I've thought about how to explain
Zoran Predin for a long time.
Zoran Predin isn't a Slovenian
that we stereotypically imagine.
We know that Maribor was
a post-w*r industrial centre.
A great number of Bosnians
came to Maribor for work.
On 16 June 1958,
some unfortunate Emina
gave birth to a boy
and, at the same time,
so did a Slovenian woman.
In the busy post-w*r Maribor,
the boys were switched.
That's not a bad theory.
I don't think Zoran Predin
is a simple figure or phenomenon.
The real Zoran Predin
lives in ivinice near Tuzla.
The poor guy goes around town
with Elan ski jumping skis,
while the real Nusret
is actually Zoran Predin,
a Bosnian, a Balkan man,
an Early Slav,
living under the fake identity
of the unfortunate Zoran Predin
and functioning
as a total system error.
I don't think he was switched.
Zoran is just Zoran.
Forget Deulovi and his stories.
I don't believe a word he says.
Contrary to Deulovi,
I don't think it happened
at the maternity hospital.
The switch seems
to have happened later.
Here we are.
This is
where Zoran Predin was born.
Well, not actually here
but at the hospital down there.
This is where he grew up
and took his first steps.
On 16 June 2058,
Zoran Predin will be 100 years old.
100 years?
Yeah.
Fine. Let's move on!
His parents, housewife Rua
and pharmacist tefan,
gave him a sister and a brother,
with whom he spent
his childhood on Pohorje,
at aunt Mici's
in Stare in Dravsko polje
and with his mum's relatives
in Vojvodina in Tavankut.
Tavankut...
It'd be easy to say in one sentence
what Zoran Predin isn't.
But as Zoran Predin is one of the most
interesting figures
of Yugoslav rock music,
the answer to your question
requires some time.
Firstly, he's an anti-star.
Then, he's a father,
a grandfather, a husband,
a rebel with and without a cause.
If we sublimated it all,
I'd put it like this:
Zoran Predin is
a travelling enclave of good humour.
Authentic.
Which is invaluable in our business.
A marvel. An exceptional,
brilliant artist.
Original in his voice colour,
original in the poetics of his lyrics.
I love to say all the worst
about my colleagues,
so my scenes
are usually cut from the film.
But I can't recall anything bad
about Zoran, who's been very good.
He has a fatherly figure.
I could easily see him in politics
as the father of the nation,
as it were.
A great guy. To this day.
When I met him,
he was also a great guy.
Zoran is a big boy,
who used to play the accordion.
No. Basketball.
A purebred Styrian.
Emotional, hot, temperamental.
Unless you're a basketball referee,
I think you'll never face
Zoran Predin's wrath.
Zoran is the wittiest
alpha male I know.
He has a unique sense of humour.
But I think that people love him
precisely because of it.
A picture of integrity,
to put it in two words.
A terribly considerate,
polite
and nice man.
That's already three words.
The first thing
that comes to my mind,
despite all the layers
and complexity,
is that he interprets
really slowly.
He's a slow collocutor
but has a fast fist.
He's so slow
and so thorough in that
that a stonecutter could record
his interviews as he gives them.
Impossible.
Kind.
Cheeky.
Zoran is a quiet and calm man.
I really liked how,
at the beginning of his career
when he'd sit down for an interview
with a young journalist
and she'd take out a tape recorder
and one tape, he'd say:
"Just one tape? I devour tapes.
"When I answer the first question,
it'll have run out."
So, dear visitors, welcome
to the Zoran Predin museum.
No touching, please.
Is it possible that Zoran Predin
was switched at the hospital? I was.
It actually began at uncle Ivo's.
My uncle Ivo, mum's brother,
was a member
of the band Apollo 220.
They plucked at their guitars
and they all had
Beatles' haircuts with bangs.
They shook their heads.
Then came high school.
The guitar somehow
increasingly more often
occupied the place
next to the books I read.
Especially
after I'd gotten injured at a match
and basketball fell through
even though I wasn't a great talent.
All those things
had taken up all of my time,
so when I had to give up basketball,
an emptiness emerged.
That emptiness
was filled by the guitar.
With the guitar came Bob Dylan
and with him rebelliousness.
It's thus no wonder
that the lyrics of the first song
I'd ever written, "Old Soldier",
were taken from the end
of James Jones's From Here to Eternity .
Not everyone can love
like me, an old soldier.
It's Friday
and I'm rushing into town again,
wanting beer in vain.
My friends are all broke
and the waiter says:
"Get out, poofter!"
When he was 18 years old,
his first son, Andrej, was born.
My first son was born
when I was 14.
Hats off to you!
He falls out with his dad,
so he moves
into a four-storey block of flats,
where he gets
a job as the caretaker.
He also works part time as a postman,
insurance agent, record seller
and a night watchman.
Did he study anything?
He actually studied your language.
But he didn't graduate.
He was two exams short,
which isn't a lot but...
The booze ran out.
It was my birthday.
16 June 1979.
I grabbed a few bags and set off
for the Mariborska koa hut
to get the booze.
Oto Rimele was here
with some friends.
And they had a guitar.
Then Oto said: "Zoran,
our singer is doing military service.
Would you come to our rehearsal
on Monday and audition for us?"
This is where we had
our first rehearsal,
in the home of our drummer
Andrej Pintari.
They suggested I sing
"Child in Time" by Deep Purple.
I said
that I didn't have a high voice
and that I preferred soft ballads.
Then they sent me out
into the hall.
After a while, the door opened
and they said I was accepted
as the singer of the band Zeus.
I suggested a few changes,
such as also performing our own songs
and changing our name.
Once, a biker fell down
in our little street.
The policemen found the culprit.
That's when Hungry Franz
became a sadist.
I suggested
Lani Franc (Hungry Franc),
inspired by the unfortunate character
from Joseph Heller's Catch-22 .
Oto then changed 'c' into 'z'.
And when we first wrote it
on a wall,
we knew it'd attract
a lot of attention.
We had our first gig
at the II. gimnazija Maribor high school
in October 1979.
We had great stage fright,
at least I did.
That might've been the only time
I thought about what I'd wear on stage.
I put on a postman's hat,
which I'd kept from the time
I worked as a postman.
I pinned on it a badge
from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
in which Jack Nicholson's head
was locked with a lock,
which seemed
an important message to me.
And I wore Ray-Ban sunglasses,
which I thought made me look cooler
and prevented the audience
from seeing my fear.
God doesn't have a phone.
That's the song
we'd usually open with
and it was actually a good choice.
It built the atmosphere
and enabled us
to push the audience
right into the heart of it.
On this basketball field,
I saw Lani Franz for the second time.
The first time was a few days earlier
at a youth festival in Subotica.
That's the first and the last time
that a totally new band
and people I didn't know
made me feel the need
to go backstage, which I did.
That's how I met Zoran Predin.
They modestly walked out on stage
at the festival in Subotica
and when they began to play,
I was sort of bewildered
and then, after 15 minutes,
I had a feeling
that's difficult to explain today.
It's the same feeling I got
when I saw The Doors on the Isle of Wight.
It was like in a dream.
In one place, you could see
the elite of the Yugoslav new wave.
We went there by train,
had a good gig, got an award.
Immediately after the festival,
we played in Belgrade for the first time,
in Kalemegdan Park,
on a playing field. But it wasn't...
Oh, wait. I have to show you this.
You have to see this. Follow me.
This is what I wanted to show you.
When I saw this for the first time,
it blew me away. I have to admit.
On the outside, it doesn't look much,
but when you come inside,
it's totally...
