Darko Rundek

(continued)

Interview by Rada Djurica

If David Byrne classifies his music as world music, do you think that Darko Rundek can be called the ex-Yugoslavian David Byrne?

There are touching points [similarities], and David Byrne encouraged and inspired me…so as it exist so many Venices [St. Petersburg, the Venice of the North], why not some more Byrnes? …I'm one of Byrne, then (smiles).

Can you comment on the contemporary music scene?

It seems that, thanks to hyper-availability and, considering that I don't know how many rooms filled with vinyl records fit into one iPod, I can say that people are less and less interested with music…but shopping is more interesting, I think…

Who was the first musician that you bought?

Double single Magical Mystery Tour by The Beatles and Drago Mlinarac's first album.

Who influences your music?

Everything I hear and everything my ancestors heard.

Would you like to direct a theatre play now, considering that you are a theatre director by your education?

I don't have that need to direct.

Tell us something about pirate radio on the boat ship where you worked during the civil war in ex-Yugoslavia.

I wasn't playing music, but working on a radio sound design, and I was one of two music editors and DJs. That was a project of the European community, directed toward breaking information barriers and propaganda machines of ex-Yugoslavian countries caught in the civil war. The boat office had independent journalists from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro…We had studio and antenna on 65-meter-long ships in the international waters of the Adriatic Sea. The Radio Ship was broadcasting 24 hours of day, the year of 1993-94. I worked there the first six months.

Can you live abroad out of your music?

I can.

Have you ever had the chance to play with David Byrne?

No.

Who makes up your audience outside of ex-Yugoslavia?

It is a curious audience that, in mainstream music, looks for fulfillment in the communication with a more or less younger and educated ex-Yugoslavian emigration.

What is the next project that you are working on?

At this moment I'm working on new songs; I am mixing the recorded music made for the performance of The Ballades of Petrice Kerempuha, which was first done this summer on Brijuni Island in Istria, directed by Rade Sherbedzija and myself, and Isabel and I performed the music.

I also have reversals for Hamlet in Paris, for which I am composing stage music. Soon I shall give the last touch to a mix, right now done in Berlin by Mario Fister.

Also I am working on a double live album with Cargo Orchestra.

By end of the spring I have two more stage music to do, in France and Germany.

Would you write music for a film and, if so, what film?

Until now I have manufactured [written] music for four feature films, several documentaries and short films. Therefore, I would write something I get a proposal for. I will accept the project if the script and realization of the project seems to be interesting, and the fee adequate.