Who is in Analena and what do they do?
Ana is 22, she is singing. Mijo is 24, he is playing guitar and singing back vocals. Zet is 28, he is playing drums. I'm 28 and I'm playing bass
Tell us a bit about Analena.
Zet and I used to play together in a band called Ha Det Bra for some 6 to 7 years. This band was always going through a lot of problems and eventually an end had to come. That was 3 years ago. Two of us wanted to continue playing together, we just needed someone who'll play with us. At that time we met Mijo in one club in Zagreb where I used to book shows. He said he'd love to play in a band because he had a lot of great songs but he didn't know anyone who'd like to play with him. Those songs turned to be really great for Zet and me as well, so we formed Analena. We invited one girl, Irena, to sing and she accepted. We practiced for two months and started to play shows in our area. We felt really happy about the way everything goes and we decided to record 6 songs for a 4-way-split CD called "Tribute To Our Parents" with 3 other hard core punk bands from Zagreb. When we finished recording Irena quit the band because of various problems that got piled up. We continued to play for the next 6 months or so as a trio with Mijo on vocals. During that period we did a cover of "Guns Of Brixton" by The Clash and we invited Ana to sing this song with us on a couple of shows, as a guest. After that we somehow asked her to stay in the band. She liked the idea and she's full time member of the band for more than 2 years now. Beside that compilation I mentioned before we have one 7" called "Arhythmetics". We played several smaller tours and one bigger European tour in the Fall 2000. We're going on another European tour in May this year and soon there will be released one split 7" with us and one great band from Belgrade called Unison.
Why are you called Analena? Is it just a coincidence that your singer is also called Ana?
Ana joined the band some 7 to 8 months after our first show. Therefore her being Ana and us being Analena doesn't have any connection at all. It's just pure coincidence. Analena is a Sanskrit word that means "by the fire". We really liked that word when we heard it for the first time. Later we found out that Analena is also a Spanish girl name that means "grace". That's also cool, right?
How did you all become involved in the hc scene and initially hear (about) hc music?
We got involved in hc while we were in high school. You know how it goes. I guess all of us started to listen to old punk bands like Ramones, Sex Pistols and stuff like that and going on shows with local bands. Later we discovered all other types of punk music we have today.
What changes have you seen in the scene since you’ve become involved? What was it like then, and what is it like now?
First of all, I changed a lot during that time and that's what's important, for me at least. When I look at myself I can't believe how close minded I was when I got in punk. I thought spiked hair, leather jacket and Dr. Martens are the most important things in the world. I couldn't understand that there is more than one concept of punk, that it's not big deal if everyone in the world is not listening to The Exploited. Funny thing is that I still see a lot of kids acting like this. Those things never change. Our scene, although we are in Europe, was always somehow in delay with the rest of Europe and US. When Croatia was part of Yugoslavia it was really hard to buy recent punk records and zines and only bigger bands could play here. Therefore, no one actually knew what's going on outside of our little country. That's kind of changed now, we lowered down that delay little bit. Also, few years ago it was totally impossible for a band from Croatia to go on tour outside of Croatia or Slovenia. We just couldn't afford it. Now it's much better. What's not so good is that now there is way more consumerism than before and the number of skinheads is increasing. I guess that's usual thing for poor countries that had communist regime in the past.
What initially attracted you to vegetarianism/veganism? What keeps you vegetarian?
I couldn't bear the thought that someone had to be killed so I could eat. I had visions of slaughterhouses during my meals and I couldn't stand it anymore. That's what keeps me vegetarian since then.
What do you like the most/least about being vegetarian? What does being vegetarian mean to you?
Right now, for me, being vegetarian means being alive. Sometimes I wish I was vegetarian since the day I was born. There is no such thing that can make me feel bad about being vegetarian.
Are you involved with any animal liberation or environmental groups?
Well, we are involved in some actions, but we are not active members of any specific group. I have to tell that in our country animal rights movement is pretty small. We played and organized several benefit shows for an organization called Animal Rights Croatia. On the following tour we'll have info table with PETA's materials and we'll collect donations for them. I guess that's at least we can do.
