people.
But, to be honest, I like more gigs without barrier between people, between the "crowd" and the "band". So I agree with you. I think that it is more personal and honest the way to exchange energy between people that get the ideas and share friendship, and watch on each other, than just to perform in front of a crowd as if we were in theatre. Big concerts have their thing, and we like playing these too but small and energic gigs are the reason why we play.
What was your most memorable gig? Have you ever played here in Italy?
Hmm, I don't know, probably gigs in Greece and Romania with Sodom and Tankard... Gigs with DRI, Municipal Waste, Napalm Death, Warbringer, Accused etc... but mostly because hanging around or travelling to these countries and drinking afterwards. Meeting people is what made these gigs memorable. I think that the best times we had were with some cities crews like Koper, Ljubljana, Skopje, Thessaloniki, etc..., and, of course, in our country sharing stage with our friends and drinking with people we drink everyday haha!
Yeah we played in Italy with Dead, an Italian thrash metal band and they are our friends. Well it was last two days on that tour. We were tired, Ĉora was fucked up from night before when he fell from bed in Slovenia and down the stairs, I fucked up my nose and he to go to the ER, but we finished these concerts and it was cool! I remember it was amazing to see Nido Di Vespe live :D
You mean did we ever tried to make songs that will last 10 or more minutes? (Yes, man!) Well no... but who knows, for now we try to make fast songs that suits with angry lyrics haha! Of course, this doesn't mean that we avoid making songs that last more, we will see in future.
How was born your collaboration with the fantastic Spanish label Xtreem Music?
Well the last album before "Besnilo" was released by Witches Brew in Germany. In some point there was an option for us to sign for Xtreeme Music. Since the first album but also with all releases we had really good experiences with the labels because of the label owners we know are really nice people. Same thing goes with Dave from Xtreem music, he right away understood our approach to music as listeners and that as band, and since he is really a big fan of hardcore, grind and thrash, death and metal in general we get along really well.
"Besnilo" is out now and we will see how everything will go on from now on, for now we are more than happy with the label and Dave.
You are an incredibly prolific band but I see that your discography is literally full of splits. So, why do you love so much the split format?
Well we started producing demos and split in according to a DIY idea. In time we thought it would be great thing to spread our music through split releases in small underground circles. Personally we will send back demos and EPs for free but it was expensive to send them to Korea or Costa Rica.
Once we made splits with bands from far away countries, we saw this as a good thing since we are promoting our music and also the music of the bands we did splits in our country. We released splits in Serbia, Macedonia, Romania, Greece, Turkey, USA, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, Costa Rica, Russia etc..., and we made a lot of friends there. That was the point of split releases, not the profit since I think that we have sold like 10% of these releases and traded or gave as present about 90% of them.
Your future plans?
Same as always, we will make some shirts and videos to promote music and ideas. As for concerts, we have some gigs in near future and some tours at the autumn. We will try to visit some countres we didn't had the chance before. We will see.
Ok man, the interview is over! Now feel free to say everything you want to the avid readers of Timpani allo Spiedo and thank you very much to replying to my many questions!
Thank you for not asking boring questions but questions that made me think about the answers. We... dear readers, give our new album a listen if you like fast and angry music. Apart from that, try to do something with your lives and fight to make world, or at least your surroundings, a better place.
Cheers 111
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