I made this interview with the help of Yves during our trip to Croatia. The members of this band are some of the nicest fellows I’ve ever met and we spent unforgettable times together (especially in Hvar). Moreover their music’s really good and reminds us of serbian band "Hocu? Necu!", punk/HC that includes melodies as well (even if this annoy Cop!). A split demo with another Croatian band called "Demant" should come out soon and should be available for 3$ ppd/trades. 10 seconds after meeting the guy we got controlled by the police ... first impressions of Split (A good name, Cop ?!).
The interview took place in Cop’s apartment and ended up in a bar in the historic center of the town (surrounded by dealers, the drug situation is quite scaring in this town) with Skenda and Cop. Then we took a boat and sailed towards the beautiful island of Hvar with Skenda (we continued with the interview with him a bit - me alone in fact as Yves was probably trying to sleep one more time, lazy asshole ! :)
There we met Tudor, one of the other band members. Of course we also asked him a couple questions. This guy Tudor deserves our respect, in the middle of the night he can just as well start political actions of an impact unseen before, like liberating trash-bags and throwing them in garden lawns screaming "freedom for the trash"!! :) A real militant as you see. We love you Tudor! (and the other as well). Enjoy this interview ...

Please introduce yourself: your names, ages, the instruments you play, what you do outside the bands?

Cop: The band consists of: Tudor (18) guitar/vocal, Skenda (18) vocals, Cop (17) bass and Veljko (18) drums. Outside the bands, Tudor is making the zine "Sharp Attack" (number 2 is out), me and Skenda are making the zine "Remain", with one girl from Split (number 2 is going to be out soon). Veljko is riding his skateboard. Me and Skenda are singing in the grind/crust/noise band Kilo Kruva (same addresses).

What are your zines about?

Cop: Both zines are very political (as they should be), they are opened to every kind of cooperation so anyone can send their stuff at our addresses (no extremists wanted). We are trying to help young bands (with interviews or infos), distributors or anyone who needs help. We are writing about problems of the "small" people, about the state, about the police and gigs and other happenings reports.

Concerning the band, since how long do you play together. Which kind of material have you released? How would you define your music?

Cop: We formed in september 1996 and we recorded one demo (we are not satisfied with it). We are playing engaged punk/hc with two vocals. We will record new songs soon and I hope we will make much more contacts with the distributors. We want much more people to listen to our music and lyrics.

What are your lyrics about?

Cop: Our lyrics deal with problems that surround us, against war profiters (there are a lot of them in our country), against racism and other things: our dreams (Freedom, Equality ....) etc. We don’t say to people how he/she should live but we want to tell our opinions about some situations.

Talking about war: how did it affected the life in Split?

Cop: Split was attacked at one time (by battle ships) and we had small fights while the JNA (ex-Yugoslavian Army) was still in town. That’s all about the direct affections but war affected the town in some other ways (like an increase of the refugees, poor people, homelessness and other social problems). It was terrible, people were dying just because they were from the "wrong" religion (Yann: there were 3 main religions in ex-Yugoslavia: Catholic, Christian-Orthodox and Muslim) or nationality (Croat, Serb, Slovene, Macedonian ...) and we know who profited from that. It’s always the same, stupid politicians who want more money. Their greed for power is getting bigger and bigger... they want more territory. It's so stupid, you can see how people are manipulated by state’s media (TV, newspapers). FIGHT WARS NOT WAR!

Are there still a lot of refugees in Split?

Cop: Yes, lots of refugees came here because it was safe (as safe as it can be). But now a lot of them are going back to their homes (people from Croatia), but in Bosnia there is still war. You can see towns divided into two parts, people killing each other. Lots of people from Bosnia still can’t go back to their homes. We must help them (as much as we can) but there are also some people who got rich on someone own tragedy. It’s sad, ex-neighbours are enemies now. It would take some time to have things starting to get better.

It seems like there is less solidarity between people whereas it is one of the major principles advocated by the religion... So, what is the exact power of religion here? Is it now more powerful after the war?

Cop: Religion (especially the Catholic church) is the big brother of the state (the system) here and religion is dealing with politics. There is small solidarity, which is the help from other Europeans but this help came into the wrong hands so a lot of it is taken and never got into the hands of people who really needed it. That’s the case for a big part of the help. War just helped the Church to become a bigger institution (religion against its principles). It sucks!

Ivo (Yann: a friend of the band at who's house we were staying) told us about the fact that 5 churches were recently build while in the meanwhile the youth center wasn't finished. Can you tell about this?

Skenda: I can tell you only that the construction of the youth center was started 10/15 years ago and it’s still not finished. Everyone (the state that is) is saying that they care about the youth in Croatia, especially Split because Split has a very big drug problem, and they don’t do anything. They are just getting richer and richer and they don’t care about youth at all. They build churches, shopping centers and they couldn’t finish one youth center.
Tudor: I must say that some people are active on the plan of building a youth center but they can’t do anything more to realize it because they are not in the leading party (Yann: the party of President Franjo Tudjman, the HDZ).

