Your musical style has a rare mix of ska, punk, reggae, and metal. How did
this come about?
All came out without too much thinking and planning. It’s just the way we really like to do it. It's a mix of all our music idols and the sounds we were consuming in the past. We are four different people with a bit different music tastes. That’s why we let the ideas to come out and then we try to find the best way to put them together. We never wanted borders in music. We just want our songs to be spontaneous, natural and open-minded. So, at the end it comes out something like E.J. I guess we don’t know any other way!
Is there a good music scene in Slovenia or was it hard to get the band
started there?
Not really hard to start a band, but hard to survive like a band in the music scene. It's a small country and of course it’s not easy for a punk rock band from ex-Yugoslavia, to get on other European markets, but we’ve been working hard since 1998 and it looks like we are finally on the good way. There are actually many good places to play in Slovenia and really a lot of good and interesting bands, but in the country of two million people you can’t really make a serious tour or something like that. So, that’s why many Slovenian bands are looking for gigs across country’s borders. But otherwise I must say that Slovenia is a perfect location for foreign bands to play shows. There are many good music festivals in the summer time. And like I said, there are also some good music clubs in bigger cities like the capital Ljubljana or Maribor. The audience there is also great. So welcome!!
Did you decide to sing in English in order to help move beyond the borders
of Slovenia?
Considering our music influences the answer is simple. We just wanted to sound exactly like that. The rest came out very spontaneously. We were using English from the very beginning. Our goal was that as many people as possible understand us. In 1999 we went on our first tour all over Europe for thirty days and that was an unforgettable experience for us and especially not usual for a Slovenian band. From that time on we played a few hundred shows in Europe, so choosing English language was just the most convenient way for us.
What bands or artists influenced you in the past and inspired you to form
the band?
Oh, yes, very easy, on the other hand, there are too many different influences… I’ll try to make a compilation of bands which were “guilty” that we turned our lives upside down and started this rock and roll adventure. There were bands like Bad Brains, Slayer, Dag Nasty, Metallica, Megadeath, Sublime, Bad Religion, Dayglo Abortions, Circle Jerks, Iron Maiden, Murphy’s Law, The Skatalites, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, No means No, Rancid, Faith No more, Victims Family and many many others.
You have a reputation of being a very fun-loving and optimistic band, is it
a mission of yours to cheer people up or are you naturally upbeat people?
First of all we love the charm of making music! Spending our time in practice room jamming and creating the songs from the small piece to the final product, is for us the most important part in our development. But what we especially like is to relax and enjoy our live shows, these are what we are actually living for. Honestly I think that we just can’t refuse the real, strong and mighty energy of the live performance. When we get on the stage it’s like a step into some other dimension. And then it all starts! And we go crazy. You can call it a naturally upbeat mission or whatever, just be there when it happens and you’ll be the judge!
What has been the highlight of the band's career so far for you?
One of the biggest highlights for us was certainly sharing the stage with bands like Faith No More, Motorhead, Anthrax, Sepultura, The Offspring, Asian dub Foundation and many other respected artists we were listening to when we were kids. Also recording and mixing our latest album in San Francisco with producer Billy Gould of Faith No More and other great technicians in Silvia Massy’s studio was a very interesting adventure for us.
What is your ideal show? Is it based on personal performance, or the crowd’s
knowledge of the songs, or something else?
We treat our concerts as the madhouse parties, when all the energy becomes one.
It’s about the relationship between the audience and the band. But normally we are just trying to be relaxed and positive and of course we’re very satisfied when we get this feeling back. That works on us like big filler and it gives us the fresh energy for our performance.
Do you prefer the song-writing/recording process or being on the road
touring?
Well now, when the recording process is behind us, we are more focused on the promotion of our latest album ‘Against the Gravity’, which in a few days will be also released in England and Ireland. So we’ll be glad if we get some good shows in your country too. That would be great. We never played in U.K. before, but this time we are ready to break the ice. After that we’re going back in our place to practice and start it all over again. We like music and all the things that come around. Every process in our creation is something special for us.
What do you spend your time on when you get a break from touring and
recording?
It’s always good to switch off for a while. And when that moment comes it’s time for a depression on the couch! Well, we all have many other obligations in our lives, but now we are one hundred percent Elvis Jackson.
How have the fans reacted to Against the Gravity?
Against the Gravity is definitively a turning point on our creative path and we are very satisfied with how it all came out at the end. The album radiates good energy, which we were putting in from the very beginning.
The songs and the sound are very direct, clean and powerful at the same time. Album contains more different music styles from reggae, punk, metal, hip-hop… so everyone can find his own particle in the songs. We’re getting very good reviews from most of the European music magazines and other media, but it’s a bit too early to talk about the feedback of the majority. The most important thing is that our fans are not complaining at all. ;)))
Where would you like to take the band in the next few years? Do you have
plans to conquer the UK and the USA?
We still havw a lot of work to do in Europe, but who knows where the road takes us.
First we want to make a bigger tour on territories where our new album was released, that means in the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Benelux, Austria, Slovenia. After that we would probably like to go visit the Balkan countries and the southeast Europe again.
