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Discorder: Do you mind if I ask you some questions about the early days of Teplice? I'd really like to know about Fourth Price Band, Shanov and Do Rady, those early punk bands and those early times where you were under a system that… things were difficult.
Mirek Wanek: FPB, when it began, that was 1981 and especially in Teplice-I founded that band-and in Teplice especially it was a small city and it's North Bohemia, you know, it's not really a cultural centre. Teplice in that time wasn't like a rock centre at all. So the only bands we got there was these bands who played in bars, some really just cover songs, some hits, like, really stupid and ugly music, just unbelievable. There were a couple of young bands, you know, they tried to play rock but everything was almost forbidden. And there was some guy who took care about everything who was a main censor so each band has to go with their stuff for his permit, and of course, he didn't give permit to anybody. At the same time he was a big drunkard, so he likes these bar bands because they always when he show up-because he could cancel the concert, you know, because he has that power-so they always give him a couple of whiskeys or whatever he drank, and he got really drunk, and at the same time he tried to be a poet, so he wrote some really stupid lyrics… just like, unbelievable. But each band got one song with his lyrics and they got permit. So it was kind of strange, kind of like very bad, but kind of funny also at the same time. So FPB at that time was like coming from the moon in that situation, just nothing like that at all, and immediately they were really angry, these cultural censors and police as well. They immediately start to take care of what was going on and so FPB played maybe 20 shows only in their whole history, and all were illegal, so it was not really possible to play in legal way. And there is not any recordings from that time.
I wanted to ask you then if there were only negative things during this period for young musicians, or if there were some positive things about that time as well?
I think as I showed, it's got some tragic part but also comic part: that's why we like so much Kafka, Franz Kafka, because it's kind of black humour and it's absurd which you can be depressed from or if it's too much absurd then you kind of laugh to it because it's just something really funny. So something similar was in that time and I think what was good in that time-which I don't want that it will come back again-but what was kind of good, that always when artists are working under pressure, under some fear, under some kind of fight or something like that, it always gives them more sensitivity or something. Like being more accurate and more really straight, and more, I don't know how to say, really sensitive for very important things and deep things. And also audience. Audience in that time, because not so many bands [spoke] straight. The lyrics were kind of like reading between the lines and audience were extremely trained on the reading in between lines and a little joke, which probably from abroad nobody can get, in Czech Republic definitely all these people go, 'Oh, wow! Yeah!' and immediately they will catch it.
So, do you find any kind of special, maybe not relationship, but with other former communist countries, maybe when you play in Poland or Hungary-I know you've played some shows in Bosnia-is there kind of a special mood at those concerts?
I don't really feel, like especially now, it's kind of long time ago, which is good. And so, what I talked about was true 10 years ago. Right now, these young people, like 17,18,19 [year olds], these people are raised kind of in normal situation so it's probably not so much true right now, but it used to be. Definitely, there is some similar experience, so a lot of people from Poland or Hungary, their reactions, they catch some jokes, which if you play some older songs, so they kind of catch these jokes faster. But it's always very funny question. People always ask me… if I'm here, how is the difference between reactions of audience here and in our country. When I'm there, they ask me about reactions of American audience. And I always say, people are same, basically you know, and reactions of people depends to sound, if they know us, if they are open to listen, if they are kind of experienced with this kind of music, which means if the club has kind of dramaturgy which gives raising some audience. So it depends to these things and not so much to nationality.
Your latest album, Usi, or Ears in English… What is the significance of either that song, or that title, as a musician?