You see these wonderful cars.
It's like being in another world.
The small petite one
lives at the pub,
making love behind the counter
and sleeping in the kitchen...
At the time, nobody in Belgrade
knew Lani Franz
except for a handful of people
who followed the new wave.
It was an amazing gig.
I think there were 18 or 19 people
besides me in the audience.
So in this huge space
and the stage was big too.
It's funny to put it like this,
but there were ovations.
Those 20 people were enthused.
When there wasn't much audience,
we played best.
- For those who were there...
- On purpose.
...we played extra well.
LJUBLJANA
EX. STUDIO TIVOLI
What I remember as being
very important in relation to that studio
was the direct access via the stairs
to the restaurant above,
where the food was excellent.
It was really good.
That's where
I first ate beef rolls.
- Only there.
- Rolls?
Made from the small muscles
at the back
of the front legs probably.
When they started the band,
I got a job
at the Helidon label company.
They gave me an office
and I asked a co-worker
what to do with the things in there.
She told me to throw them away.
And I did throw away some papers,
but then I came across a tape
and immediately felt
there was something there,
that they weren't a classical rock band
because they had something to say.
We recorded
the first album in 36 hours.
From entering the studio,
as we did now,
and playing the instruments
to the last mix.
We all loved
the band Buldoer [bulldozer].
Pintari suggested
that our band be called TG90.
We said: "Why on earth TG90?"
And he said: "Don't you know?
That's a bulldozer brand."
I haven't seen you for ages.
- What's up?
- Not much.
I'm ready.
I just need a coffee.
- Great.
- So this was spontaneous?
Because we're on TV.
That always comes out like crap.
I loved Lani Franz.
Their entire oeuvre.
Their image. The unusual way
they played instruments.
All that was typical of the new wave,
but they were special.
His voice,
their lyrics and melodies.
They weren't a perfect band,
but you could see
a certain energy coming out of it,
in front of which stood a person
who unified the energy
and radiated it to the public
in an effortless way.
It's not like he stopped and said:
"Now I'll show you all I can do."
You could see
he was actually expressing himself.
On the one hand, there was
Predin's incredible storytelling
and, on the other, Oto Rimele
played the guitar in a way
that hadn't been and would
never again be heard
in Yugoslav rock music.
Our characters were
very different,
but we managed to create
our own world, our band,
within which we were
boisterous, wild, elusive, nasty,
loud, cheeky.
Despite being different,
we all believed
that we had to show or play some things
differently than everyone else.
That always connected
and united us.
I've graduated
in stabbing people in the back.
The lyrics were crucial.
We loved music of course.
Especially the music
of Predin's songs,
which not only had great lyrics, which we
realised later, but were also melodious.
What I found
to be their best quality was
that they encouraged us
to be daring,
rebellious and against the regime.
At the time, you could learn something
from songs, today it's just entertainment.
We considered him a role model.
Such role models empower
the entire population, whole generations.
If we consider his songs,
they're exceptional
precisely in conveying succinctly,
by using very little words,
incredible content and depth.
We took him very seriously.
Compared to what we,
the New Primitives, did...
When Zoran appeared, it seemed
as if we were just fooling around.
Zoran Predin seemed
to be creating serious poetry.
And he really was and still is.
He's a poet.
I don't know
if this is the right basement,
but I think it is.
There was a glass cage here.
It was used to cool computers,
which were big boxes at the time.
Somebody had broken in.
So, in that summer of 1979,
the school hired
two night watchmen.
I was one of them.
I considered all the views here
and figured out
where I wouldn't be seen sleeping
on an inflatable mattress
that I'd brought with me.
Together with my guitar
or a book.
This is where the song
"Early Slav" was created.
Oh, Early Slav,
who taught you to swim...
Zoran hit me first
with the lyrics of "Early Slav".
I felt it
as I'd never felt any song
in the history of Slovenian pop
or rock music or any other.
I think "Early Slav" may be
the best engaged song
ever written
by a Yugoslav rocker,
including the song
that was declared best,
which is Bora's
"Pogledaj dom svoj, anele".
We in the show business
are too vain to admit
that someone else
has a better song.
But, if nothing else,
he has at least that one line
that I'll never forgive him
for writing before me
about the Early Slav
who swam across the Russian river.
That's the line he stole
from me ahead of time.
When you heard "Early Slav"
for the first time,
you knew
it somehow concerned you,
but only after
you understood the lyrics,
when they were translated,
did you realise that Zoran Predin
is one of the creators or poets
whose songs come true in life.
We're conceived without pigment.
Out of concrete,
we, contemporary slime, multiply,
crucified, castrated, marching.
Seven months prior,
my son was born.
When I heard "Early Slav"
on the radio,
it immediately overwhelmed me
and I cried my heart out.
I couldn't pull myself together.
I was under the impression
of the song the entire day.
It'd be silly to explain
the point of the song,
but whoever has heard it
knows what it's about.
It wasn't only about them looking
over the Carpathians.
"And they've fudged everything
that could be fudged." We get it.
We've f*cked up everything
that could be f*cked up,
but not necessarily we
in socialist Yugoslavia.
The song would've functioned
perfectly well
even if it had been written earlier.
But, today,
it functions much better
than when it was written.
...and, in line
with all the regulations,
f*cked up for us everything...
...that could be f*cked up.
I have to say that, at the time,
every band went through three stages.
With us, the first stage
was the stage of prohibition.
The regime took issue
with the band's name,
saying that nobody was hungry
in Yugoslavia.
Franz with a 'z'
was also a problem
because general Maister had
already driven Franzes out of Yugoslavia
and later also the partisans.
On this point, our excuse was
our admiration
for the composer Franz Liszt.
The police officers
didn't quite know who Liszt was.
Then came the stage of ignoring.
That meant that when we did
manage to get a gig,
it wasn't covered anywhere.
You had to send the lyrics
to a police station
two months before the gig,
so they could read them.
If they deemed them proper,
you could have the gig,
otherwise they prohibited it.
The third stage was
the conferring of awards,
so an attempt at discrediting us
within the liberal circles.
In that stage, those who persecuted us
took photos with us
as if to say: "We like them.
They're our boys."
Firstly, you're lying when you say
that you see double, Zoran. You're lying!
You forged the stamp of the Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
by copying it with a pencil
from a dinar coin.
You didn't return to the barracks
when you were supposed to.
And, during a military exercise,
the shell you fired from a mortar
almost k*lled a soldier
of the Yugoslav People's Army.
What am I supposed to do
with you, Zoran?
Come on. Tell me honestly
why you don't want to serve.
Because I'm a mum.
- A mum?
- Yeah.
My wife and I
have switched roles.
She constantly works
and I take care of the children.
And, mums don't do
military service, of course.
Something like that, yes.
Jelisaveta!
Private Zoran Predin,
born on 16 June 1958,
came in for a consultation
on 8 February 1982.
Diagnosis:
psychoneurosis nuclearis.
Not fit to serve
in the Yugoslav People's Army.
Signed by doctor Rajko Primorac.
Get lost, you piece of sh*t!
Let me never see you again.
Thank you, comrade captain.
Adieu, sanity, old wh*re,
adieu, world!
Let concrete beams carry it.
Adieu, sanity,
we're going on a trip today.
An ill*gal adolescent
in the company of two girls...
One day in 1982,
the phone rang
and the voice
on the other end said:
"Zoran,
"you don't know me.
My name is Miro Purivatra
"and I'm a fan
of your band Lani Franz.
"My Golf broke down in Maribor..."