Are people alot more religious because of the war? As many people were wearing crosses before?

Skenda: Before the war people weren’t religious at all. There were only a few people before the war that were religious. To be short I can tell you that the same people who were wearing a communist sign (a red ID) are now showing their catholic crosses to everyone.

Can you tell us a bit about drugs in Split? In our opinion, why are there so much people using drugs here?

Skenda: In Split everyone (and when I say everyone I really mean everyone) smokes pot but there are also a lot of junkies and lots of people have problems with drugs. I think that people in Split use drugs because they are bored. Nothing happens in this town. Some people think that this situation here is like that because of the war but that’s not true because Split had already a drug problem a lot of time before the war started.
Cop: I think that people should better do something about happenings than waiting for someone else to do things.
Tudor: Skenda said that people in Split are using drugs because they are bored but I think it’s not the truth. In Split, people like us can’t go out and go to some club good for us because there is not such clubs (before there were). So usually, we are spending our time in the street or in front of some markets. Lots of people are not using drugs and still they are having a good time. So we can’t say that boredom is the reason for using drugs. It’s just something else, maybe we can’t find that answer, the better is to ask some people. Because if somebody is using drugs, (s)he must be self content at that time. Otherwise (s)he wouldn’t use it !! PRO CHOICE.

Can you tell us about the punk scene here in Split?

Cop: It’s difficult to speak about our scene because lots of bands haven’t play for a long time. There are lots of good bands and people like DUBRIVO (melodic punk/metal), DISHONEST (hc/punk with ska parts), S4TA HC/crossover), PUPAK VONJA 105 (melodic punk/fun), MISTERY LAPSUS (alternative), CARRYBOY’S SPLEEN (melodic punk) and lots of other projects and some bands which are still unknown.
The zines (all in Croatian, some have small parts in English):

KLAUSTROPHOBIA #8 (mostly - 100% - a music zine): Darko Slivar, gotovceva 8, 21000 Split, Croatia
SHARP ATTACK #2 (punk zine with some non musical texts): Tudor Boris, cesta mira 16, 21000 Split, Croatia
REMAIN #12 (punk zine with lots of music and non musical texts, at my address): Darko Cop, Bregovita 3, 21000 Split, Croatia
BUTTOCKS #4 (zine with different bands) Zeljko Lic., rendiceva 8, 21000 Split, Croatia

... and some others that I don’t know. What we need is some more gigs because you meet lots of new people at the gigs. That’s important for people to know each other because then we are stronger.
Skenda: From what Darko said to you, you can see that there are a lot of bands and zines in Split and from that point of view our scene is powerful. But on the other side, there are no gigs or things like that at all and from that point of view the scene is very very weak (Yann: I think punk bands should try to go there, because after we left, guess which band was coming ? ... Shelter !! Argh ! The krishna religion is very powerful in Split, shit).

Why are there so many skinheads here in Split and Zagreb? When did it start to become so many?

Cop: The bigger problems with the skinheads are in Zagreb, because there are more. There are just a few of them in Split (I think 10) and they are not doing any problems to the punx, but they are beating up Malaysian tourists (Yann: there are UN soldiers stationed near split and some of them are Malaysian, some members of their families came in Split for a visit and were attacked by skinheads). Here skinheads are about 16/17 years old. there are just one who is older (about 27) and he is the real problem, but in Zagreb they always beat up some punx and I think punx in Zagreb should be more united, then they will be stronger to fight back.

What about skins in Serbia?

Cop: Lots of skins are from NOVI SAD, but I don’t know for the other towns. In Serbia (and here too) the problem is with the rich kids who are building their muscles and they think they are tough guys, real macho men. Also, one big problem is (as in the whole world) the nationalists who are talking about muslim fanatics and evil croats and they want blood, war and other shit. Now in Bosnia, the Serbs are fighting each other for the power.

What's going on in Bosnia now?

Cop: I’m not well informed (you know how the media are manipulated) but there are people still fighting each other. Ex-friends (there is an interesting movie about that, it’s called "Nice villages make nice burnings" or something like that) are on both sides. For who? Tudjman. Milosevic and other scums, I wouldn’t fight! But as I have said media have a big influence on people. There are a lot of muslim extremists from other muslim countries, in Serbia there are Russian people, in Croatia who knows? (Yann: a lot of volunteers from various neo-nazis groups and parties from all over the europe came in Croatia to fight the Croatian army ...). They are fighting for money, which is the main reason for any shit happening here. We should try to stop that shit.
Skenda: You know, in Bosnia there are three parties : Muslims, Serbs and Croats and they are fighting each other so they can have more influence over Bosnia. But like Cop said, we must stop that shit. T : I think that this situation in Bosnia will never be ok, because people are separated according their nationality and they really hate each other. Maybe someday their children (new generations) will be friends but I think they will never forgot what happened to them.

