Culture and true art are sinking into decline every day.

Many know him as a talented guitarist, but Bane Jelić expresses himself artistically much more broadly, through music, writing, and painting. He has been present on the music scene for decades, creating the biggest hits of ex-Yu rock and playing in numerous bands.

Today, through the art he creates, he preserves true values ​​and conveys them to the audience in various ways. He recently released the instrumental album “Illuminations” as well as the book “The Last Joker”, and soon he will also be promoting his paintings.

Jelić talks about all of this, but also about music and understanding rock culture for "Vijesti"...

Bane, you've been busy lately, releasing your seventh instrumental album, a new novel, and you're also preparing an exhibition, even though the paintings aren't finished. Do these different forms of creativity complement each other and influence each other when it comes to artistic expression?

Of course, they complement each other and often intertwine. For example, I made a video from my new instrumental album, “Illuminations”, for the song “Space Joker”. That video is dedicated to my main character from the novel called “The Last Joker”. I also have a painting, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 120 cm, called “Joker”. There are such intertwinings in various ways, in fact it is the same volcano from which my creativity comes, it is just a question of what language I will speak, but the essence and message is similar or the same.

The title of the instrumental “Via Dolorosa”, which opens the album, refers to the symbolism of the pilgrimage “Way of Pain”, while the musical theme that runs through it is based on traditional motifs from this region. How do you interpret the idea of ​​the journey, suffering or redemption through this composition?

I made a video for that song that presents me in a spiritual atmosphere that is a symbolic call to loving suffering, compassion, repentance, a change of life, and ultimately, resurrection into eternal life that only Jesus offers. The video also features a ballerina with an oriental dance, which in my opinion symbolizes the new Herodias, and Herodias symbolizes our passion for the fallen human nature of the fallen Adam and Eve in us, who without Christ cannot gain wings and soar into heaven.

As you mentioned, the album is based on the novel “The Last Joker,” and that’s the title of one of the songs on the album. The Joker, as an alter ego, explores a buffoonish approach to life through the novel. Does writing a novel help you express aspects of your personality that you can’t through music?

I express myself by writing through notes, through images and words. In the novel I expressed or completed my strong artistic trait which aims to awaken modern man who seems to be sleeping in his illusions and delusions of hedonism. Sometimes I don't even know if I am directing art or it is directing me, in any case God has a part.

The novel demands education and spiritual openness from the reader. How risky is it today, when more or less everyone has attention deficit disorder due to their phones, to create works that require concentration and intellectual effort?

The brain, soul and spirit can also be treated as some muscles that a person is called upon to work on to perfect them. When I was young, we all read books and listened to music, wrote poetry, talked about writers, some more, some less. I bought hundreds and hundreds of books and read them for hours, and so my whole life was spent with books and true artistic values. Today it is not like that, today people do not read books, today they only practice voyeurism via the Internet, and then the brain atrophies over time and then we have poor judgment. The state of our culture is such that the best are the most neglected and without connections and channels there is no reward or help for them. It has always been the case that connections and clans make a business, but not like today where that is the only way to succeed. And those who train mindlessly sell us fog on TV and the Internet. Journalists only run after scandals and low passions. Since 1990, people have completely lost the criteria for true artistic values ​​through the media. It is very difficult for a young, genuine and honest artist to succeed and make a living today.

It is often said that art should ennoble and elevate man, and we often witness works in music, literature or painting that are closed and difficult for the audience to understand. Do you think that the artist has a responsibility to ensure that his work is understandable and ennobling, or is “freedom of expression” still primary?

It is good that we have diversity in art, but in my opinion it is bad that darkness and destruction are celebrated through this expression. It is noticeable to me that even if something is seemingly dark, I celebrate light and call for enlightenment and beauty. If suffering is like my poem “Via Dolorosa”, then it is suffering for the sake of love and salvation. Artists manifest exactly what they are encompassed or possessed by. If a person is filled with God, he manifests it through his works, while those who are filled with darkness in their private lives have black public works that will not exalt anyone in beauty and love.

Some of your paintings are a combination of acrylic and pastel. What do you have in store for the April exhibition and will you be taking it to the ex-Yugoslav countries or will your art, when it comes to painting, be enjoyed only by the audience in Belgrade?

