It was fitting that during this terrible year, one of the most popular alternative rock bands in the region, Kanda Kodža and Nebojša, is celebrating a proud jubilee - three decades of existence. The situation for musicians has never been worse, but that did not prevent the Belgrade rockers from celebrating their success with a new release that included old songs. The double album "Popis", published by Mascom, records how KKN performs its timeless classics today, 23 tracks from all stages of the band's career. The Belgrade rockers, who are also particularly loved by the Montenegrin audience, seized the moment to release this release, but the global corona pandemic prevented them from doing what they love most - through live concerts, they have direct contact with the audience. In an interview with "Vijesti", drummer Vladan Rajović revealed that they were not swayed by this situation, so KKN is working hard on the new album, they have already completed two thirds of it.
Working on new material?
We work non-stop, it's an escape from reality... We've also renewed a lot of material that we don't play for a long time, we're entertaining ourselves and waiting for this madness to finally stabilize a little, so that we can perform. In this crisis, the only good thing is that you really have time to look back and see where you are. And then you really see: we're constantly playing, the album came out, a bunch of interviews, we still function as if everything is more or less fine, but you realize that the basis of everything is that live gig, communication with people and we miss that. This exchange of energy with people is an organic need.
Is that basically why you exist?
Well yes. Now when you set things up, it's clear that one big makeup is all around you, that the main thing, the essence is that - live concerts, contact with people. That and studio work, when you create some new music. Everything else is more or less unnecessary for you, this is the essence, but other things have to exist for it to work. Unfortunately, this happens not only to us, but to all musicians in the world. But well, there are bigger problems than that. You need to be patient, what else.
Since when have you been working on new material and in what direction is it going?
I think it will be a slightly different album compared to the previous one. The strongest so far, in terms of concreteness of the sound, not some ferocity. There is already a lot of mileage behind us, 30 years, and now we are focusing on some details that were passed on to us earlier, and that's how we get a new dimension. We've always relied a lot on improvisation and intuition, and now we're trying to be absolutely aware of our "expensive" arrangements. We have a lot of time to work on the details, but we're going fast. Let's say we did three songs in a week and after three rehearsals we can already enter the studio to record them. The band now has a certain chemistry that whatever we play is immediately music. All those years of working together have agreed, I think that we are at the peak both musically and creatively. That's why we made this album on the occasion of the band's 30th anniversary, we recorded it in the studio on one, two, three, all together. And we worked like that in the past, but not completely, there were recorded parts. Here we recorded absolutely everything live, 25 songs in two days. In essence, it is not a "best of", but we chose according to different criteria. Most of the biggest hits are there, and there are some that due to circumstances we didn't include, we preferred to include some songs that we weren't satisfied with how they turned out on the albums or some that are very good for us, but didn't get adequate attention, We are very strong pleased with how it all turned out. The comments are good, the publisher told us that there are very few records left, so there will probably be another run, so that's some good news.
It is obvious that it is not "best of", there are not many old songs, how difficult was it to make that list of songs?
Well, yes, "Priroda" and "Stastopojo" and "Proči če i vuhovo" should have entered there according to the best of criteria, but they didn't. Our playing sensibility is turned towards these songs. We have had a problem with set lists for a long time. Especially from the album "Soon", which the audience really liked, a lot of songs stood out, and we love that album and would literally play it in its entirety. And that album is 40 minutes of music, and the concerts are about two hours, when someone is crazy, an encore, they can be two and a half. But even with two and a half we don't get to cover two, three, four songs per album and someone always asks why it wasn't this and that song.
The second corona wave interrupted your promotion, did it spoil your momentum or is it lucky that people still know those songs and you don't need so much promotion?
Well yes. It has reached people, the publisher is pleasantly surprised at how well sales are going at the moment. Many people like to have it in their collection, you can't even find a lot of albums at all, and then people find it convenient because of that, and the songs sound different. The problem is not the interrupted promotion, but the continuity of playing. We got people in Belgrade used to playing 7-8 times a year, and now suddenly no one is playing, so everyone is eagerly waiting for the gigs. But I'm glad the band won't be unprepared. There are bands, friends who are totally depressed, they don't work at all. Even now, when this started, it was a month in the making, they complained that it now takes them two months just to assemble. We are in full form, we are waiting like loaded guns.
We are an upper middle class band
Many live from gigs, but there are none. What is the relationship of the state, can it survive?
Musicians are literally the first to stop working and will probably be the last to start working. Someone grabbed maybe one or two gigs this month and that's all in the last six months. That's a huge period, and most of those people live off of music alone. At the same time, those incomes are month after month, no epoch-making money is earned. We are, let's say, a high-middle-class band, we are not the first league - Bajaga and the like, but we are just below, so we can live off that, but nothing above that, no kuksuz. And those bands of that caliber, our friends, it's all month after month and now suddenly you don't have anything for half a year, it's really quite a difficult situation. As for the state, it has helped independent artists, but there are not many of them. Our generation only entered a few years ago - we, Nikola Vranjković, Maja Cvetković (E-play)... Otherwise, it used to be the privilege of pensioners, aged 65 and older. So very few people have that status, and they got minimum personal incomes. Sokoj helped and it turned out to be extremely correct, even this year I don't think there has ever been a better profit than them. I don't know how it happened all of a sudden that everyone did much better, but I guess there was some mechanism because of this situation. And they gave some one-time help of 200 euros. All of that helps of course, but there is no help system if this goes on, and by God it looks like it will.
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