It was shocking to return to those war years

The Bosnian band Zoster last week announced the new album "Najgori" with the track "Treba mi kesh". It is with this project that Zoster will celebrate 20 years on stage, and this track is completely different from anything that the Mostar group has recorded so far. The music and lyrics are written by frontman Mario Knezović, while the band's keyboardist Adis Sirbubalo was in charge of the disco-style arrangement.

"The reactions are twofold. From what we've seen online, there are fans who are looking for some old Zoster sound, but there are also those who like the sound of this track.

It's interesting that this single turned out to be a kind of experiment where we stepped out of our comfort zone, so everything that happens around it is very interesting to me. The songs I wrote for this album I worked on synthesizers. Tracks for previous projects were mostly created on the guitar. Adis just followed the demo and took what I wrote to a higher level through the arrangements and we got what we got", talks about the reactions to "Treba mi kesh" and the new sound of Zoster in an interview with "Vijesti" frontman Mario Knezović.

Just announcing the new album "Najgori", the members revealed that this will be the end of one and the beginning of another era of Zoster, and when asked what that actually means, and whether it is an announcement of a turn in the sound, Knezović answers:

"When I said that it is the end of one era and the beginning of another, it also refers to time itself. Namely, we are now already in our 40s, and we started all this as twenty-year-olds. So it's actually the second era or the second half of our career. Namely, we plan to play for another twenty years and that's it, that's why I divided my career into eras (laughs). We do not plan to change anything in particular in the sound itself, because it is created intuitively, as it comes to us. There is no planning involved. The only thing we plan is to always change. However, in what way we will change in the future, that is the most exciting thing because we ourselves do not know", admits the interlocutor of "Vijesti".

They announced the new album by the end of the year, and all the songs are already finished. The songs for the album "Najgori" were recorded in the studios "Pavarotti" and "Baraka" in Mostar, and in addition to the single "Treba mi keša" it was also announced with the song "Kuda idu svi ti ljudi".

"We recorded the album before the pandemic and now we only have to finish the post-production work. The release depends on how the pandemic will unfold, because we want, when we release the album, to play the songs that will be on it live. We wouldn't want to release it, so let's take a big break until the concerts. That's why we decided to go one song at a time until everything stabilizes," Knezović reveals his plans.

Although many know him as the singer of the band Zoster, Mario also often appears in films. So far, he has played in productions including "Circus Colombia", "Mrtve ribe plajaju na spejni", "Take Me Somewhere Nice", and he also played the journalist and cameraman Zoran Petrović Piroćanac in the film "Quo Vadis Aida" by Jasmila Žbanić, who Bosnian candidate for Oscar.

"I have already shot a lot of films, so I had experience in that business as well. Jasmila called me and asked if I would agree to play the cameraman from Piroćan and gave me the script to read. All this happened in a few hours, I read the script that really shook me and I agreed to participate in her project", he reveals how he came to play in the aforementioned production. He does not hide that he considers it a privilege that he got a role in this production, but also that this story shook him, not only while he was reading the script, but also during the filming itself.

"It was shocking and very hard during the filming itself to go back to those war years and relive some things. All this where we were born, all that we went through, we turned out well", believes Knezović.

Mario's brother is the famous Croatian actor Slaven Knezović, whom we watched in the telenovelas "Lara's Choice", "Rose of the Wind", "Naša mala klinika", "Batange i princesse". As he has acting experience, he did not ask his brother for advice regarding his role in the film "Quo Vadis Aida", but he certainly prepared for his role by watching footage that had just been taken on the battlefield. In 1995, in the days after the army of the Republic of Serbia, on July 11, 1995, occupied that enclave, which was under UN protection, Petrović took the footage that was later included in his film. "I watched the footage and the interview with Piroćan because he was a real person. I also researched his biography a little while preparing for this role," said Knezović.

He is satisfied with the reactions to the movie "Quo Vadis Aida", and hopes that Jasmila will be able to repeat the success of Danis Tanović, who won the Oscar in 2002 with the movie "No Man's Land".

"I have not yet watched anything related to the films that are in competition with Jasmila for the Oscar. I'll watch it when it's all over, when we win the Oscar, then I'll feel like sitting down and watching the rest of the movies. I'm rooting for 'Quo Vadis Aida' to win this prestigious award, and as long as we have a chance, I believe that we will," says Knezović with a laugh.