An angel man appeared
and he arranged everything
we needed in Maribor
from accommodation
to the mechanic.
That's how this beautiful friendship
of almost 40 years began.
At the time, Dom mladih was
the convergence of the biggest concerts.
The first gig
that Lani Franz had there
attracted, despite all our efforts,
between 50 and 100 people
in a hall for 2000 people.
But it was a concert that I believe
all who were there remember
as one that could
probably be compared
with the gig that The Clash had
at the Brixton Academy.
It was unforgettable.
On stage,
he looked very striking.
A leather jacket, short haircut,
an incredible voice.
He sang in Slovenian,
which none of us understood.
But we gathered everything.
I learned Slovenian
through the Slovenian music scene.
Lani Franz was a bridge
to us ending up listening to Laibach,
Miladojka Youneed, Polska Malca,
Borghesia, Otroci socializma.
So Lani Franz was a soft version
of what the Slovenian sound would become,
which, at the time, was
a sound of freedom and another space.
Slovenia was a place
where, for the first time,
the aesthetic overcame the political.
We, her schoolmates from class 8A,
sang at her funeral.
The lime tree is in bloom.
That song
was based on a real event.
In the eighth grade of primary school,
a truck ran over a schoolmate,
who had sat next to me in class,
when she fell under it with her bike.
It ran over her head.
They made
a new head for the girl
and put skin on it,
after which
she was prettier than before.
I dreamt about her
for many years
because the entire class
had to walk in line past the open casket.
That's one of Zoran's songs
that I'm quite fond of
precisely due to its
totally fascinating narrative potential.
It's an entire short novel
or at least a short story.
I remember crying for hours
listening to that song
because of the emotion
emanating from it
and the feeling I had for the girl,
whom I'd actually never met.
That song is part of one
of my most intense memories
related to a deeply emotional experience
of thinking about death,
which would, later in my life,
become part of my everyday
during the w*r in Sarajevo.
I lied to all my new girlfriends
that my first one
had been run over by a truck.
Zoran Predin didn't introduce us to punk
and the new wave. Not by himself.
But he did introduce us to poetry,
which made him different.
As opposed to others,
he was first and foremost a poet.
For me, Zoran is in music
what Andri is in literature.
When I read Andri, there are
five words on every page
whose meaning
I have to look up.
It's similar with Zoran's songs
as I don't understand Slovenian well.
But once I discover
the beauty of his verses,
then that becomes an addiction,
to put it bluntly.
Next to a hole in a fence,
there's a sign that says:
Look through it!
On the other side stood Franz,
holding a bloody wire
in his hand.
A water polo player.
Hey!
They lyrics
of "Water Polo Player"
were read and interpreted a lot
due to the political connotations.
Who are the people with white caps?
The song is actually about children
whose parents aren't ashamed of them.
They don't beat
their parents at all.
They're a good investment.
I simply belonged
in the category of those
about whom I say in the song
that whenever people came to visit,
their parents disavowed them
and said they weren't at home.
They'll never embarrass you
in front of guests.
The funny thing was
that I had to sing it
at the 70th anniversary
of the Koper Water Polo Club.
I told them
it wasn't a song about them.
They said: "It doesn't matter. Come.
We have nobody else anyway."
A water polo player
is a useful animal
for any family.
I liked the fact
that he stubbornly sang in Slovenian.
The same goes for Pankrti.
A lot of people
understood Slovenian.
So they relatively quickly,
with the help of Zagreb-based critics,
such as Glavan, their main supporter,
became quite successful
and had good gigs.
In the bigger towns.
They were an urban band
and couldn't play in the villages
like Bijelo dugme.
All my lyrics were in Slovenian
because I felt that it was the language
in which I could most precisely
and in an artistically
comprehensive way convey
and sing about my idea.
I'm very lucky that Zoran didn't sing
in the same language as me.
Dylan and others are lucky that Zoran
and I don't sing in their languages.
Thanks to Zoran Predin,
I know around 200
or 300 Slovenian words.
I kept bugging him
about the meaning of certain words.
Only architecture,
plastic mirrors.
Maribor turns its head away.
In that sense, I'd say
that Lani Franz and Zoran Predin
did the most
for the Slovenian language
in the history of Yugoslavia
and the history of the Slovenian language.
We used some of his poetic imagery
to charm young ladies at the time.
"Don't breathe down my neck,
crazy cow" was in general use
in any cafe in Osijek
that played the new wave at the time.
I'll drink the smile
off your lips.
Pull the silk off your shoulders.
I won't stop at the knees
while lifting your skirt.
That's the story
of my female generation of the 1980s
because an artist appeared
who wrote excellent songs,
songs that hit the essence
of certain things happening to you,
but he also had an incredible charm
and charisma on stage.
Don't breathe down my neck,
crazy cow,
because I soon won't care.
"Don't Breathe Down My Neck" was
deliberately written in an ambiguous way
at a time when you could be
socially critical
only if the lyrics
were ambiguous.
You could understand
"stop breathing down my neck"
as referring to politics
or a girl.
Without the girl,
it would've quickly been censored.
Don't breathe down my neck,
crazy cow,
because I soon won't care.
What a great refrain.
I still find it special.
It still sounds fresh
no matter how old it is.
Croatian and English
are very suited to singing.
You really stepped in it now.
- No, I didn't.
- You sure did.
Try to sing something
in Slovenian and you'll see.
Slovenian is pure poetry.
It only sounds like that to you.
The same goes for you
and Croatian.
It only sounds like that to you.
No, believe me.
We all learnt Slovenian
from Lani Franz.
Wait. Excuse me.
Here's an example.
Let a kiss draw your lips.
Let a kiss draw your lips.
Come on!
In this case, I give in.
Let a Kiss Draw Your Lips
You've been far away
for three days, alone.
Three days is so far away.
The contrast
between the gentle lyrics
and the rough rhythm
that so brilliantly, so brutally pulsated.
It sounded like The Stranglers.
It was sensationally good punk,
new wave.
It was cosmopolitan but ours.
Let a kiss draw your lips.
Our dearest Lidija,
you've been in the army
a long time.
Even though Kikinda is far away,
you're in our hearts.
We all send you our regards.
Dad, mum, godfather Vinko, the priest,
eka and the pigs.
We sleep soundly because we know
you're the one protecting us.
Unfortunately,
I have to stop now.
The roosters are crowing.
Take care
and it'll all be fine.
Your fianc Fredi.
Thank you.
You can step forward
and look through the window.
You can see Maribor.
It was a slap in the face
of rural Slovenia.
But those he mocked
played and sang his songs most.
I was on a more alternative scene
and they had an accordion.
That just didn't go together.
And, yet, those songs
have survived.
If I hear that song now,
I find it great.
That's the greatest success,
everyone taking you as their own,
even those you criticise.
Instead of it becoming a joke,
it became our greatest hit,
which almost broke up the band
with its commercial aspect.
It sounds completely silly,
but to me they sounded
like alternative Eastern European rock.
They had their own style.
I love it when someone
has their own style,
even if they're copying someone else.
Real blockheads have run out.
Run out, I have no time.
If the new wave was
a new energy for our generation,
punk was
sort of totally rectilinear
and so was a substantial part
of the new wave, while Lani Franz,
which appeared as part of that wave
and was close to our generation,
did everything zigzag.
If you could draw them,
there'd be many broken lines.
We have no fear
if our skiers are with us.
All is well
as long as the skiers are winning.
As long as we have results,
we needn't be afraid, it'll all be fine
regardless of the system
and whether we have
anything to eat.
Absolutely nothing
can happen to us
because we have the safeguard
that Zoran has brought to light.
