Czechmate diary interviews the Plastic People of the Universe! / Czechmate diary udelal rozhovor s Plastic People of the Universe!

So I went to see the magnificent Plastic People of the Universe the other day. And it was GREAT! Not only I was privileged enough to hear their music but I also got to do an INTERVIEW with them!!! I kind of expected for them to be a little stuck up (they deserve to be- after all they went through…) but they were the nicest,down to earth bunch of musicians. My husband, a musician himself, was really impressed by them as well.I am going to review their history here a little so you can really appreciate the interview.

For over three decades the PPU was the foremost representative of Prague’s underground culture. Their avant-garde style of playing went completely against the grain of the Communist regime and many times also suffered serious persecution and frequent arrests. The band was created back in 1968 by a bassist Milan Hlavsa. Their music was heavily influenced by bands like the Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa. In 1974 the PPU were scheduled to play in Ceske Budejovice, however since it was illegal to have a gathering of  500 people or more, most of their audience was arrested by the police. From that day they were officialy on the black list and were forced underground until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. What the communist didn’t expect though is that an entire underground cultural movement formed around the band, which in turn led a playwright and band’s good friend, Vaclav Havel, write the famous Charter 77. In those adventurous years “the Plastics” were arrested many times, convicted of “organized disturbance of peace” and sentenced to prison of 8 to 18 months at a time.

What is ironic is the PPU always claimed that they wanted to only play their music – that’s all. They weren’t interested in politics at all. Little did they know that they were going to become one of the causes that defeated communism in Czechoslovakia.

The history (and the music) of the band have been recently captured in one of Tom Stoppard’s new play Rock ‘n’ Roll, which had a premier in London in January 2007. To read more about this band and what are they currently up to, go to their MySpace page (click here).

I had the pleasure to do an iterview with Vrata Brabenec (saxophone, clarinet, and vocals) and Eva Turnova (bass guitar, vocals). Both were such a nice people and so easy to talk to that it was hard to stop talking!

• PODCAST: Listen to the Czechmate diary interview with  the Plastic People of the Universe (CLICK HERE!)
• READ THE INTERVIEW BELLOW:

1. What impression do you have of the US? Any significant difference between the first time you came and now?

Eva: for me the first time with the band was only 3 years ago, so it is rather a question for Vrata.
Vrata:  The first time I came to the US was January 1989. The PPU were performing at a  beneficial concert in a Manhattan club called “Kitchen” and we were to alert people about the fact that our artistic manager Ivan Martin Jirous was in the heaviest jail in Czechoslovakia. So we wanted to make an event to support him. And the communists obviously didn’t like such events. The second time I came to the US was in 1999 – it was our first tour as the PPU; we were touring the East Cost, the West Coast, we had 3 concerts in Canada – It was great!
What changed? Dollar is worth almost nothing right now, you can compare this situation to the Black Friday in 1929 when America was just a surviving nation. It’s a political situation because of your current president, but I hope it will be better after the elections. It will be better for the whole world if America has a better, more intelligent president than the one it has now.

Eva: The American tour in 1999 also celebrated the fact that after many years the band got together again. The band got together on the occasion of the 20 year anniversary of the Charta 77, so the PPU were invited by Vaclav Havel to play at the Prague Castle. You could see the country’s leading dissident intellectuals and  long-haired rock’n’roll underground musicians together again. It was so successful that many concerts of PPU followed and the house was packed every time! And then 2 years later the main leader/composer died which was a big loss for the band.

Tanja: I read that you guys were…sad that he died…but you also felt freed in a certain way…

Vrata: Well, he (Milan) was a composer, bass guitarist and singer. But now we have Eva as a bass guitarist and great singer as well.

Eva: Yeah, they picked me because of my long legs (laughter). But it was a bit difficult because Milan was a very charismatic person and many people thought the band should just cease to exist because he was not only the main engine but also a very dogmatic kind of a person. So, after his death, the guys started to express themselves much more freely: they started to improvise more, the solos are now not played strictly at the same moment and there is a lot of space for musical synergies, as if one felt a human and divine spirits cooperating. There was also a certain disagreement among the members of the band because Milan wanted to sample out the new musical technologies out there. But Vrata, for example, wanted to keep the old character of the band, more psychedelic and more natural, that’s how it sounds now only it has a more progressive sound.