Tell us a bit about the “scene” in Zagreb/Croatia? More than one quarter of whole Croatian population is living in Zagreb. That's more than one million people. All other cities are way smaller. Therefore, it's really hard to book shows outside of Zagreb especially if you are a foreign band. We used to have something like youth centers in almost every city, but that was ten years ago, before the war. Now, they are all closed. There are few underground clubs in Zagreb which are doing shows on regular basis. I'm working in one of them, it's called Mochvara (The Swamp). We are doing all sorts of bands, from jazz to punk to metal and electro music. We do two and sometimes even more shows in a week. It's cool to have an access to wide spectrum of music. I don't like all the bands that are playing in our club, but I understand how important is not to do only one type of music. We couldn't exist if would only punk or only metal bands. You know, our club is not sponsored by any organization or institution, we are all on our own and that's sometimes scary. Here there are no age restrictions in clubs, so, I guess, all shows are all-age. Our scene isn't very different from all other scenes in the world. Sometimes I think how everything is great, because we have a lot of great bands and we're all friends, we love each other and stuff like that. Then everything goes down when you got in weird situations and fights. I try not to think about it, I'm little bit too old for stories about skinheads and punks and crusts and straight edge. Veganism and animal liberation are very well received, while with straight edge is totally opposite. Straight edge is out of fashion at the moment. Straight edge kids here never got in that consumerism thing you could see all over Europe, especially in Germany or Belgium. That's probably because of low standard in our country.
Your lyrics are pretty, poetic and personal lyrics, who writes them?
Mijo, Ana and me.
What is the message behind your lyrics?
We're writing lyrics about different issues, situations and relationships. I guess each song has hidden message or meaning. Still, it's not necessary for us that it should be recognized easy. Most of the clever things we support are already said or written somewhere before. We want to sing about things that are bothering us, but we want to do it on a personal level. Some of the songs are inspired by society in general, some of them are inspired by one single person or situation, or even a dream. We can talk about specific song if you want to, but if we do it, it doesn't have to be that the message you got from it is going to be the same as ours.
Your sound is quite unique, are you influenced by anyone in particular?
There are tons of good bands that we are influenced by. I'd like to say we're influenced by hard core and noise music in general.
You guys do a cover of “Confide in Me” by Kylie Minogue, how did this come about?
We love to play covers and we always think what should we cover next. "Confide In Me" has been stuck in our minds for a long time and one day we just decided to do it. Do you know there is one German band called Systral that covered that song as well? We heard their version few months ago. They're playing it in death metal style with lots of screaming and crazy guitar riffs. It was strange when we heard it because mostly people don't remember that song at all and now there is a band that's playing this song we thought it's lost forever.
Are you guys big fans?
Not really. Actually, we hear a lot of weird stuff about Kylie lately and we started to think about not playing that song anymore... I'm kidding... I mean, I'm not kidding about Kylie being stupid pop-star, just about us not playing that song anymore. We'll play it for a while, that's for sure.
Have you heard/enjoyed any other Australian bands/singers/etc?
Well, we have The Saints, Birthday Party and Nick Cave, Hard-Ons and Bodyjar albums at home and that's it. I guess there must be great hard core punk scene there, but unfortunately we here just don't have that much opportunity to listen to all those bands. Australia is so far away. It must be really hard for a band from Australia to go on European tour... The club where I work did a show for Mutiny few years ago. I remember, they played some kind of folk-punk. Oh, yeah, I also love that song "Police Brutality" from Vicious Circle - it appeared on legendary P.E.A.C.E. compilation some 15 years ago. You know, my first band even wanted to do a cover of that song... I'm really glad you told me about bands like Heartfelt Self and Rushmore. I love to discover new bands from different parts of the world.
What does Analena have planned for the future?
After we get back from the tour we'll play on few festivals during the summer. In September we'll go in the studio to record our first album. We still don't know which label is going to release it, but it doesn't matter right now. After that we'll probably go on another tour. This time we'll try to go in those countries where we couldn't go on the last tour, like Poland, Sweden, Norway, England etc. Of course, I hope someday we'll go to Australia and USA as well.
THANKS TO SIX FOR DOING THE INTERVIEW.
check out analena online @
http://www.analena.f2s.com/index.htm
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