Miroslav Wanek on how Už jsme doma reached US audiences like no other Czech band
Miroslav Wanek is the leader of Už jsme doma, a Czech alternative band who this year are celebrating 40 years of existence. Už jsme doma have performed in over three dozen countries, most notably in the US, where they have notched up a remarkable 800-plus shows. Wanek, today 62, also has other strings to his bow. He could have entered politics after playing an active role in the Velvet Revolution in his hometown of Teplice, has taught at Prague’s FAMU film school and worked on a highly popular animated series.
You’re from Teplice. When you got into your teenage years and began getting into music and art was it a bit harder to be an outsider in the regions than it might have been, say, here in Prague?
“Yes [laughs]. Very briefly, yes. But I think it’s still like that. It’s probably a little better now, because of the internet. Transport is also easier.
“But yes, I think I felt it kind of strongly, the difference between life in a small town and in Prague. And when I got a chance to come to Prague it was very different.”
Did you stand also for your appearance when you were younger?
“When my grandfather was standing in the line for the venue all the people were staring at him –they thought he was secret police, or a censor.”
“Actually I lived with my grandparents at the time. I was very lucky with them, because they were very tolerant.
“I lived in a big house, so I had a lot of space for making music. We had a rehearsal room there, and we had plenty of time to practice and to meet other people all together, and so on.
“So it was very nice with them. They were very tolerant. They didn’t really like that music. I don’t think they didn’t like it – they just didn’t notice what kind of music it was [laughs].
“It was very funny actually: I remember later when I played a concert my grandfather came to see it and he was in a suit and tie and with a leather bag.
“And when he was standing in the line for the venue, all the other people were staring at him – because they thought he was secret police, or a censor [laughs]. They didn’t really expect he would be my relative.”
I understand that you were actively involved in the demonstrations in Teplice which took place in the week before the demonstration in Prague that sparked the beginning of the Velvet Revolution?
“Yes. It was November 11, so one week before. There was a 15-year-old guy, whose nickname was Onegin [laughs], and his sister was small and had some real difficulties with her breathing.
“He was very upset about that, and because of the air there – everything was very dirty…”
The pollution was terrible in North Bohemia.
“There was that, and also there were a lot of chemicals in the air. Dirt is bad, but it’s not so dangerous as chemicals.
“The Communists never cared about people. The only thing they did was to install a sign on the street that said ‘Inversion’, if there was inversion.
“And that was the only thing. So of course it didn’t really help the situation [laughs].
“The only thing the Communists did was to install a sign that said ‘Inversion’. Of course it didn’t really help the situation.”
“He was very upset and he wrote a flyer saying people should come to the square to fight against the dirty air.
“Actually lot of people came, surprisingly – maybe five or six hundred people appeared. But that person was not there, because they arrested him immediately.
“I was in a group of people known even before. Of course for the punk band, FPB, and also we published some samizdat – the magazine Pako, from Patafyzické kolegium [Pataphysical College].
“We had organised a lot of things before all that, so it was in a kind of logical way that we appeared among the organisers of these demonstrations.
“On the third day we were in front of the building of the Communist Party – exactly the same pictures as here one week later [laughs], so a line of police, white helmets, nightsticks.
“But in the end there was a little discussion with this guy and he promised to hold a public discussion at the ice hockey stadium.
“But one week later all these things happened here in Prague and the date for the meeting at the hockey stadium was November 20; three days after what happened here.
“So we got there and they said, OK, it’s public and you can say whatever you want. They had a microphone and they would give the microphone to anyone who wanted to talk.
“But the reality was that only the Communists talked. First one, then the boss of some factory, and so on. People were not satisfied with that situation and started to argue.
“And in one moment there was a student, who was from Teplice but he studied here in Prague and he had brought some witness accounts about what was happening here.
“They gave him the microphone and he said, Well, there’s a problem with the air here in Teplice – but what’s more important is what happened in Prague now.
“And once he said that sentence they immediately switched off the microphone. All the people, there were maybe 6,000 at the stadium, said, Give him back the microphone!
“From that moment there was chaos, the end of any discussion, any meeting. But the crowd moved to the main square. There was a little well in the middle of the square and this student stood on top of the well and started again to read the witness accounts from Prague.
