Beat a Go Go

Nobody complained?

Oh, they did. But we practiced anyway. Nino’s grandmother was still alive then, and she kind of owned the house.

How old were you then?

I’m not sure – maybe 10 or 12.

Were you always playing jazz?

No, we were playing very interesting experimental stuff. I have some recordings. And then I went to music school and I learned drums – classical. There were no jazz teachers in Ljubljana at that time.

When did you start getting into jazz?

When I met Igor Leonardi. He was a little bit older – three years – but he had already played in jazz bands, and he studied in Graz [jazz school in Austria]. He would have workshops in Ljubljana, we would come and play a little bit, and he would come to our basement and we would play together. I learned my first jazz tunes there – like “Mack the Knife”. I think that was one of the first.

Was there much jazz in Ljubljana at that point?

Yeah, but you know, all the jazz was very traditional. Even the guys who weren’t older, they still played very traditionally, very conservative all the time.

You weren’t interested in doing that?

I’m not interested in really traditional jazz. What is important to me in jazz is improvisation. What jazz has that other music doesn’t is improvisation, and communication with people that you play with. And if you really communicate with people on an honest level, then the people who listen will feel this energy. This is very important - that the people who play together connect – interlock. They become some kind of new entity. It’s like when you come to get married and the preacher says, “Now the two of you are a new entity.” It’s the same thing, for the moment that you’re playing. If everybody is really honest, not selfish, it becomes this new entity and the people will feel it. Sometimes they come to a concert and say later, “I don’t know if I liked the music, but I liked the feeling.” They wouldn’t understand the music so much, but the energy, they accept.

That’s what jazz music has that’s different. Classical music doesn’t have this – I mean, the majority of classical music - because it doesn’t allow you to change the road map. Or pop music, when it becomes automatic, like turning on the TV. When you go to the concert, maybe you get more of the feeling, but they don’t change anything, they just follow the show, and every show is the same. You also have jazz musicians that do this. And I don’t like this kind. They follow the same procedure every day. That’s why I like Igor, because he’s always different. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. You know, you risk when you play like that, but if you want to really enjoy, you have to risk. If you risk, you get a good response. It’s very important that everybody is feeling right, feeling good, doesn’t have anything to hide – is really honest in the music. When you have a band, and you have one member who has some strange ideas, or some not-honest wishes, something like he’s there just to earn money – it’s not good for the band.

What about Bratko’s music – would you call it jazz?

It has elements of this communication, but the road map is very strict. We started to be different, in this concert that you saw at Cerkno. It was the first time we really played that way.

So it’s getting better with the Madleys?

Yes, I think it’s getting better. But you know, the problem is we don’t play. You play really when you play concerts. If we don’t do concerts, it’s practicing without a focus. It’s like going around in a circle. And if you practice, you practice new stuff, new ideas. Then the music can develop. You can be the best band in the world in the basement, but you know…

What about with the RTV Big Band?

Sometimes it’s very good. The Big Band is similar to some classical stuff because sometimes it’s very strict. You need order in a big group. There are so many different people, so many different interests, you know - it needs a leader, a conductor, like classical music. I like classical music a lot, but when you hear Mahler’s symphonies, you don’t hear just the people playing - the best they can do playing is that they just try to make a picture. You don’t see the picture that Mahler painted, but you see the best fake – the best imitation – and you can still imagine what the original would be like. But you have some new stuff in classical now, it’s very open, very close to jazz music.

You said you were beginning to organize your own band.

I really want to get this idea working – that people come together, and the feeling should be good and the music that they play, they have to like it somehow. They really have to play it like their own stuff. As a composer, you should write like that, that people would feel that way - it’s not important that it’s yours, but they have to feel like it’s their own music.

You don’t believe in this idea that there’s one big cheese in the band and everyone else is just supporting him-

There are some guys who are like this, who don’t play in any band where they can’t be the boss and control everything. But this isn’t what a band is – it means something else. It means that something is a “band”, a unit working together. It’s important to have a leader when you organize stuff, or you have some other problems, somebody has to say “No, we’re going at nine o’clock.” Or “We have to do this song first.” Somebody has to do this. But sometimes, it’s better to listen, to discuss.

Was there more improvisation in Begnagrad?

The music allowed more of that improvisation. Not improvisation in the jazz meaning, but it was much more open, more loose. You and Nino were very young when you were in Begnagrad.

I was still in gymnasium, still in school – 18, maybe 17. Nino was the same. We were very inexperienced. Bogo and Bratko corrupted us! (laughter) We were so young, we hadn’t tried anything yet. They had already played around, they already smoked pot, everything.

They’re not so much older than you.

Four, five years... now it’s nothing, but it was much more then than it is now.

Was that strange?