It was a time
of the skiing euphoria.
I was a sincere supporter.
But they annoyed me
because they were everywhere.
I was afraid to open a yoghurt
lest a skier should jump out.
I was sure
that the entire terrestrial sphere,
the entire globe was thinking
only about our skiers.
We have no fear
if our skiers are with us.
Jure Franko, Rok Petrovi and r*fle
knew we were joking,
but the others didn't.
Our blond joy
warms up our homes.
The year he won
the Olympic silver medal,
the annual Sportsman of the Year
award ceremony took place
at the Esplanade Hotel in Zagreb.
I got the trophy.
We'd been sitting there
for quite some time,
so my bladder had been filling up and
I had to visit the toilet at some point.
Zoran was there.
I asked him to hold the trophy for me
while I go to the toilet.
I was standing next to Svetlana Kiti,
a wonderful handball player.
Behind me was
the Yugoslav national basketball team,
my former idols.
Then the photographers rushed to us
and began taking photos.
And I said I wasn't Jure
and was just holding the trophy for him.
But they kept taking photos.
Thinking he was Jure Franko.
Then Jure returned
and I gave him the trophy,
so the photographers figured out
what the deal was
and began pulling films
out of their cameras.
What I wouldn't give today
for just one of those photos.
YU Rock Mission is probably
the greatest undertaking
of what could be called
1980s Yugoslav pop music.
Due to the phenomenon
of musical solidarity
with the endangered nations
on the Horn of Africa,
the initiatives to help them
emerged in various countries.
My condition was the inclusion
of musicians from across Yugoslavia
and for it to be
an all-Yugoslav campaign.
Since the campaign involved
eljko Bebek and Zdravko oli,
so the biggest names
on the scene,
I suggested we also invite Predin.
They gave me a surprised look,
but then agreed.
Zoran didn't understand why him,
but I told him to keep quiet.
Any occasion to have fun is good.
He came by the night train,
I met him at the station
and we went to the studio
where the recording took place.
Nothing had been set up yet.
Across the street was a restaurant.
We went there and ran into Vlada Divljan.
Then one round of brandies
followed another.
I had to return to the studio.
I came to pick them up
early in the afternoon
and found them highly inspired.
I don't know how happy he'll be
that we're talking about it.
They were more cheerful
than the others.
I was there the whole night
while they recorded the song
in a big old studio.
If you look at the music video,
the two of them are swaying,
holding on to each other in the last row.
But they're not swaying
in the same rhythm as the rest.
The camera pans
and comes to the end
where you only see
Divljan's shoulder and Predin's hand.
The two of them
held on to each other.
That perfectly smashed
the uptight show business atmosphere.
I find it terribly funny
how they placed them at the end
because they were both
very merry
and constantly tried
to keep them out of the shot.
But they were like:
"No, here we are!"
I later asked Vlada
what that was about.
He said they were
in a very good mood and very cheerful
and it was one
of the nicest moments of his life.
Vlada Divljan and I wanted
to add something more to the event.
So we copied Bruce Springsteen
and his singing of "We Are the World".
They screamed their heads off and sang
the back vocals without any control.
Then Zdravko oli told
the producer we were screaming
and he couldn't hear the melody
and couldn't sing.
They threw us out of the studio.
It was like in class: "You two
will never sit together again!"
They weren't allowed
to sing in the choir
because they'd had
much more than one too many
and were accordingly off key.
They called us back
for the video sh**t though,
but we stood each
on our own end of the stage
in order not to disturb the sh**t.
I'm embarrassed.
I behaved like a total fool.
You're twenty-something
only once.
When will you do such things
if not then?
Excuse me, who are those two?
A good question.
They're the anteater and the helmeter.
Thank you.
Could you take my photo?
He'd like a photo.
That's an extra charge.
I'm joking. Give it here.
Stand there.
That's it, great.
There.
Let our daisies,
our white flowers, say
who'd they prefer
to have hidden under their bed.
I wanted to write a song
that humorously touches
on the different models of manhood.
There were and still are
two types of manhood:
the one with the skin,
the so-called anteater,
and the helmeter.
In the song, I ask which is better,
which you like better.
But nobody listens to the lyrics.
In a small town south of Maribor
named Slovenska Bistrica,
600 students, professors and the band
of the high school centre there,
conducted by the head mistress,
sang that song about dicks.
And still didn't listen to the lyrics.
Two heroes, two champs.
Which one is better,
which is the right one?
With an innate hole in the head.
With an innate hole in the head.
I have to admit
that that actually makes me happy.
For a long time,
I didn't understand half of his lyrics.
A harry side cap, for example.
What is that? I just liked it.
A harry side cap.
Get out of here!
Until my wife enlightened me.
She said: "God, you're stupid.
What else could it be?"
And I gaped
for quite some time.
I mean a side cap
as a seagull sees it.
From a bird's-eye view.
Oh, right.
Then I realised that all his lyrics are
somewhat naughtily erotic,
that that's the main topic.
The anteaters and helmeters...
I began looking at him
from a different perspective.
So you actually have a dirty mind.
Underneath that teddy bear hides
a mischievous rascal.
That's an original work
by Arsen Dedi.
Perpetuum mobile.
At the beginning of 1990,
Arsen visited us in Novi trg.
At one point, he asked
whether we had a marker pen.
Then he walked
from the table to the fridge
and began drawing something.
We just looked at it in amazement.
Then he told us that,
for his perpetuum, you needed a pulley
and a rope.
On the other side of the rope,
he drew a c*ck
tied to the rope.
The eye sees a p*ssy,
the c*ck rises and via the pulley
lowers the hat so it covers the p*ssy
and the eye
no longer sees the p*ssy.
And that repeats infinitely.
That fridge ended up
in my mum's garden.
The first time I came for a visit,
for a Sunday picnic,
and looked at the fridge,
she noticed me looking at it
and said: "Listen,
"I immediately wiped off that filth."
Now, my five minutes
have arrived,
tieless and unbuttoned...
And if you take away
my footprints too,
I'll be like a dancer
without a dance partner.
Why did Arsen Dedi
call Zoran Predin?
Because talented people
recognise each other.
"You know, Gabi, he's interesting,
but he'll need time, a lot of time
and a lot of stepping stones
to prove himself
because he's incredibly intelligent,
smart, talented."
Then we got something
nobody else can boast with.
And that's this album,
which Arsen Dedi
and Zoran Predin made together.
The honour of sharing an album
with the greatest poet
of the Yugoslav pop music scene
had been given
only to his wife Gabi Novak.
I think it's a normal course of events.
This might be
too big a compliment,
but the two of them
are the greatest applied poets
in the region.
It was his first solo excursion
outside Lani Franz,
in which Arsen Dedi
acted as a sort of patron
just like Johnny Cash did for Bob Dylan
20 years earlier in 1969.
And when I return,
I'll be the same old me,
pleading at the station:
Wait for me.
The new wave and punk had to get old
to realise the influence of Arsen Dedi.
Don't forget that he introduced
the first-person singular pronoun 'I'.
Before, 'we' was used in songs.
When you say 'I',
you tear your skin, pull out
your heart and say: "This is it."
That's what Arsen recognised
in Zoran Predin.
The case with the two was
that Arsen began writing songs
and releasing records
that were Predinian, as it were,
while Zoran Predin,
on the other hand,
began writing love,
nostalgic
and reminiscing Arsenian songs.
He opened the door
to music history for me.
He introduced me to fine arts,
literature,
history.
In short, he was a multi-figure,
like an older brother,
a mentor,
a friend, a colleague.