Vrata: We like making music as a project. Recently we have been working on three projects the two of them being reproductions of our concept albums from the earliest days but today with the contemporary-music ensemble Agon orchestra. The first original album was composed by Hlavsa and it is called “Nemesis Celebrated” inspired by the Czech philosopher Ladislav Klima, the second one is called the “Passion Play” music again by Mejla and words adapted from the New Testament by me (Vrata), the third project is something like a rock-n-roll opera called the “Railway Station Opera” and it was premiered in a real station setting where people, together with  the musicians, got on a crowded train and headed towards the main stage…

Eva: ..And it was a blast – real happening! It looked like in the old days, except we didn’t dress up that much but there was a theatre set and people around wore costumes, we also had an opera singer who sings with us….The story reveals a dream of Vrata’s friend, Mr. Sadovsky who happened to fall asleep on a train one day and that’s what he dreamt.
We currently also play in the National Theatre before each performance of Tom Stoppard’s play Rock’n’roll. Stoppard is Czech by birth and his play gives a superb survey of the periods ranging from 60s to 90s.

2.  At first the PPU were not interested in the politics at all. But whether you wanted or not you became a political symbol of  the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and therefore you had to pay attention to politics. How about now? Are you still interested in politics?

Vrata: We know about what is happening around but it’s not our focus. We would like to be more poetical than political. We have never sang political songs, there was just that  one  song called “Hundred points” (1978) which had political lyrics in it.

Eva: But we don’t stay away, we do get involved in some things, like the event “We don’t talk to the communists”. This band has really become a legend based on the fact that they really destroyed our country so when there is a chance we just express our thoughts.
Vrata: It’s necessary to do that.

3. What attracted you as a musicians in 60’s and 70’s to a progressive music like Frank Zappa and Velvet Underground? These bands were pushing the boundaries  at that time. How about now, do you know of any bands (Czech or foreign) that do that?

V: I joined the band in 1972 I always wanted our band to have its original sound and expression with the Czech lyrics. Instead of clumsily singing in a funny English I have always thought to sing in our own language music which we create.

E: It’s more and more difficult to influence people by music; In the 60’s there was a different atmosphere – a war atmosphere – so it was easier to do that. But nowadays people don’t react that much to this kind of playing anymore. I wonder why that is. Even in Prague I thought that it would be different after the Velvet revolution, that we would set on much more of a spiritual path. But our country now is more capitalistic than any other country around us. Everything is so much more about money then about relationships and spirituality and that’s very sad. It’s all twisted. That’s not what we presumed during the Velvet Revolution! We used to drive around the country talking to people, trying to convince them to go to the general strike and they did. And it changed the whole establishment. I doubt that this similar behavior of togetherness would happen now.

Tanja: I even wonder sometimes if the kids nowadays know what the Velvet Revolution is!

Eva: No, I don’t think so.

4.  Did you ever meet Vaclav Havel and what was your first impression of him?

Vrata: Disappointment. (laughter). When I finished my time in jail I was invited to his farm and I expected this buffed guy, 6 feet tall, with shiny black hair, but he was a small guy with blond hair. But we immediately clicked and became good friends. He supported us so much! We even did couple of our recordings on his farm and he paid for the whole thing. We also performed our “Passion Play” there and Vaclav asked me if we would allow this young band to be our for-band. The band was called “Psi vojaci” and they were about 13 years old at that time. We are still friends with them, they are great. We have to remember that it wasn’t just our band that was responsible for the fall of communism, it was other bands too. We all influenced each other.

Eva: Havel comes to our concerts from time to time and sometimes asks us to introduce him as the non-playing member of the band…

Tanja: ohhh, that’s soo sweet!!

Eva: (laughter) People just adore him..

5. I know that a lot of people asked you already about your time in prison during communism. But I will ask you again because I think it is important for people to always remember those times. So, here I go: What would they do to you in prison? Would they beat you?

Vrata: It was a complete nonsense.

Eva: They would beat them up, drown them…it was quite the torture!
Vrata: I would say I survived about 80 or 90 interrogations which was sometimes very exhausting.
Eva: They also pretended that they kidnapped Vrata’s daughter and they made him defect the country.
Vrata: But the truth is that some prison guards would be very polite, they would ask if I had enough cigarettes and stuff.
Eva: They even made one of the episodes of the famous TV series called “Major Zeman” about the PPU. They made them look like hooligans and druggies. That’s how they brainwashed people and many of the viewers still believe it was true up until recently. I think it’s very difficult for Americans to understand this whole think. When I tell them that we used to buy music in a black market in the deep woods and that we would get arrested for getting caught exchanging Pink Floyd albums – which cost a fortune, by the way…something like 500 Czech crowns!

Tanja: Thank you so much for taking the time and doing an interview with such a “lowly worm” like me and I wish you guys the best of luck!