interview with HELLCATS

Have any of you played in other bands? We have played in some bands before Hellcats, our singer Daša still has two bands. 

How is it that you started playing music? We started to perform together early in childhood when we were still in music school. Sasha played classical guitar and Sonja flute. Later on Sonja switched to drums and Sasha to bass guitar.

What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you? Hellcats are: Sasha Zagorc – bass guitar, backing vocals, author, manager of the band; Sonja Zagorc – drums, backing vocals, author; Dasha Makuc – vocals; Katja Mavec – guitar

Have you had other previous members? We had some band member changes. Due to the small size of Slovenian music space it wasn't easy to find many female musicians. Especially in metal music. Metal is not very popular between women here, they visit concerts but very rarely play instruments or sing in the metal bands.

Did you make music even when you were young? We started to make music in teenage years. 

Where are you from? We are from Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.

What year did the band form? We started searching for the other band members in 2003, but we needed some time to realize it, and in 2006 we had our first gig and that is the real start for us. 

What's your style of genre? Our music is a combination of rock, femininity, women power, passion and heavy metal.

What inspires you? The biggest motivation to write the songs is life itself. We talk about good things in life such as love, desires, passion and strength. Our songs are filled with optimism and energy. We have a lot to tell and we want people to feel good when they listen to our music. The main concept of the band is to show the world the idea of heavy metal music from our point of view. We are extremely proud when people say they are inspired by us. 

How often and where do you rehearse? We have our own rehearsal space, so we can rehearse whenever we want. Usually once per week, before concerts more.

How have you developed since you started with the music? 10 years of performing gave us a lot of experiences. We grew. We learned a lot about music business, our writing music grew and much more. It's hard to describe all of it. Now we are more aware of what to expect out of different situations. There are not many things that can surprise us.

Do you have other interests of work outside the band? We all have other jobs, because Slovenia is too small country to live just out of making music. At least metal music. 

Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? Through the years we received some offers of different agencies and labels, but for now nothing serious. If we would get the right offer, we would not hesitate to accept it.

Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? The same answer as at the question 13.

What made you decide to make this music? The authors of the songs are Sasha and Sonja Zagorc. The thing that motivated us and still does is love and dedication to the music in general. But the main thing is that Sasha and I besides that we are sisters; we are also the best friends. We are motivating each others from the childhood when we started to perform together, when we were still in music school. We always listen to each others and talk about everything what we wanted to do. 

What are your songs about? Our music is about love, desires, passion and strength. Our songs are filled with optimism and energy. We have a lot to tell and want that people feel good when they listen to our music.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? Sasha and Sonja are the authors of all the song. We write all of it, music, lyrics and we also participate in production of it.

Do you start with the music or the lyrics? Sometimes we write the music first, sometimes the lyrics.  There is no special key to it. We work by the feeling and inspiration.

Do you compose in a certain environment? A lot of songs were written at the seaside where we like to go as often as we can. We need peaceful environment, where we can create without disturb

Have you done any covers live? We play at a lot of bikers meetings, and there we also play some covers like ACDC, Pantera, Judas Priest,etc.

What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs? Mostly we have quite big audience. 

What ages are most of your concert attendants? All ages, from 5 to 70 🙂 We have a lot of fans between children and also a lot of older rockers love us. Most of the attendants are still our age.

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? It depends of the duration of the concert and the type. If we play at metal event we chose more metal songs if we play at rock events more rock songs.

Do you have a regular place you play live often? In some places we play every year, since they like us so much.

What was your first gig like? Our first gig was back in the 2006 at the opening of one music studio here in Ljubljana. We knew 4 songs at the time, wanted to play 2 of them. At the end people wanted more, so we played all four of them.

What was your latest gig? Our latest gig was at all-female festival named 'Dan Rock Žena' which is held every March due to the International Women's Day. The festival supports women in rock music, helps them to make a breakthrough to the concert venues and promotes their original music. Organizers of Dan Rock Žena are Sasha and Sonja Zagorc. 

Have you had to cancel a gig? We are a band that don't cancel gigs. We take gigs very seriously. Unfortunately in all this years there were some situations that we had to cancel some gigs. 

Where do you plan to gig the comming year? First we will finish our new album and then we will promote it in Europe first and then we'll see.

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? We started to sell merchandise from the very beginning. We sell CDs, English and Slovenian ones, T-shirts, badges, lighters... 

Where can people buy your merchandise? People can write to [email protected] to order. For our music they can find us CD Baby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/hellcats12 or on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/si/album/warrior-princess/id820811614

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days?This should be solved somehow. When we released our last album some Russian and other pages started selling our songs without us knowing and some fans wrote to us to tell us that, so we need to find those pages and block them.  

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this?The Cd's are mostly bands business card they are not selling as much as they did. But I have to say that our Cds are still selling they go mostly to USA, Germany, Japan and England. And of course, we have our music on Amazon, iTunes and CD Baby.

What do you think ofmy work?We think it's great that you support bands by making interviews with them.

How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? If you'll spread it right a lot of people in Sweden will know us

Do you have any role models or idols? We respect strong women who beleive in themselves and work hard to achieve what they want. Having a boyfriend and job and being beautiful is not enough, school, career, band, job, family and many more is what our idols handle with ease.

What have been your biggest obstacles? We had some problems with accepting all-female band at the beginning. We had to prove ourselves a lot. In Slovenia metalheads were not used to see all female metal band back in 2005 and when we started they were some skeptics and male chauvinists who were saying that we are women and we belong to the kitchen and metal should be played only by men because women can not play metal. But we were stubborn and sure of what we wanted enough to overcome that. Slovenia is small country, too small for us. But we don't limit ourselves. We have a lot of fans outside Slovenia, who supports us and we don't see a problem with going out there.

Do you have any new material? We are in a process of making new songs at the moment. New material is showing even more who we are and what we believe in. We are staying optimistic and strong. The single and video 'I am' shows our strength and desire to go even further. We're sending the message that nothing can stop us. As before we are putting a lot of effort in it, so be prepared to hear some really good songs. Hope to finish it as soon as possible.

What are your web sites?

People can find us on our page http://www.hellcats.eu where you can find our upcoming shows

or on facebook  http://www.facebook.com/hellcats.si ,

on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/HELLCATSsi

on myspace http://www.myspace.com/hellcats or they can search for us on youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC_2eRPHglI18T66wAWzay3g

If you want to buy our new album, you can find it here:

CD Baby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/hellcats12

or on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/si/album/warrior-princess/id820811614

How can people reach you? The same answer as 45.

What are your plans for the future? At the moment we are working on our new album. Then, we can wait to go on a tour where ever the road will take us.

Do you have something to add? Thank you for the interview!

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