Arsen was an idol for all of us.
If you look at my image,
you can see I'm still trying to look
like him as we all did back then.
A black shirt,
black trousers and a belt
with the biggest possible buckle.
For both,
the biggest inspiration for writing
was firstly women
and then the society we live in,
which changes on a daily basis.
I think I've said it all.
Across rivers, forests
and mountains,
to the green island
of my homeland
in order to kneel there
and shed tears.
When it hurts everywhere,
let it hurt at home.
We fell apart a bit at the end.
Then the wars started.
At one point,
the entire Yugoslav space closed,
so we promoted the album
only in Slovenia.
Now, you're a Mrs. so-and-so,
while I'm still
the same shy nobody.
You're no longer
that freckled girl.
Remember the long-haired boy...
That's when we began
to socialise more intensely.
I got to know him as a driver.
He had a BMW at the time.
He never shifted
to fourth gear in that car.
He drove in third gear,
which was painful.
I asked him
to shift to fourth gear
so we could all ease up,
but he didn't.
And he didn't look at the road.
As he drove,
he kept looking at me,
so I had to turn his head.
Hello, colleagues.
I'm Jan.
I've been put in charge of you.
This expedition is in my hands.
Is everyone here?
Colleague,
are you our new conductor?
Colleague,
are you our new conductor?
I had to repeat that
around 40 times
and the version that's in the film
is one of the most idiotic ones.
That's how my acting career
began and ended for good.
He's like a clam.
In his shell.
But when he opens up,
he positively surprises you.
With his thoughts,
emotions and all sorts.
I've already said it publically,
the only role I see myself in
is that of a deaf-mute partisan,
a machine gunner,
who dies at the end of the film.
In a close-up,
you'd see my beautiful green eyes
and all the girls
in the hall would cry.
I'd stare at the sunset
as the credits ran
across my eyes.
Music by
It was a time
of new technologies:
samplers, drum machines,
the Atari ones.
We got them immediately.
We were quite brave
and progressive for that time.
The moment
you put your music in a shot,
you change it forever.
The feedback that gives the shot
something it didn't have before
is the reward.
If you can enjoy it, it's amazing.
Hurry!
At the sh**ting of A Cormoran ,
in which I play a minor role
and for which I wrote the music,
I met Barbara.
We got even closer
on the set of Thirteen a year later.
We weren't a couple,
but I did remember her.
Then we met while sh**ting the series
Tales from the Honey Flowerhouse ,
in which Zoran played
a singer-songwriter
with the very original name Guitar.
I played one of the girls
from a commune
where hippies lived.
That's when we felt
the spark between us.
Composer
Due to the bloody w*r in former
Yugoslavia, the concerts stopped.
But Zoran didn't.
He switched to pop.
His first song
"It's Sunny and You're Unkempt"
topped Stop's chart
of the popular twenty.
He returned to film music
and recorded the song "Dolce far niente"
and wrote the music for Triangel .
In 1992, he successfully continued
his career
with the wonderful album
Underpants on the Head .
What? Underpants on the head?
That's not normal.
Underpants on the head?
The song "You're Unkempt"!
Underpants on the head...
...and two pencils up the nose.
Everybody watched Black Adder
and that's where I got the idea.
What do you do
when you feel utterly hopeless?
Like Black Adder did
in the trench.
To stay alive in the w*r,
he pretended to be insane.
I think "Underpants on the Head"
is his divorce song.
Goodbye fame,
goodbye victory,
goodbye Joica.
We came from a world
that followed the w*r on TV.
The air was filled
with the acidic smell of burnt steel,
which I'll never forget.
On a destroyed building, I saw a poster
for a concert by Lani Franz.
I rubbed my eyes.
I couldn't believe it.
It was only four months
after the peace agreement had been signed.
It was his humane contribution
and consideration for the people
in a tough situation in a w*r-torn place.
Lani Franz also managed to gather
people who were dear to us
and we could see they'd survived the w*r
as there'd been no communication.
It's hard to describe the concert
because the night
was so emotional,
not only for the audience
but also for the band.
Whenever we performed
"Old Soldier"
and if it was at all possible,
I always stepped down into the audience
and took a few turns
of the waltz with a girl.
When, 20 years later,
we again performed in Sarajevo,
I suggested we find her
because I forgot to ask her
her name and what she did.
Then this request and search
spread across the region.
After three days,
she got in touch herself.
Oh, really...
We're destined
to waltz together.
- I really didn't expect this.
- After so many years...
It was nice, unusual.
I don't know. Zoran stepped off
the stage into the audience.
The next thing I knew,
I was stepping on his feet while dancing.
It was a nice experience in any case.
I spent a lot of time in Sarajevo.
At the time, the band Kongres
was recording their first album.
They knew I was there
and invited me to their rehearsals
and later the recording of the song.
I changed a few things,
added a melody
and became
a co-creator of the song
and most people think
that it's mine.
They danced on the trapeze
at the Qualabladala circus.
I always say that the music
was composed by Adam
and the lyrics written by Aljoa.
Unfortunately,
as fate would have it, Aljoa died
and, right after that,
the band fell apart,
so it was wonderful that Zoran preserved
it as a memory of a wonderful time.
I think it's become
a cult song in Sarajevo.
Lani Franz naturally faded out,
as opposed to the Yugoslav republics,
which couldn't resolve things amicably.
I think Lani Franz
simply ran their course.
They had
their farewell Last Supper .
Eve is gone
and so is the apple tree.
Paradise is
increasingly more poisonous.
The colours of laughter
have been forgotten.
Cities no longer have names.
He'd outgrown the local frameworks
of the band and the like.
If you're lucky, you have people
who keep up with you.
So they're by your side
when you're running.
It's like an eternal race.
When they begin to lag behind
and if you stop to wait for them,
then you're out of the race.
Remain
where you are,
on your side
of a naughty smile.
In his entire career, I find the phoenix
moment the most interesting.
His ability to rise from the ashes
with a new image and move forward.
One, two. One two.
Okay, g*ng. How are we?
Tired from all the bits of information?
Yes? No?
I have something for you.
Would anyone like a mint?
Here you go.
A black lioness
is lying on a towel,
looking over her hillocks
at men as trash.
At a gig we had in...
The Logar Valley, right?
Yeah. At Tri sestre.
We were again
merry and tipsy. And...
We were always merry.
Zoran was very merry.
He began saying: "Mint candy,
yoghurt, mint candy." And we laughed.
I remember the excitement
when Zoran's gypsy album came out.
It was so different
from everything else you could hear.
Sometime in the mid-1980s,
I made supper at home.
After their gig at SKC,
Lani Franz came over
and also Vlada Divljan.
After a few drinks, Zoran and Vlada began
raving about their love of gypsy music.
Predin and Divljan...
raving about gypsy music...
Strange.
We both loved it and performed
with ukar many times.
It was our shared love
for the sound of the tambura.
If we were in the US,
we'd probably end up in country music.
You're our love.
We liked
to wander around together.
"Wanna go out?"
So we went to a club like Palma
and got drunk.
At the end of the night,
we'd always get on someone's case.
Like: "What are you looking at?"
Luckily,
nobody took us seriously.
But we felt as if we were
the masters of that space and time.
There, at an empty table,
she waits every night.
In a night club, Djuro said to me:
"Zoran, write some lyrics for Tanja
"because we're going
to the Eurovision Song Contest."
And I said I'd gladly do it.
But, unfortunately,
I immediately forgot about it.