“But his voice was very soft. I was standing one or two metres from him and somebody said, Let Míra read it, because his voice is very strong.
“So they put me on top of the well and I started to read it, all over the square.
“Immediately after that I talked to the guy, who said [broad opposition group] Civic Forum was starting in Prague and it would be nice if we could do a local branch.
“Directly from the well [laughs] I went to some office and we started a Teplice Civic Forum branch. And I started to be one of three spokespeople for Civic Forum in Teplice, for six months from that moment.”
To rewind for a little and to speak about your music, when you were in your late teens you had a punk band called FPB, Fourth Price Band [after the fourth, cheapest category of pubs]. What kind of material were you doing? Was it originals or covers?
“Half and half I would say. Maybe 60 to 40 covers and originals.
“From the beginning we had almost only covers. The input [laughs] for us was [musicians’ organisation eventually shut down by Communist authorities] Jazz Section, here in Prague.
“Now they call FPB the ‘godfathers of Czech punk’, but we also played the Residents, and that’s not really punk music.”
“Also, in connection to that, there was some guy living just across the street from my house and he was in contact with Jazz Section. One thing was he introduced me there, and the second thing was he always brought some tapes with some music.
“We didn’t know the names of the bands. Of course we didn’t understand the lyrics or whatever. But we just heard the music and we liked it.
“And on these tapes in one moment I got Pere Ubu, Chrome, Dead Kennedys, just a lot of different stuff, very different music actually. the Residents.
“I was 18 and I didn’t feel any differences between them. For me the Residents and the Sex Pistols, two extremes, were almost like the same, new thing. To me it was new, and new the same way, you know.
“So FPB started to cover these songs. Now they call FPB the ‘godfathers of Czech punk’, which might be true, but we also played the Residents, and that’s not really punk music [laughs].
“I didn’t know the lyrics so I wrote Czech lyrics.
“Sometimes it happened that I heard some song only at a party, where somebody was playing it, and I just heard the refrain, for example, and the next day or two days later it was in my mind and I started to write a song, a cover but in fact it was like a new song, because I only used that motif but the verses, the arrangement and all the other stuff was mine. So it was a very strange mixture of everything like that.
“Later we were encouraged to write our own songs and I think when FPB ended almost all songs were our own production.”
A few years later you joined Už jsme doma and you’re still with the group; you’re the main member and only constant member for all that time. Could you compare the music that you guys do today to what you were doing in the mid-80s? Is it the same, similar, a lot different?
“It is slightly different, but I wouldn’t call it different in terms of style or something like that. I think the style was kind of constituted at the very beginning.
“In our set list you can find at least one song from the very beginning – and it matches together.”
“I feel like we’re making it more and more precise. Now definitely we play better, hopefully [laughs]. And the arrangements are probably more complicated, or sophisticated.
“Also the lyrics are maybe deeper, more poetry. At the beginning they were dada, I would say, and now it’s more like deep poetry.
“So these are differences, but in style I wouldn’t really say that we changed a lot.
“One example of that is that we still play some songs from 1985. In our set list you can find at least one, maybe two, songs from the very beginning – and it matches together.
“To me that means [laughs] that the change is not so strong, as I say, in style or drive or feeling – but it’s much better played now.
“Also the way how I write these songs is different. I always wrote these songs to scores, from the beginning. But I wrote it with piano or guitar or flute, you know, or recorder.
“We practice at home, but everybody separately.”
“I wrote it like that, by hand, to scores for each person and then we practiced it in a rehearsal room and so on; we worked on it.
“And now, for many years how I do it is I sit at home with my computer, I use MIDI [laughs] and I don’t use instruments. I use only a mouse and scores.
“I put a note there and I listen to it. If I like it I keep it, if not I change it, and so on. And I go step by step like that until I’m finally done with the whole score.
“Then I print it as sheet music and each member of the band gets theirs and they learn it. And we don’t practice it, actually – I don’t even remember the last practice.
“People say, Oh, you play so precisely, you must practice every day. But I say, No [laughs], we practice at home, but everybody separately.”
I guess after the revolution happened and the borders opened you must have really been ready to go and really grab the opportunity to record and tour?
“That’s right. And that actually saved me from a political career [laughs], because it was probably in February or March 1990, which was like three months after the revolution, and after my being a spokesperson [for Civic Forum].
