SLAV SIMANIC - "LET IT GO"
Now And Then/Frontiers Records (Europe) - 2002
Interviewed by Kai Brockschmidt
Could you tell us a bit of your background? Where do you come from musically?
I was born in Smederevo a small city on a Danube river about 50km away from Serbian capitol Belgrade.
I am classically trained as well as a self taught guitar player.
Being a guitarist, what do you think you could achieve with your music, especially
if it's guitar oriented?
Primarily with my music I would like to celebrate the Lord and my relationship with
the Lord and to spread His precious Gospel. What I have achieved is that many of those
who have heard my music understood the message.
Do you think it's rather an advantage or disadvantage to start off on your own
without having a band concept that'd probably sell more?
Selling more CD-s is not my priority. On the other hand it is an advantage to be on your
own because you have the freedom to decide which direction you wish to go with every new project.
Your music is deeply rooted in a melodic context - is AOR/melodic rock the music
you prefer personally?
I was always more attracted to tonal music then atonal and for that reason my songs have
very strong melody lines. Speaking of favorite musical styles there are various styles
on both of my albums: Classical, Ambiental, Spoken Word, Blues, Rock, Progressive,
Neo-classical...and AOR/Melodic Rock is definitely one of my favorite musical styles
because of its drive and positive energy that it carries.
Isn't it frustrating to see lame three chord bands climbing up the charts while
you can play sweep arpeggios, finger tapping, know of pentatonic etc. scales and nobody
recognizes?
When I was a kid my favorite bands were ABBA and The Beatles. Their songs were great even
though they used only a few chords and not any of those fancy guitar techniques. In the
seventies and eighties some mainstream music was at the same time very technical which
drove my attention and influenced my guitar playing.
So to answer your question, about three chord bands, it doesn't frustrate me because what
is popular on the market changes all the time and a good song can be a good song even if
it has only a few chords..
How did you catch up with Phil Naro? Any more collaborations planned?
Very soon after I moved to Toronto I met Phil at one of his performances. We've stayed in
touch and collaborated on both of my solo albums "Water Of Life" and "Let It Go" as well
as on his band 24K album "Pure" and Mark St. John Project.
As for more collaborations I have things planned but until then I'll keep my fans in suspense.
What are your musical influences? I'd take an educated guess and say Van Halen
and Randy Rhoads :-)
My musical influences went from J. S. Bach to Joe Satriani and many others in between.
Van Halen and Randy Rhoads are guitar legends and deserve the full attention of every
studying guitarist, like I did.
What are your fave leisure activities besides music?
Beside music I like reading, sports (basketball and football-soccer), learning new
languages... but unfortunately I don't have that much time for other activities except music.
I would like to send my Regards to everyone at Rock IT magazine and all your readers. Thank you for taking an interest in my music.
God Bless,