Then Loi called me and said:
"Zoran, the deadline
for the song is today,
"but we still don't have the lyrics."
On my way from home
to RTV Slovenia,
I wrote the lyrics for "Wake Up".
I switched
the standard fairytale roles,
so the princess tried to wake
the prince and not vice versa.
Anything done with intuition and love
seems to result in success.
Then we happily went to Dublin
and had a good time there.
We finished
in an excellent tenth place.
There, I got to know
the entire event from the inside.
My favourite song that year
was the French one,
which finished last.
So much for my Euro music taste.
Here you can see
the famous lover from the closet,
the most desired man
of the 1990s.
He looks like George Clooney.
George Clooney?
He's two years younger.
Oh, okay.
Please, go on, take photos.
Go ahead.
At the club
of Narodni dom Maribor,
the latest CD by Zoran Predin
and Mar Django Quartet was presented
entitled Lover from the Closet.
It's the first joint project
of already established musicians.
It's a real discovery for me
because, after a long time,
I can again use good metaphors,
nice verses, juicy words.
It's actually a combination
of chansons and swing,
with the latter preventing
the listeners from falling asleep.
It was a bit risky.
In Slovenia at the time,
nobody performed such music.
But it caught on wonderfully.
People clearly like such stuff.
The guitar string sound
will always remain popular.
We made it
around 15 years too soon.
15 years later,
gypsy swing became popular.
Zaz sang "Je veux"
and filled up stadiums.
Suddenly, gypsy swing
was a normal thing.
When we did it,
we were q*eer birds.
I remember Darko Glavan
and Draen Vrdoljak
coming backstage after the concert
at Cankarjev dom
and saying:
"Zoran, this is your best work ever."
I took it
as a compliment to me too.
Two concerts in Paris,
two in London and one in Edinburgh.
The icing on the cake
was their performance on BBC Radio.
We dressed up in suits and ties.
We came to the studio,
where everyone wore tracksuits.
Nobody told us
we'd perform on a radio show.
But, still, 40 million people
listened to us live.
At the BBC,
a producer was so enthused
that he said
we should return in a month
and he'd arrange
a tour of London for us.
But, after a month,
when we were supposed to return,
our Saa got an engagement to play
Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto
and told me he could no longer play
the guitar due to the fingering
and had to focus on the violin.
So I had to tell London
we weren't coming.
Then the producer said something
about our closest relatives.
And an opportunity
that never returns fell through.
I was totally disappointed
and gave up gypsy swing
for quite a number of years
and devoted myself to other things.
Goal! It's 1:1.
It's actually Rudonja's fault.
He scored that goal.
We got together at my place
the next morning, still euphoric.
We immediately
took up our guitars.
At the time, I had a song out
with the line: A little kiss is all I need
and it'll all be fine indeed.
That immediately became: A little goal is
all I need and it'll all be fine indeed.
And that turned into:
Slovenia has qualified indeed.
I think we came to the reception
with no rehearsal.
We called each other
in the morning and met there.
I remember meeting at my place.
Not before the first performance.
- Maybe we just drank.
- That we did.
- We didn't meet up before, right?
- No.
But that's... Memory is...
Let's say the official story is
that we met up at Peter's
and we were there together,
singing: A little kiss is all I need,
Slovenia has qualified indeed.
Exactly.
Europe, look!
Slovenia has qualified indeed.
We had a sound system for 50 people
and there were 10,000 in the audience.
It was nice,
an unforgettable experience.
They say that cells in the human body
change every seven years.
So I calculated
that, in 2000, I was already
the third man in my music career,
consisting
of the third generation of cells.
It's silly
to be 65 or 70 years old
and believe you can still sing:
Girl, come to the attic
and I'll show you what I can do.
It's proper to age. It's not shameful
to be as old as one is in any art.
The older, the crazier.
Back then, we recorded
"The Older, the Crazier",
but now we see
we were still young then.
The older, the crazier. I thought
it'd happen to us all and it is happening.
We're crazy, but we probably
aren't and never will be old.
I think Zoran's band
lacked a rhythm guitarist.
By that time, I could already play
the guitar a bit, so I stood in.
It was an accelerated rock academy
for someone my age at the time.
I had the nerves just like any dad.
But Rok had already proven
himself as a solo singer-songwriter.
He was totally competent,
musical
and he plays the guitar
much better than me,
he has a better ear for music.
I learned a lot from watching
him lead the show as the frontman.
It's a talent
that you either have or not.
I then saw
I definitely didn't have it
and wasn't
in the same class as him.
One's midlife crisis
manifests in various ways.
I made fun of those
who lost their bearing
in their middle age
and tried to grab life
by its horns too late.
They say we often start to change
into the opposite of our younger self.
With every passing year,
Zoran has become more orderly.
He puts his armchair back up.
Then, he starts going
around the kitchen.
He takes some ham
or something to eat
and then begins cleaning.
He takes out
the vacuum cleaner.
Then he starts
turning off the lights after me.
That's still a big thing,
turning off the lights after me.
Once in a club,
in the middle of a song,
I found myself thinking
about the waiter
not clearing the coffee cups
off the table.
"Zoran, that's it.
Now, you have to see a doctor."
I feel that he's been
somehow undervalued in Maribor,
especially lately.
Even though it's precisely recently
that he's made a much bigger step,
so in the period of ive legende,
while we always want to see him
through Lani Franz.
When we released Dream Catcher ,
which included "The Older, the Crazier",
people wanted
all sorts from him but that.
But he persisted and said
we'd play those songs
and that, in a few years,
everybody would listen to them.
That's how it was.
As an amateur musician
of a chordal orientation,
I felt he went from a harmony
that wasn't my cup of tea
and was quite complicated,
to a very simple
and beautiful refrain
and then returned to the disharmony
that I didn't understand.
Anyone who's played
with him will tell you
that there's no predictable
standard logic in Zoran's songs.
Because he was never
formally educated,
he chooses unpredictable turns
of chords and circles.
I'd like to soap her breasts,
be the water that caresses her.
I would be if I dared,
if I wasn't afraid.
How can you put that chord there?
It's just wrong. It makes no sense.
But then you see
it's what makes him recognisable
and it's precisely the melodic features
he uses that make him stand out
and rise above the average.
Look for me...
...in the suburbs...
A few years ago,
Tereza Kesovija chose me
to do a duet with her
at the Lisinski Hall.
I thought: What my dad wouldn't give
to have lived to see that.
If he saw me and Tereza
on stage together,
he'd say I finally
made something out of my life
and achieved something.
You know that I'll always regret
never knowing
how to show you or admit
how very much I loved you.
They'd warned me before
that something wasn't right,
that I had
a two-leaflet aortic valve,
but I thought the doctors
were leading me by the nose
because they wanted to charge me
for an extra examination.
Then came 2012.
In January, the doctor said
it was time for the surgery.
Zoran said he didn't have time in April
or May, so he'd have it in September.
And...
I thought I was going to die.
I missed the window
in which I might have avoided
the valve turning
by 90 degrees into my heart
and me fainting in the middle of the day
and waking up two days later.
Zoran just...
I'm sorry. He processes
such things in his own way.
He wrote the song
"If the Devil Takes Me".
And...
I had a very hard time listening to it,
but it helped him.
At the time, it was important
for him to feel well, not me.
If the devil takes me,
he won't get anything at all from me.
I'll immediately greet him
by giving him the finger.
Then a problem arose
related to whether I'd get
an artificial valve, a mechanical one,
or made of natural tissue.
The problem with the artificial one
was that it's loud,
so if I wanted to record with that one
in an anechoic chamber,
I'd tick like a clock
and could record songs
in only one rhythm.