I have spent a lot of time in music for the last two years practicing the guitar, but I have also written another novel that will be published in the fall, depending on the publisher. As for the paintings, I will present some of my earlier works with a touch of freshness from a few new medium-format abstract paintings. For now, it will be in Belgrade. Depending on the conditions I need to realize all of this, I may come to Montenegro.

Do you think that contemporary audiences know how to distinguish true innovation in art from what is just popular or following a trend?

I think there are fewer and fewer of them. Back in 2004, I gave an interview saying that I believed that culture and true art were experiencing their downfall every day. It turns out that today, in 2026, I was right and everything hasn't stopped yet, and I don't think it will.

You've been a rock musician for over three decades. This very genre used to be a space of freedom and critical thinking, and today we have so many genres that are critical, and the situation has never been worse. Does this mean that music no longer has any influence and that the audience sees it solely as entertainment?

The spirit of the times in the whole world is bad, more precisely, the spirit of the world is of the antichrist and hence entertainment only for low passions and that is precisely what dominates. Scandals and reality shows are being pushed like any immorality, and social networks only make people stupid. If everyone asked themselves “what have I learned today”, they would see that they have practiced in madness. The moral balance has become as elastic as chewing gum and everyone is right, everyone blames each other, our heavenly mirrors have cracked.

As I said before, the rock scene in the former Yugoslavia had a stronger social role than it does today. How much of that is also due to love songs, because those kinds of lyrics sell the best, and yet most performers play the “safe card.” Do you think that chasing trends is weakening the influence of music and its ability to spark real social conversations?

Well, as I said, the spirit of the times has become slippery and immoral, it is increasingly hedonistic and banal with the aim of seducing man and leading him into the abyss of his own stimuli where beauty, true poetry and culture do not reside, where light and darkness have nothing in common. We no longer have heroes. An honest man cannot live from honest work, and a great and moral artist has no position, he suffers, struggles, suffers for the sake of true values, for the sake of God. In the new world, something must be muddled so that, as they say: "he is resourceful, he is successful". And from whom is he successful? From God or not? What is our general culture, such is our collective condition, and it is cheap and hollow. Here, poems perfectly depict today's man who shamelessly grabs everything in front of him and for whom eroticism and passion replace love.

For decades, rock culture has been synonymous with drug abuse, hedonism, and living on the edge. Why is rock music so strongly associated with this lifestyle, when it seems to me that there is much more of all of this in other genres?

The spirit with which we are filled, we are guided by that spirit, and we create by that spirit. When there is work, order, and discipline in our lives, through that self-control, a person rules himself and his impulses. An ungodly person is susceptible to bad influences, he is seduced by a lifestyle that is not good, and he finds out about it when he gets old. Music protected me from all that. I listened to smart music, lived at a time when people read books, and most importantly, I wanted to be a virtuoso on the guitar. Imagine Stefan Milenkovic to smoke weed or snort cocaine? With that lifestyle, he would have ended his career long ago, and that's the case with all successful virtuosos. Often, public work is also a big burden, so a person relieves stress through alcohol, regardless of whether it's rock or folk music. Although there's something else, rockers don't make much money, so now think about who can buy it from which music first.

Music used to be much better.

Did you contribute to the song "Only the Sky Knows" which was made for the documentary "Beyond the Horizon" about keyboardist Lazar Ristovski? How important is it that we preserve the memory of great people like him and introduce them to the younger generations, while not allowing the older and middle-aged generations to forget those who left a strong contribution to the musical legacy of the former Yugoslavia?

Laza Ristovski has left an indelible mark on music, it is enough to mention that he played with the group Smak and Bijeli dugme. Music was much better back then than it is now. New music for young people is like grilling plastic burgers with the aim of grilling another numb soul clouded by the general state of decay. There are fewer and fewer people who will support the old values ​​because new content shapes them in their own way, and a young person unconsciously absorbs what surrounds him and whether he wants it or not, it shapes and forms him. Blessed are those who learn from the wise and clever, blessed are those who follow the light of “Illuminations”.