Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

Have any of you played in other bands? Aleksandar: Petar (singer) had few bands in the past, last band before he made this band with me was Inquisitia, Marko (drummer) was played and also playing in few cover bands, Slobodan (bass) have one more band Dark Dawn and also have some side projects, playing in theater and I had 2 tries to play in cover bands and realised that I can’t do it, I only want to play my music and started this story about Northern Revival.

How is it that you started playing music? Aleksandar: It happened by chance on the second year of faculty. I met one guy, we start to hang out and in that period  he was trying to sell his cheap acoustic guitar and bought some better and he convinced me to buy it from him because he knew I had the desire to learn to play since I was kid but somehow that never happened and  that’s how it was started.

What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you?

Petar (singer) - 32

Marko (drums) - 22

Slobodan (bass) - 35

Aleksandar (guitar) - 29

Have you had other previous members? Aleksandar: Yes, several bassists and drummers have passed through the band.

Did you make music even when you were young? Aleksandar: No…I didn’t know how to play.

Where are you from? Aleksandar: We are from Novi Sad, Serbia, Europe.

What year did the band form? Aleksandar: In October 2012.

What's your style of genre? Aleksandar: We don’t care too much about genres but we are mostly into stoner, sludge, southern, doom, rock/metal.

What inspires you? Aleksandar: Everything, sometimes it is movie, sometimes song from other band, situations in life…If something really touch me inside I like to take guitar and try to describe my feelings with music. Some of that music I use in our songs but many of that instrumentals will stay in my computer only for me, like a diary.

How often and where do you reherse? Aleksandar: We do not have a steady schedule, our friend where we are recording also have a practice studio but maybe we would soon make our own rehearsal studio.

Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? Aleksandar: We would like to have somebody to do booking for us in future. We worked with booking agencies. Usually the case was some agency is organising gigs in few clubs in one city and can give you contacts from other agency from other city…they are mostly volunteers who like to socialize and enjoy in music. It’s long story because in this part of Europe financial standard is low, bands are mostly DIY, you have only few radio and tv shows about rock/metal music, bands don’t have managers because they can’t pay them…everything is much harder and you need much more time to accomplish something than in some developed countries.  So we are playing gigs often but usually doing booking by ourselfs.

Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? Aleksandar: Yes, we are finishing our first album and looking for some label to publish it. Last year Miner Records published our EP: Mouth Full Of Dirt but now we will try to make next step and find some label abroad and have better conditions.

What are your songs about? Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? Do you start with the music or the lyrics? What language do you sing in? Aleksandar: About regular life and people from our perspective. Petar is writing lyrics and all songs are on English. I’m making music at home and on rehealsals we are trying to put together that ideas, how time is goes by more and more music was made from jamming on rehealsals because we now know good each other. Often starts with music, after we are combining music with vocals and working on music so lyrics can better be shown in songs but we don’t have regular path it's from song to song.

Have you done any covers live? Aleksandar: No, we never play any cover song even on rehealsal, we don’t want to be band like that…only want to share our music.

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? Aleksandar: It depends, is it festival when you have about 30 minutes or regular 2-3 bands concert. If we have regular concert we play all our songs, we are young band, have 14 songs.

Where have you played live this year?

Aleksandar: We started in february, mostly in Serbia but also have gigs in region and until the end of the year will be more dates.

02.05. – CK13 – Novi Sad

02.06. – Rock Club Floyd – Becej

02.20. – Boom – Odzaci

03.19. - PodrumChe – Kula

04.16. – School Of Rock, Spens – Novi Sad

04.23. – United Metal Festival 6, Quarter – Novi Sad

05.05. – Vrtoglavica – Beograd

05.07. – AG Club – Sarajevo/BIH

05.13. – DRUM – Velika Plana

05.14. – Dom Omladine – Kragujevac

06.03. – Bike Rock Fest – Prnjavor/BIH

06.18. – Open Air – Smederevo

07.07. – Alparfeszt – Tiszaalpar/Hungary

08.13. – Boom – Kula

08.23. – Kunigunda Festival – Velenje/Slovenia

10.08. – GBOB, Casa Tineretului – Timisoara/Romania

Where do you plan to gig the comming year? Aleksandar: Next year we will try to play more abroad, and promote new album everywhere we could play.

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? Where can people buy your merchandise?  Aleksandar: In 2015. we start with merch when we got CDs for EP and then make t-shirts and badges, unfortunatelly we sold everything but new album is coming and we will make promo pack. If anybody is interested to buy EP can get it from our publisher Miner Records. https://www.facebook.com/MinerRecords

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? Aleksandar: Well today it become normal, we all doing that but if you download album of some band and like it, contact band and buy CD or vinyl, it would be fair. For undergroud it could be good because it’s easier to earn some new fans but generally music has lost value and bands only can earn money on gigs from tickets and merch.

What do you think of my work? Aleksandar: I like you don’t ask questions that become cliché and people can’t find out anything about band from it, you went deeper into it.

Do you have any role models or idols? Why do you think that they exist? Aleksandar: I like many bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, Clutch, Down, The Sword, Mastodon etc. but I’m not kid anymore so I like them but don’t want to be copy of Tony Iommi, Pepper Keenan, Tom Morello etc. It is good when you start to play to have some bands/musicians you like and see how they are doing that thing and see that everything is posible if you are working hard but now I’m more into that to have my own stile of riffing, you know, when people hear new song and know that is your band. It’s better to be even bad but on your own than be somebody’s copy.

How do you get psyched for a gig? Aleksandar: Just relax with band mates, take a beer…take guitar few minutes before show to warm up fingers and when I go to stage and start playing every life problem, everything disappears, I’m then in my comfort zone and for every song I have pictures or scenes that run through my mind.

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? Aleksandar: No rules, in every decade you have great bands.

What have been your biggest obstacles? Aleksandar: The biggest obstacle to my band is a country in which we live and the standard of living because when people live hard music is not on first place to the audience, the less you go to concerts, less is sold merch and then it is harder for bands to plan tours, recordings etc.

Do you have any new material? Aleksandar: This days we are finishing mixing of new album Life Surviving Tips, in February we published official video for song Heavy Deliver Man you can find on youtube. Some of songs from album we are playing quite long time so I’m excited because we start already to work on new material, have one new song and almost done second. Now we can enjoy in jamming and see how will next album sounds like.

What are your web sites? How can people reach you?

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NorthernRevival

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SlowHandManLive

e-mail: [email protected]

What are your plans for the future? Aleksandar: Keep working…album promotion in automn, more gigs, more videos, more albums…

Do you have something to add? Aleksandar: Thanks for this chat, you make me thinking about some things I didn’t long time J Keep rocking \m/