Actually, it is a concept, definitely. It was in my mind a long time, actually, I was really thinking deeply about these things and it's about communication, about listening. The ears, it's a symbol for… [At this very point, openers Jack Assassin begin their set and drown out our conversation and so, after checking our soft drinks at the door, we adjourn to the band's tour van parked just outside the venue.] Actually, we were not really political band, like, ever. Which means we were thinking about human characters and relationships and that these things are kind of like a basement, a foundation of any system. Then, if you have socialist system, communist system, or if you have capitalist system, or whatever, if human characters and the relationships are wrong and if people are not nice to each other, if they do not want to listen to each other then you start problems. And of course, if you've got communist system, those problems which in capitalist system are bad, in communist system are freaky! Because these people get power to kill you or put you to jail or whatever, you know, so these characters, like if some person is, I don't know, brutal if he has power like a communist leader he is dangerous because he can kill you with permit, with law. But… the democratic system tries to protect, kind of-I'm kind of skeptic even of that-they protect from too much power to that kind of persons. From the very beginning, I was thinking that the real problem is not… [I mean] it is! The communist system was a real problem, but it's not the really main problem, the main problem is about human characters, about relationships. So the very first album was named In the Middle of Words. In the middle of words, the word 'soldier'-like many, many 'soldier,' 'soldier,' 'soldier'-the word 'human' is alone. If you put them on paper, like thousand words 'soldier' and you put just one word 'human' it's so alone, it's just really lonely. So that's something about mass of people… and I have to say I see it even here in North America: people tend to be part of some mass. Like, everybody buy McDonald's, everybody go on vacation on Florida, everybody watch these commercials, everybody… you know it's like, not everybody, but a lot of people like to be like the others, they like to be like sheeps in the mass you know. And that was typical for communism, actually… sometimes I feel like people don't understand that, they think that some few leaders, some few freaky leaders took power and they made dictatorship… that's not true. Like, million people vote for them. And they like to be like a sheeps and have some leaders to care about everything and the most important thing for them, for most people, was to have something to eat, to have place to stay, and have some work… and if they have that, they didn't really care if they can speak what they want, if they can sing what they want, they didn't really care about artists in jail, they really didn't care. So that's something that I feel is common, it's not only about communism, it's even here, you know, it's just something…
It's human.
Right. And that is what we try to sing about, or we are artists talking about these kind of problems, these things, these kind of common things. And so, that was the first album. The second album was Unloved World and… it's again, something like, that people, all over the earth-like let's say 'Unloved Earth' or 'Unloved World'- [it's] about the earth which is unloved by human beings, but at the same time they need it.
It's home!
Right. Then the third one was Hollywood and it was again kind of about communication, about… this entertainment, to Hollywood, this kind of symbol for entertainment, false world. Again, about mass, you know. From one point of view you can kind of laugh to these mass, you know, how stupid are they, that they believe in this kind of fake world. At the same time it's something about dreaming and people just tend to dream, and if they don't have it by their own, they want to see it on the screen somewhere-they just want to substitute it with something. Of course it's very bad that those Hollywood people use it for making money, you know, this kind of weakness of people. But at the same time, you can't really laugh to these people without understanding that mostly it's because they miss something. Some old, very fat lady, you know, in her inside, she might be, she really wants to be, I don't know, some nice girl walking, dancing, whatever, she wants to be ballet dancer. And of course, she can't… objectively, she can't, but it doesn't mean she can't dream about that. So she at least wants to see it on some screen or something. And then, the fourth one was Fairytales from Needland and again, almost the same. Even [though] each is about something different, the main is almost the same: following these human pleasures or hopes or some disasters, or whatever like that. So Fairytales…, it's again like, people 600 years or 800 years ago hoped in something and they loved each other and they hated each other, exactly the same like now, and they made up some fairytales in that time from their experience from their lifestyle, their lifetime. They made up some fairytales which we read now and we say, 'Oh, that's smart, that's nice, really true. That's big, true, deep.' You know we got from these past people, we got fairytales, we can very simply say, about angels and about devils. You know, we got this personified evil and good-angel and devil, for example. So I was wondering what-of course, in future they will get from us [some] message, over thousand years-they will get from us something evil and something good, so I tried to imagine what kind of personified persons it will be. So this album has 12 songs and each song is about one created person. [The title] is based on the word 'to need' because people need fairytales and they need that evil and they need that good and they need to trust in good and that stuff, so it's from Needland. That's the fourth one, and the fifth one is Ears and that kind of covers all that with the ears: exactly that place where everything is incoming. So if you have open ears you can really get somebody else's experiences, somebody else's fears, loves, whatever-you can get feelings. Of course, I'm not talking only about ear, but it's a symbol for openness, for in-come, like radar kind of, you know. And that's what is in the main sentence on the album: 'The ears teach to listen the other ears.' And again, Ears, on the very beginning I had, because I wrote these lyrics, 'The ears teach to listen the eyes.' That was my original rhyme or some line. And it was kind of funny, absurd, that somebody who is 'Eye,' you try to change him, and try to teach him to listen. But later I found, no, this is not the real true: the real true [is] you teach to listen the ear, the next ear. And that ear, if it's open, will get ability to teach another ear.
In talking about the human need for mass experience, belonging, community, how do you see yourself as a musician, who's doing stuff with ears, in a collective, kind of communal experience? How do you see your band fitting into that human need?