So I decided on bovine tissue
and successfully underwent
the surgery.
Then even the black death fears me.
When I opened my eyes,
Barbara was by my side,
so I knew I was still alive.
Then I fell asleep again
and the next time I opened my eyes,
I saw looking at me a man
who had underpants on his head
and two pencils up his nose.
Then I said: "Oh, sh*t."
That was the doctor
on the night shift in the ICU room,
thinking he'd thus raise my spirits.
It's my honour
to introduce Mr. Zoran Predin.
Just before the surgery,
his first book went into print.
And he'd arranged
a big concert in Cankarjev dom.
That's what drove him.
He's been writing stories
since the beginning,
it's just that, before,
he wrote them with other means.
Very sincere,
not at all banal, but in a smooth
and humorous way.
That might be something
I got hooked on most.
I don't think writing
is something ingenious.
But he can do it. He builds
the point nicely and knows the tricks.
When you talk to him,
you already see he's a good storyteller.
I think I would've been
very disappointed
if when he took up
prose and literature,
he'd have taken advantage of his charisma
as Zoran Predin the musician
and had written the book
as, let's say, a big star
who entered middle age and wanted
to depict how it was in his youth,
how they drank,
how his fans were all over him.
Zoran is absolutely
an open person,
who is terribly easy
to make money with
because he knows what he wants
and likes to discuss things
directly and openly.
I read very little fiction,
but since my friend wrote a book,
it was only proper I should read it.
So I said to myself I had to read it
because he'd ask me about it in a month.
I didn't want to bluff
or read a summary. That's not nice.
I don't know if I'd ever read anything
more quickly than Mongolian Freckles .
It drew me in.
At first, I told myself I had to,
but then the story just drew me in
and I read it in one go.
I think it takes great talent
to write a book,
especially because I can write
only a summary.
Maybe somebody could write
a book based on that.
I remember Zoran
from my teenage years
when he visited my late father.
They were great friends, who worked
together and appreciated each other
and were absolutely likeminded
and kindred souls.
And so Zoran suggested
to my Matija
that they make an album with Matija
playing the piano and Zoran singing.
I was a little afraid
it mightn't meet my expectations
because Arsen's son was involved
and they'd cover
some of Arsen's songs,
which is very demanding,
so it could easily have failed
and disappointed the audience,
which could have had
unreasonably high expectations.
But they were both
up to the task.
He's an excellent singer
regardless of the questions such as:
Can he sing oli's "Ti si mi u krvi"
or Aki's "Jesen u meni"
or Arsen's songs?
He's simply
a great singer-songwriter.
As a one-track specialist, I consider
Zoran specific because he has a good ear,
which I realised
only when we began working.
He told me which songs we'd do
and to play them in my own way,
so I thought
I'd have to play them more simply,
but that was okay
as he'd invited me.
He heard all my chords, the nines
and elevens, the pluses and minuses.
So he's one of us.
You can do all sorts with him. It's rare
today for every harmony I come up with
to be compatible with his voice.
He's developed a lot as a singer.
I wouldn't dare sing with Dedi's son
because he can hear tones,
while we old rockers
can't hear all of them.
Quiet please!
Zoran Predin,
a great poet
and a family man.
He fights against pulp,
cheap texts.
He's a Gemini
with a Balkan soul.
He's performed all over the world,
but what's most interesting...
Hey!
Zoran Predin hit a...
I couldn't believe it.
I replayed the footage.
Anyone can sometimes see red.
It's not like him, it's unusual.
He's a poetic soul.
He reacted completely normally,
it's just that he didn't hold back.
The injustice hurt him.
Magnifico called me and said:
"Did you see it?
"He hit him good.
With his fist."
Yeah, Zoran, hit him harder!
He must've been wrong
if he managed to unnerve Zoran.
He certainly wasn't fair
to one of the teams.
I might've hit him too. I probably
would've. You wouldn't have.
I don't know.
The whole thing didn't bother
me much. It happens.
You did what many of us
wanted to but didn't dare.
Horrible.
I don't know
what provoked him so that day,
but clearly we all have points
where our nerves break
and we cross the line.
I met him the next day.
I'd never seen anyone so buggered.
He wanted the earth to swallow him.
In the following days,
everybody became appalled
and maligned Zoran.
He was practically
excommunicated.
I felt bad when I saw
how easily people put that event
above all his creative work
and that became the most important
thing that happened.
Regardless of him throwing himself
in tar the next day
and buying two tons of feathers
and throwing them on himself,
apologising and paying fines.
If that's his biggest stain
in public life, then hats off to him.
Others have much bigger stains.
I have my explanation for it
because I knew Zoran
before the surgery.
He was calmer than me.
It's a fact that major surgeries
definitively have after-effects.
But that's no excuse.
I can tell you it wasn't cheap,
either financially or otherwise.
I absolutely advise
all fans against...
doing anything similar
because it's really stupid.
I love basketball!
Anyone...
making a living with music
is very careful about what they say,
who they socialise with,
who they tell things to.
But Zoran is a straight talker.
You can't like him a bit
and dislike him a bit.
You either accept or reject him.
Since "Early Slav", they constantly wanted
to pull me into their circles.
That's when the emerging or emigrant
right began to lay claim to me.
But Zoran didn't fight
for capitalism or the like
but for democracy
and the right to free expression.
And to show everyone the truth
when the right
actually came into power,
I decided to record
a partisan song.
Everyone with a business sense said
that that was suicide and they were right.
I immediately lost
half of my audience.
A lake lies still in silence...
There were a lot of threats.
"You should be k*lled."
Pictures, horrible things.
So until they were of age,
my children didn't have the mailbox key
because I was always afraid
that if they'd opened it,
the post would've frightened them.
I've tried to make people understand,
but I still can't,
that I distinguish between ideology
and the partisans' struggle for freedom.
I sincerely admire
and respect the latter.
It's funny that the greatest converts
from communism
accuse me of being a communist.
What did I sing to you about
back in the 1980s?
But you didn't get it.
Unfortunately. We understood it,
but the decision-makers didn't
and they didn't care.
They brought a beautiful country
with the strongest rock scene
in Europe besides England
to the point
of us barely making ends meet.
The worst thing is
that many innocent people died
for someone's fun and games.
Then you say: Maybe he's right
and the Early Slavs
shouldn't have come here
and caused so many complications
at the end of the 20th century.
Zoran is such an artist
that a series of his songs
have come true.
It's quite a slippery slope.
It happens to us too.
People discover some lyrics or songs
in which we predicted things.
It's also quite clear
that the one who wrote the songs
didn't feel well.
Then you pour
that bad feeling into the lyrics,
which are clear and cautionary,
but, 30 or 40 years later,
they seem unmistakably prophetic.
That shows not that Predin is a prophet
but that he is an authentic poet
and that his universal message
will be prophetic in another 40 years.
The world is f*cked-up.
Angry clenched fists in pockets,
bold speeches on the radio.
You promise me:
Let's move forward.
Tomorrow is now.
If we used to have to deal
with severe opponents,
then, today,
we have to deal with c**ts.
Simply put,
there used to be one direct enemy
that captured people
in one system or regime.
Today, people are captured
in hundreds of different cages:
economic, philosophical, media.
So the struggle for personal freedom
is that much harder.
Our blood will never turn white.
As long as it warms our heart
and soul through our veins.
Our blood will never turn white.
The only music,
not classical or folk,
that makes people think,
that pokes them
so they question things,
is rock and roll. That's why
it's dangerous and unwelcome.