No. It was normal. It seemed so normal, everything we did. But when we look at it from today, it looks strange… we’d be jamming until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, and then I’d go to school the next day. And when we went on tour, our manager went to my teachers at school to ask if I could go.

You had to get permission to go?

Yeah. It was kind of funny.

Begnagrad was already an established band when you and Nino joined it.

Yes, they had their first album in the '70s. They were really the first band in Slovenia that played something else, something different, with accordion and clarinet. Because all the other bands that had accordion and clarinet, they were like folk bands – this oberkrainer style. It was the most popular style in Slovenia. It got very commercialized.

Much different from the Balkan style?

Completely. It’s like polka.

So when Begnagrad came along…

It was a shock, you know. The same instruments, with drums, and completely different music.

Bratko and the manager – they had a pact, they did everything together and they were the only people who really knew how much we earned. It was unclear. All the time, this mist, you know… I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know how much I earned – and we were on tour like three weeks, and we’d gotten almost nothing yet. Just a little money for cigarettes and stuff.

They weren’t paying you?

No, no. They said we’d do it at the end of the tour. You know, it’s still kind of the same today. Bratko will do it at the end of the tour, or at the end of the concert – you never know how much you will earn. (laughter) So at the Zurich festival, we got these backstage passes. If you don’t show the pass when you’re going out, you get a ticket to take with you. So Nino and I, we sold these tickets on the black market outside and we got maybe 80% of the original price of the tickets. Then we went back through the backstage door, and did it again. We did it three or four times and made a lot of money. (laughter) That was the only way we could survive! Then we went upstairs, there was a place for beer – oh, we got really drunk that night. We had a really good time.

But nowadays you and Nino don’t hang out like that.

No. And you know, there is a little bit of a problem because I don’t stay up late that much. We used to do the same things, but now we’re completely different. I have a family, I have to wake up at seven, you know? And he’s free all the time. He doesn’t understand this – this kind of change in my life.

So why did you have this big change in your life?

Oh, that’s very difficult… I don’t know… (long pause) I was very disappointed with art in general. And in music. I always thought that music was like – you know how a preacher gets drawn into religion – it’s like a calling. But then I discovered – I think it was in America – that it’s just a job! Just a profession. It’s very, very similar to shoemaking. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe I was too idealistic before.

But what made this happen for you? What was the turning point?

I can’t remember.

Maybe you just got older and smarter.

I mean, we’re all searching for what’s important, what’s the meaning of life, you know. But somehow – I’m sure that the big thing - for me, at least - was to establish a family. To have kids. That’s the biggest thing I did. I mean, that’s the most you can do. That’s really something original.

More important than art?

Yes. Sure. Isn’t it?

Yes, I guess.

I mean, you can’t compare these things, because there’s such a big difference. It’s much more important.

Nino doesn’t understand this?

Nino doesn’t understand it yet. I think he will never understand it.

He doesn’t want to have kids?

I’m not sure. Maybe. This was one of those things that we stopped discussing - this family thing.

And in your work, are you different?

We have different styles. Sometimes he will be doing something, and he’ll run out of time, and then he’ll leave all the mistakes in, and just say, that’s OK. I’m not like that. I wouldn’t do it.

You’re more of a perfectionist?

Yes. But sometimes it’s better to do it like he does.

To let go of something?

Yes, because it could happen that you would do something really good, you would spend hours working on two bars, and then you would bring this to the guy who was in charge, and he wouldn’t even notice. So in that case, Nino’s way is better. I mean, there should be a balance. There are not just two ways. You have to balance between perfection and looseness.

And Nino is more loose.

Yes. (laughter) Sometimes! But sometimes he does something really good – really precise. He does a lot of stuff, and the average is high.

You don’t write that much stuff.

No.

You don’t like to?

Primarily I play. I play for a living. But the music that I like the most, it’s not important who wrote it. Like I told you before. It’s the interaction. The people who play the music, they will make it. The music that allows you to put yourself into it is much more interesting.

To contribute something new.

Not something new – something that suits you.

An interpretation?

Not just an interpretation – it’s also changing the music, actually.

So it’s more important who’s in the band than who wrote the music.

Yes.

About Nino's playing - how is he unusual, or different from other bass players you've worked with?

We know each other so well that we know exactly what the other will do in a certain moment, so we can really count on each other, which is very important for a rhythm section. He will sometimes be rhythmically or melodically a little bit too inventive, but he never stops grooving or swinging.

Can you tell me about the music you enjoy, and music that influenced you? You’ve told me you like Puccini. Why him, especially?

I think his melodies are one of the most emotional moments in opera. It is kind of the same with my other influences Keith Jarrett or Gustav Mahler. It is a little different with my drummer influences like Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette or Dave Weckl, which all inspire me more in a technical way.