No, music is kind of special, special kind of art I would say. It's very abstract. Like, music itself, without lyrics. Because people can get it directly somewhere into the heart-through the ears- but it's more about feelings. It's not really concrete message like that you can say with words, like, 'That, that, that.' It's just something about feelings you know, and it's kind of add together your feeling from stage, add with feelings of somebody who listens to it and that makes it the result, you know. You just tell some group of people something and some of them will listen, some of them will understand, and maybe some of them will get some message or some ability or some energy to talk to other people or to be nice to other people. That's why we play music, so we don't need to say that because it's difficult to say that.
Elsewhere you said it was maybe about power, that for good music, you need power. What do you mean by that?
Power… it's… maybe this is why I started with punk music even though… I never really felt like these people with…
The mohawks.
Right, yeah. And this green hair and whatever. I never really liked this, this surface. But I felt punk music is really good for that moment, that it gives people power, it just gives them like, 'Okay, stop sitting on the sidewalk. Stop walking without any sense. Just go! Just do it, you know!' And of course, if you have just that, it's again dangerous, kind of, because who will say what to do? You started with questions about FPB-and that was definitely something what I feel we kind of brought into it: some kind of specialty that was combination between some kind of straight punk music and poems. It was really strong and straight punk music, and it worked together, so that was kind of mixture between strength and power, you know, energy on stage, which has to go to wake up people; at the same time, that really deep and nice poetry, very tender. Because energy, it goes straight, it goes really fast into you. Something, maybe similar, like maybe it makes you start laughing, but maybe some mother tries to [give] some little kid some pills, which is healthy, but it is not [a good taste] so she puts some honey on that little spoon and she put the pills in the middle and 'This is just honey!' and you eat it and you get some healthy thing as well, you know. So, that's something similar in the way that the honey is the punk music, like straight and people can dance and they can really be free in that moment, you know they really feel something, but at the same time, they can get, even from lyrics, something nice, some nice message or sensitivity for something nice and important.
[Tape stops. Tape is flipped. Cell phone rings. The Sex Pistols are mentioned in a discussion of other great bands having roots within, but eventually moving away from, straight punk music.]
What I still feel is, that even with words, even with these melodies, it's always the same picture how life is going. If you just print in your mind your whole day, it's really chaotic mixture of something very nice… you met, I don't know, you met some girl, whatever, you know, somebody on the street; you saw some nice tree, or whatever, just nice views and then some very smelly car is going around, whatever. In one second all these mixtures are-I am giving you really simple examples-but I mean, even your mood changes a lot during just one day. And all these fast changes and all these mixtures and kind of chaotic stuff of just one day… that's what we try to make a picture [of] in the song as well, you know. So the message is in words, in pictures of Martin Velisek, which we have on the cover, in music, like in the melody, in the structure, in the arrangement, and in the way how we perform on stage, how if we scream really or not. Each piece, each detail of this music, has to be filled with that message what we want to say, this kind of picture of human life.
Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?
So that is about the ears. Also, what I hope is that we can bring here this idea because I don't think it's so common to think about rock music this way. Something what would be good if people will again start to think about and feel rock music. I tell you, I really hate that sentence from Keith Richards: 'It's only rock 'n' roll.' I hate that, because it's not true and it's just really bad joke from him and that's just not fair at all because a lot of people-you know this might be true about his way of rock 'n' roll-but it's definitely not true about our rock 'n' roll and about many bands around who really try to be equal to classical music or to some paintings or, what did Beethoven two hundred years ago. It's the same, it's the same thing. You use just different instruments and different process to make music because it's modern way how to do it and how people are able to listen now so you use present instruments for that. But you can have the same goals and same ability or disability or whatever. I just don't agree with that sentence and I really want to help people come back into feeling that this music has some sense and there's some message and that the message is most important thing-not if the band is famous, or rich, or if these guys on stage look nice or if they do this moving or [that] moving. It can be fun, entertainment, but the most important thing is message and if band has no message I don't feel they have a right to talk to people.
What else can we expect from the band in the future?
It's never-ending story kind of, unfortunately, it's this kind of fight-it's not fight exactly-but kind of fight… it's without end, you know, and that's it. That's, I feel, the role of art [forever]: it was, it is and it will be. So I think we just keep doing what we have to… and then somebody next, hopefully, continue with that.
The next generation of fairytales.
Right! Some next ears.

© Discorder July, 2000
(reprinted with permission)