I don't see much hope.
The world hasn't become better.
It's become worse.
We're witness to young people
who are conservative, worse than us.
We're witness to ignorance,
vulgarity, xenophobia, hate...
But it's wonderful to know
that there's still Zoran Predin,
who's still standing with his banner
of freedom and justice, ready to fight.
I'm afraid, my son,
of hateful words.
Better has passed,
now comes worse.
Ravens are calling on us
from a red dawn
to become gladiators.
I wanted to share with Zoran
my personal story
because the topic of peer violence
and bullying concerns me personally.
Because we all think
it happens to someone else
until it comes to our doorstep.
This song was written
for our performance.
When I saw all the tears tonight
and such a cathartic feeling,
it all made sense.
I'm very pleased that Zoran Predin
could see the performance
and thus the way
we used the music.
Zoran's aging through music
is very interesting.
When he started,
you wondered whether it was new wave
or a more rudimentary rock and roll
or something in line with the tradition
of Pengov, Domicelj and Buldoer
because, at the beginning,
he merged it all together.
But then you see
a great journey through music.
Through swing, the gypsy sound,
smooth jazz, rhythm and blues
and, ultimately, his homage to his friend
and role model Arsen Dedi.
The moment I heard Matija Dedi's
wonderful album Matija Plays Arsen ,
I wondered who'd sing him.
So I thought it'd be great
if it could be rearranged
for gypsy swing.
Everybody said
that it was crazy and impossible.
The closest people to Arsen,
Gabi and Matija, told me
that Arsen didn't like jazz.
He mentioned it to me and Damir
during the course of a year.
First, he talked
to Gabi and Matija
and then we began, in Ljubljana
and in the jazz club in Sisak,
to work on individual songs
to see how they'd function.
When we reached the critical mass
of six or seven songs that worked,
we sat down together.
I can't wait to return
to the role of a pop singer.
I love that about Zoran,
his eternal exploration
and readiness
to plunge into new things.
He doesn't live off what has stopped
and has been successful.
When Johnny Cash covered songs,
he appropriated them.
Predin is similar in that his covers
aren't just an homage to Dedi or others
but his own interpretations of them.
It's one of the rare CDs
that when I put it on in my car,
I listened to it
from start to finish
and I have to admit it made
such an emotional impact on me
that I had to pull over
and collect myself.
Arsen would say:
"Hello, Zoran. I came here,
but I won't stay till the end.
I don't do that
even at my own concerts."
That's Arsen Dedi
but also Zoran Predin.
Zoran made a wonderful project,
which topped the charts.
He had concerts lined up
across the region,
but, then,
not only did the pandemic start,
his guitarist Damir Kukuruzovi
died of COVID.
So he took one hit after another.
I don't know how we survived
those two years.
That's my greatest wealth
and that's not just an empty phrase.
Every parent is aware of that.
I was 18 years old
when my first son was born.
So an older child got a child.
The others came
throughout the years
in different periods of my life.
That's why I was
a somewhat different father each time.
An extremely witty person.
He can really make your day.
We're used to him
in the so-called alpha position,
which means
he lies down on the couch
and can't be bothered
about anything.
A calmness.
There's no shouting at home.
I don't know
if he's ever shouted in his life.
He slowly grumbles
around the apartment.
A big persona.
Dream, my little girl.
Dream.
That song
really makes me emotional
and moves me very much.
The same goes for "I Love You",
which also depicts
the three women of his life:
his mother, Barbara
and his daughter.
I love you because I know
you pray for me
and ask your good spirit
to watch over me.
I love you
because you gave me dreams,
a night full of young lights
and the breath for them.
I love you because you're angry
when I'm not at home.
I know you're worried
about the long grey road.
There are
quite a few actresses I like,
but I don't hide
any of them from Barbara.
I admit everything.
It was great once
when we were watching a series
and Zoran said:
"She's really pretty."
After a while, he said it again.
When he said it the third time,
I asked whether I should be worried.
"No, but Monica Belucci should be."
We'll talk about it.
Anyways,
Brane is an ideal chauffeur.
How long have we been together?
- 25 years.
- 25 years.
We went through thick
and thin together
and he's actually family.
The fact that he's constantly changing
proves that Zoran is still young
because old people aren't inclined
to big exhibitions in life or music.
He probes and explores
in various directions.
That boy is still alive. I find that
to be the most precious in people.
I feel there are
at least two Zoran Predins.
The first is the one
from the beginning of the 1980s.
He seemed very dangerous,
actually crazy.
Later, we got the nice,
polite and tame man.
The one we know today.
Besides being
an angry punker from Maribor,
he's a Bosnian, a Balkan man
and also a chansonnier.
Then you discover that Zoran Predin
is an all-round artist.
You're saying goodbye to your youth,
making calculations,
thinking about what you've done
and are doing now,
what awaits you
in the remainder of your life.
I think the calming down
in the style of Leonard Cohen
is welcome when it comes
to anyone with a rich oeuvre.
As he got older,
he obtained
a more internal expression,
which is as it should be.
Old and ambitious.
That's not a pleasant sight.
But he manages to spin it
as an inertia that carries him
like a sea wave,
which he only follows.
It happens by default.
Something doesn't add up.
If you analysed his distinctive oeuvre,
you'd say he was
an ambitious ADHD guy
who doesn't stop,
yet he's so chill,
so I don't know whence he draws
his poetry and energy.
But he's always the Predin
who, with his dominant voice,
has things to say and sing about.
You have to have strong nerves.
That's the hardest.
To struggle with life's basic problems
and at the same time be in that business.
Regardless of one's love
for music and all that,
one has to have
an additional motive.
I'm in awe of him.
He's always been said
to be very charming.
He often had concerts
on International Women's Day.
So the press likes to say
that he's a favourite of women.
He's a gentleman.
For example,
in my song "Green George"
on my first album, I sing:
"Because he'll teach
Early Slavs to swim.
"Green George has come."
I stole it from him
and didn't tell him.
That means I love him.
He hasn't mentioned it even once.
I'd definitely react:
"Hey, come on!
"It's nice that you've used it,
but you could've asked."
He's a nice man, who'll always help,
give a good piece of advice.
I'd lend him up to 100 marks.
There are people
who I wouldn't lend even 10 marks to.
I might lend him even 200 marks.
I think he'd return them.
That's a compliment
because I'm quite stingy.
Should we say the height
of his long and fruitful career?
Nominally, it is,
but I'd like it not to be,
hoping there will be something above it
even if this is the pinnacle.
- The two of us love him. I don't know
about the others. - I adore him.
He and Nick Cave.
What I like most is the lyrics.
Hordes of Slavic blood.
Across the river
through the days.
At the front,
chiefs and directors,
followed by wh*res,
youngsters and pensioners.
He's original and I'm very proud
to be called his colleague.
When people
talk about "my colleagues",
I say: "I don't see them. I don't know
where Dylan and McCartney are.
I haven't seen them in years."
But in this region,
he's one of the names
I like to be mentioned with.
Nobody has a 40-year career
with 40 released LPs or albums.
Don't forget
that he's published a few books,
written music for a few
theatre performances and films
and that he's
one of the rare artists
still present
in the entire former Yugoslavia.
It can all be encapsulated
in one sentence:
You either have it or not.
Even though there's the saying that you
can't trick the audience, you can.
Once, twice, maybe even five times,
but not for 40 years like Zoran and I.
Oh, Early Slav,
who taught you to swim
so that you swam
across that Russian river
and settled down in my genes?
To be continued...
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Praslovan (2024)
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