“We got an offer from Globus International records, from Austria but actually owned by a Czech, and we went to the studio, we recorded one album. And the same year, three months later, we got an offer from Panton records, and we recorded a second one.
“But we released the second one maybe two years later, because we didn’t want to put two records out in one year, for business reasons.
“But the second album was recorded in the same year, the year after the revolution, because we had a lot of material from the past five years, when we couldn’t record anything.
“So these two albums I don’t really feel as regular band albums. It’s like paying a debt to the past.
“But the first real regular album – which means I wrote it and we practised it and we recorded at the same time and played it on stage – was Hollywood, the third album, in 1993.
“But the first two we recorded immediately. And immediately we got the chance to play abroad, which was also impossible before the revolution.
“First it was Germany, then Holland, Belgium, France, Italy and so on. And then in ’92 we went to the US for the first time as well.”
It’s amazing to me how much you have played in the US: over 800 gigs, which much be at least 700 more than any other Czech band. How did you succeed in making that connection with America that no other Czechs did?
“We were lucky, partly, that we found a person who was able and willing and friendly doing that – organising these tours for us. That was Patrick O’Donnell.
“He came here in I think ’94 and he offered to bring bands to his label [Škoda Records], which was one thing, but also to tour in the US.
“He offered that to maybe 20 bands here and he released an album which is called Czeching In and all these bands had one song there.
“So you can see until now which bands were asked. Including, for example, Mňága a Žďorp, who are now famous here but they never made it abroad.
“I went to both the west and the east coast and I started to make, seriously and precisely, all possible contacts.”
“We had been in the US in ’92 on a cultural exchange. American artists came here, and then we went there – and we were chosen as part of that group of artists.
“During that I made a lot of contacts over there. And then in, I think, January ’94 I went on a private trip to the US again, for like two, three months.
“I went to both the west coast and the east coast and I started to make, seriously and precisely, all possible contacts.
“I brought our vinyls and I spread it to every venue. I went to them personally and wanted to talk to the owners. And every evening I made some notes: what I did, what was possible, what they told me – that I had to call some other person.
“So I kind of created a whole network of theoretical people who are interested to have us.
“And then, in that moment, Patrick came to Czech and he said, I want to make tours in the US. He said this to every band, but only I was prepared. I had all these contacts and everything. I said, OK, I have hundreds of names of people who are interested, so just call them and do it – we are ready to go [laughs].
“And only maybe six or seven months later we went on our first regular tour, with Patrick.
“Then every year we went there twice, or sometimes even three times, for tours of 30 shows each.”
In some record stores [in the US] they put your albums in the “world music” section.
“That’s right [laughs]. It’s a story from the biggest store on Times Square, a huge one. We always went there and there was a huge part with alphabetical order – and we were not there.
“We were in the world music section, because we sing in Czech – I felt that. Also I found in the section Iva Bittová and some other bands from here. So I said, Well, that’s maybe how it is.
“But we always wanted to be in the alphabetical section [laughs]. And one day it happened.
“It took maybe five years but we finally came to that store and we found under the letter ‘U’ UFO, U2, Uriah Heep and Už jsme doma [laughs]. We were very happy about that.”
In 1995 you were the musical director for a show by the Residents in Prague, at the Archa theatre: Freak Show. Tell us about your connection to the Residents, which I know is very important to you. How did it begin?
“At the very beginning was my meeting with them, I mean the music – on these tapes, as I said. FPB also did two songs from the Residents: Santa Dog and Spot.
“When we made our first album in 1990 I don’t know where exactly but I found somewhere an address for the manager of the Residents. His address was in New York.
“I wrote him a letter and I made a parcel with this album. I sent it to him and I asked him if he could pass it on to the Residents.
“I wrote a short letter saying how we loved them and how we encountered their music and so on. I said finally we can release an album and I wanted to give them music that was partly inspired by them.
“And one year nothing happened. But after one year I got a letter, very long – maybe two, three pages – signed by the Residents.
“They wrote many interesting things. I was very happy about that of course. Besides other things, they wrote an idea that I had never thought about that way.
