interview with Żywiołak

Have any of you played in other bands? Yes of course. I have played in  Ich trole or The Warsaw Village Band for example. Michał have played in R.u.t.a. Kamil played in Posing Dirt. Many of us create different music projects .. Wiktoria Kwiatkowska is the leader of Makagiki. I still create Loopus Duo with my other friend. We have many artistic faces..
How is it that you started playing music? I finished a music school studying trumpet. I had to practice and play many tunes I really didn`t want to play..  I started to search for something on my own..  I so wanted to create something simple any mysterious . So I came back to roots of polish music culture. I came back to village from my childhood . To fairytales and stories coming back from nature . From fields and woods. I started to look for different instruments. And this is just longer story.
What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you?
Robert Jaworski – hurdy gurdy, renaissance fiddle, flute,lute, bowed gusli, vocal. Olga Rembowska – fiddle, lead vocale. Kamil Strzyżewski – the romantic lute , acoustic bass guitar. Wiktoria Kwiatkowska – lead vocal, percussionalia. Michał Stawarz – percussion, percussionalia. Emilia Zbierska – vocal , percussionalia.
The Żywiołak project was created in 2005.
Have you had other previous members? They were: Robert Wasilewski , Maciej Łabudzki , Izabela Byra , Anna Piotrowska , Maciej Dymek , Karina Kumorek, Monika Wierzbicka.
Did you make music even when you were young? I was happy Young vocalist. My parents was trying to show me just anywere.
Where are you from? I come from the centre of Poland. The city is called Turek.
What place is the band form? The band works in Warsaw.
What's your style of genre? We play kind of experimental heavyfolk or folkrock music.
What inspires you?  There are many inspirations. For those days we get ideas inspirations mostly from Pomeranian (northern of Poland) folk culture.  
Do you have other interests of work outside the band? Yes.. Some of us are very active musician and some of us has regular work time in their life. But we all trying to push this band to the professional level activity. We have many interests: Painting, making tattoo, wood carveing, movie making.
Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? In Poland we cooperate with Karrot Kommando agency but it would be very nice to get cooperation with kind of similar people from abroad.
What made you decide to make this music? There is one very important band in my life. There is Swedish Hedningarna. I love this mysterious style they present. There was crucial moment in my life when I first listened Trä album. Few years after I decided to create kind of “polish style Hedningarna continuation”.
What are your songs about? Our songs touch the topic of the “polish folk demonology”. And this is really connected with Slavic myths. We search for those stories and show it with new modern context.
Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? Each of us trying to bring something to work on. Some of us more or less. I have many ideas for this music style. So when there is no ideas from the rest I start to lead with my ideas.
Do you start with the music or the lyrics? There is no one strict rule.. Each idea is really individual.
Have you done any covers live? Some time ago we were making a music jokes and we was playing main “Mission Impossible” musical theme (playing on the hurdy gurdy). Ones or twice a time we played it life.
What language do you sing in? We use mainly polish language but also ukrainian and cassubian whiche is the dialect of polish language. We going to use Estonian and maybe Latvian or Lithuanian language in the future.
Do you have a regular place you play live often? We play quite a lot in polish clubs. Some of them we know very well because we comeback to it quite often. 
Have you had to cancel a gig?  Yes. Most of those situations are connected with diseases during autumn and winter time .
Where do you plan to gig the comming year? We have no idea. It is always surprise when someone invite us to new place.
Where can people buy your merchandise? We usually sell it on the concerts but also You can order it from us or from our agency.
What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? They have full right to do it. Life is changing all the time and there are more and more new paths of music streaming. We not avoid this.
What do you think of my work? You are very clever and ambitious. I really appreciate kind of people like You.
Do you have any role models or idols? I suppose everyone has. In some point I suppose for me this model is my father.
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? This is really amazing to take inspirations from  both of them.
What advice would you give other bands or artists? Follow your heart.
Do you have any new material? I suppose we will have it in the relative beginning of 2017
What are your web sites? www.zywiolak.pl  www.facebook.com/zywiolak  www.youtube.com/user/zywiolakofficial
How can people reach You? We regularly read messages on our facebook fanpage. But on our website there are contacts to each of us. Try it.
What are your plans for the future? To record the new cd and record another cd and another and another and another.. ;)

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