Now a question from Taisija - how did you become a vegetarian?

Oh, I tried to be a vegetarian a long time ago. Before I went to the army, I didn’t eat meat for two years. But then in the army, I said I didn’t want to eat at all. That’s how I thought I could come out of the army. I said, “I won’t eat.” And they said, “Why don’t you eat?” I said, “I just want to play drums. I have to play drums. I have to practice every day.” They said, “Oh, you will practice. Just eat!” So they gave me everything – they gave me drums and a place to practice. And then I had to eat! But there was nothing really good to eat. The meat was – you know, it was the army, they gave you bad stuff. And then I started again when I met my wife Marta and we went to her village and they did this thing, you know, where they slaughter the animal. I saw this and I just said I wouldn’t eat meat anymore. You can’t eat an animal that you were just looking in the eyes before… maybe you can eat a chicken, because she is so stupid. (laughter) But a cow is very intelligent! Or a pig! A pig would look at you and it’s almost like you could talk with him. But chickens are really stupid.

So tell me more about this - you were starving yourself?

I didn’t eat at all for ten days.

What was that like?

You know, you’re not hungry after a while… (laughter)

Were you depressed?

No, no. It was just that I didn’t want to be in the army and I thought it was a way to get out of it.

You wanted to play drums.

Yes. But then they gave me drums, they gave me a place to practice – I wasn’t prepared for that, that they would give me everything. So I had to stay there. And at that time Begnagrad played with another drummer.

So it got better in the army.

It wasn’t so bad. They had a band. We had a lot of concerts and stuff. It was interesting, in a way.

What happened when you came out? Did you go back with Begnagrad?

Yes.

And everything was the same as before?

Yes. Even better. Because they practiced without me, and when I learn the material, I don’t have to practice. I don’t forget it.

You don’t have to practice?

I do, but I never practice songs. I always do technical stuff.

Did you learn this in the jazz school?

Yes. I learned a lot in jazz school, in America. That’s the most important thing that I learned in America. That’s why I say that American schools are good. They can’t really teach you music, but they can teach you the technical stuff very well. They have developed a system for everything. Not just for practicing, but for learning theory, learning arranging… I don’t know if this system works for everybody, but it did for me.

What about your experience in Boston, studying at Berklee – what was that like?

It was a very good experience.

Except that you got mugged, you told me.

Yes, I was mugged twice, violently – I got beaten up. And my house was robbed. I came into the place when the robber was there. I didn’t know it. I heard someone upstairs and I thought it was my housemate. I called out and there was no answer, just some running footsteps. Then I realized what was happening and I got out of the house. He climbed out of a window and got away. And another time I went walking in a park by myself, like I would do here in Ljubljana, and when I got home everyone was telling me “Oh no, you must never go there by yourself, it’s too dangerous!”

That’s scary.

Very scary.

In terms of culture, what was it like?

To tell the truth, I was kind of disappointed. You know, Ljubljana is a very small town, but we have many, many things going on all the time – not just musically, but also theater, all kinds of stuff. I expected Boston to be something more, because it’s so much bigger. But it wasn’t so much different from Ljubljana, actually. And in Ljubljana, I could see everybody playing, all the best people, at big concerts. But in the States, these same people would play in a bar! That was a big shock for me. They weren’t big stars in the States. There were a couple of really famous jazz stars in the country, but the majority of jazz musicians were doing really poorly. I didn’t expect this. And you know, the people who taught in the school – at Berklee - they told me that they wouldn’t earn enough money to survive if they only played music.

So that was when you started to change your belief about what it was like to be a musician…

Yes. Maybe I had been influenced by the hippie movement – too idealistic. And maybe the time when music was a calling had already passed. This is not the way music is now. It’s too commercialized. Every style is very commercialized. So it was different from what I thought it would be. Maybe because then I had grown up. I was 26 when I went there, and 28 when I left.

Did you need to get away from Ljubljana for a while?

If I didn’t go, I wouldn’t know. I would still think, wow, America… If you go to America just for a month, or a few days, it’s nothing. You can’t understand what it’s like. When you’re first in America, you see the good things. Then you see the bad things. Then after a year, you can judge. You can understand what’s going on. After the first time they mug you. (laughter) Then you can understand!

So you understand it now?

No – I don’t, not really. But I understand it enough that I know, like I told you once, that I wouldn’t have children in America.

At least in Boston.

At least in Boston. I don’t know the rest of the country.

Thanks for the very philosophical discussion. I guess you’re not just another pretty face! (laughter)

Yeah, I know, everyone always thinks drummers are stupid, just because we sit in the back and go bang-bang-bang for two hours… (laughter)

Aleš rehearsing with Jelena Ždrale