“They said, There was an Iron Curtain between West and East, but that Iron Curtain had two sides. So if you didn’t have any, or very little, information about what’s going on in the West, in culture, music, science, whatever, the same situation, maybe worse, applied the opposite way.
“We don’t know anything about your culture, your music, your painters or whatever like that.
“And they wrote there, We wouldn’t be surprised, now that the Iron Curtain is gone, if a huge stream of very interesting art will come to America, or the West generally, and many artists here in the US will be inspired by your art.
“I tell you, that was so nice to read. It was really huge encouragement. For me it was a very important sentence. Maybe it was just polite, but I felt it very strongly.
“And they said one kind of compliment there: We wouldn’t be surprised if Už jsme doma were in the middle of these influences. That was a huge compliment to us.
“And, at the end, they wrote, If you, just by chance, are going around San Francisco you can visit us in our Secret Studios.
“We were laughing, like, How can we get to the US, to San Francisco? It was nice to read it, but at the same time it was nonsense.
“But one year later the Linhart Foundation here in Prague organised that cultural exchange and among the American artists was Laurie Amat, who was the singer in Freak Show.
“So I met her, I got in touch with her, I showed her the letter and she said, Yes, I can introduce you. And probably she was the one who pushed the Linhart Foundation to choose us as a member of the cultural exchange group from Czech coming to the US.
“So in 1992, very unexpectedly, we appeared in San Francisco and I said, Well, we are here so we will use this letter as an invitation to Secret Studios [laughs].
“Laurie of course helped us to get there – and finally we met face to face. We started to be very close friends and every time we went to the US they always came, if they could, to the show.
“And of course when they come here, not only in Prague but also in Austria and Poland and wherever, I go to see them. So since then we are very, very close friends.
“And when in 1995 Archa theatre – because the director, Ondřej Hrab, was a big fan of the Residents too – started to think about doing Freak Show live the kind of logical choice of musical director was me, because we already knew each other.
“I then spent maybe four months in San Francisco. I was going there like an everyday job. There was the Residents’ composer, sitting by the computer, and in the morning at 9 or something I came there and I sat with him until 5 pm, when we went for a beer somewhere [laughs].
“Every day for months. There was a lot of work on it. In the end I transcribed 600 pages of score for an eight-piece orchestra, and then I conducted the show as well, yes.”
I have a couple of questions about your other activities. You have taught film, including at FAMU. What aspect of filmmaking do you teach?
“That’s right, I was teaching at FAMU, but I was teaching music there.
“What happened was there was at director at FAMU, Aurel Klimt, who was graduated, or doing his last final exam or something. And his movie was Magic Bell; it was a short movie, 15 minutes.
“He asked Martin Velíšek for art for it…”
He’s the guy who does all your album covers, T-shirts and so on?
“Yes. But probably he liked Velíšek first. Maybe he didn’t even know the band.
“And when he asked Velíšek, he said, Yes, I will do it for you – but the music has to be by Mirek.
“So I wrote the music, Už jsme doma recorded it and we did that movie. It was really kind of successful; it was at some festivals abroad, and so on and so on.
“Aurel later asked me if I would work with him, and Velíšek too, on Fimfárum, on a movie for cinemas. So we did that as well and it was also kind of successful.
“So then I got an offer from Zlín, where there was also a film school, asking me if I wanted to teach there dramaturgy of music for animated movies.
“I said OK. But there was no textbook for that so I had to write a textbook; I wrote a textbook of around 300 pages.
“I taught there nine years maybe, and during that time they also asked me at FAMU – they had the subject animated movies at FAMU, but not dramaturgy of music for animated movies.
“They wanted to bring it to their students as well and there was nobody who was teaching that; I kind of created it because I wrote the textbook [laughs].
“They invited me to do the same, so maybe two years I taught at both schools.”
Also what’s amazing to me is that you also worked on Večerníček, you did the music for a series [Krysáci/The Rats] for Večerníček, which is the most popular children’s show – it’s part of everybody’s life in this country.
“Yes, and I have to say this one was very successful. It was actually done in Zlín, in those studios.
“When there was the anniversary 50 years of Večerníček they were asking everybody from adults to kids what were there favourite fairy tale, and this series was number one among those made after the revolution.
“There were several classic series from before the revolution, but among what was made after the revolution, this one was first.”
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