What happened here (in Hvar) during the war?

Tudor: During the war Hvar was isolated from the rest of the state. There was no food and people were in a tough position to survive. Hvar is an island which is depending on the tourists but during the war there were no tourists because people were frighten to come here. There were also problems with the refugees because they were in the hotels of the town at that time (people started to be resentful against the refugees who were accused of deterring the tourists from coming back ...)

What does Croatian people think about the position of the Europeans and the USA during the war?

Tudor: Well, during the war some states were on our side and some others were on Yugoslavia’s side. Their behavior was really bad because they let both sides do so many things and after some time they said that these things were just mistakes and a lot of people were killed because of it.

What did the war changed the most in Croatia?

Tudor: First of all, war changed the people and their thoughts about existence... Now the system is different. Before it was a communist one and now it’s democracy but there’s no big differences because there are still a lot of profiters who just want to get some money.

Can you tell about the current state of the country?

Tudor: Economy in Croatia is not so bad, because we are a state which just came out of the war and the situation is really stable now. We have our own money but our state should try to rebuild the cities which were destroyed and should build new roads because the roads are the vein of the state.
(Yann: since Yugoslavia had been conceived a united state the main roads crossed republics which are now independent states ... and the relationship is particularly tense between Croatia and Serbia and Bosnia, not to speak about the mines that fill the battlefields, and some country roads. An easy access to the rest of the country is vital for those who can be isolated otherwise. Croatia and Slovenia are in reality far more wealthy than Serbia - one of the reasons the war exploded was Serbia was kind of "parasiting" those two countries. Croatia earns a lot of money through tourism which started to increase again this year. Slovenia has a pretty competitive industry, their life standards are now similar to that of Portugal and they should join the EC by 1999. Before the war, there were a famous saying: "Serbia takes decisions, Croatia argues about them and Slovenia turns them into reality" - Slovenia has a reputation of a hard-working people).

How's the relationship between the punk scenes in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Slovenia?

Skenda: The relationship between the punk scenes of these 4 countries are very good. People write to each other, Serbian bands play gigs in Slovenia, Slovenian bands have gigs in Croatia ... Only there are no gigs with Serbian bands in Croatia and no gigs of Croatian bands in Serbia because the situation is not stabilized yet and people are afraid to play in Serbia (for the Croats) and in Croatia (for the Serbs) because of the incidents that could occur.
Cop: Slovenia is the best, a lot of bands are playing from different countries (but perhaps Slovenian people don’t like the muslims because they don’t like poor people at all). Here, people (most of the people, not me) don’t like to listen to Serbian music because they think that we are enemies. We are living in a primitive country where black people are still not in a big number and people don’t like them (most of them are not aggressive though). It should be better in the future (I hope).

What about the corruption in everydays life?

Skenda: In Croatia, people are working for small wages so most of the people are poor. So, you can, for example, when you enter the boat (Yann: this question was answered on the boat heading to the Island of Hvar), you don’t buy a ticket, but you give some money to a sailor that checks the entrance and enter the boat. A ticket for one person costs 60 Kunas and we entered for 40 Kunas (the 3 of us). There was also an incident on "Radio Crochet", there were 8 bands playing and every band had to pay 100 Kunas to play there. So when they all played, the jury picked for winner this band that wasn’t very good (it sucked) and the other bands were so angry ... At the end they saw that this kid who was playing in the "winning" band was the son of the guy who organized the concert and everyone was so pissed because they had to pay to play there for the reward. There are many many more examples of corruption in everyday’s life and no one is doing anything about it. Black market is very big in Split (and Croatia) too. You can buy cigarettes very cheap, change money at better rates and buy a lot of stuff really cheaper than in the stores.

What was the situation of the black market before the war and how did it evolved after it?

Skenda: Before the war the black market wasn’t really big because people had more money so there weren’t that much people who needed the money so badly they have to go to the black market and sell or buy things from there.

In conclusion... In France we have this habit/tradition to kiss each other between friends. In "normal" society it's only male/female or female/female but in the scene we do it male/male too. So, it kinda breaks the barriers of sexism. What do you think about that? How would people react to that here?

Cop: I think that’s ok, why not ? Here people are still patriarchal and I don’t think they would understand that (two males kissing). Here, people who are homosexuals (gay or lesbian) aren’t accepted. They still live in fear of how would people react. I think it would create very bad reactions but there are some people who consider it normal. If somebody is kissing somebody else, it’s their business not mine (except when somebody is raping somebody else). That’s all, I support their fight for their rights.

Anything else to add?

Darko Cop
Bregovita 3
21000 Split
Croatia

Skenda: Also, we would like to have people call us for some gigs because we like to play our music and we want people to listen to our music and lyrics.

Skenda Marin
Gotovceva
21000 Split
Croatia