This is our tenth published band interview, and it is also the first time we have decided to focus on a domestic Czech formation. I chose Lidské Zdroje because their story and their work are genuinely relevant, interesting, and unpretentious in contemporary punk. Their lyrics and attitude are the very essence of what the underground scene should be about. The band Lidské Zdroje is the very definition of an authentic DIY approach. Their music moves on the edge of genres and national borders alike, whether it’s the constant commuting between Vienna and Brno, or the lyrics that switch between Czech, English, and German. Their sound is raw, garagey, and inspired by the best of ’77 punk and beyond, but always delivered with their own, unpretentious attitude (or unpretentious face). How was the song „Špatnej vtip“ (Bad Joke) born, inspired by the controversial, damned, yet legendary Zóna A? Why do they insist they are not just „cosplay,“ and why does the Balkans rule? Who stands behind these diary entries of frustration that turn into energetic punk anthems? Dive with us into an interview where they speak candidly about music as therapy, the meaning of punk today, and what keeps them together even in the toughest times.

This probably isn’t a completely proper opening question, but it’s been in my head for maybe a few years, so it needs to come out right away. I first came across you quite late, with the song and video “Špatnej vtip,” (Bad Joke) and honestly, with that Zona A connection, it felt like a really good joke. Can you tell me how you came up with it and share some stories around that song ?

GO476910YB: All good, no time for empty bullshit. Look, I’d been thinking for quite a while that song “Chceš si žiť po svojom” has one of the best guitar riffs in the history of Czechoslovak punk and I really enjoyed strumming it at home. But playing it with the band as a cover was just out of the question for us, given Koňýk’s idiocy (Koňýk is the singer of the band Zóna A, which recorded the aforementioned song). So one day I sat down and decided we had to approach it the clever way — steal the riff, tweak it just enough so it’s recognizable but still different, and write lyrics for it that Koňýk definitely wouldn’t like. I think we nailed it. Considering I usually rip off my favourite bands a lot, this was probably the only case where it happened completely intentionally and consciously. The funniest part is that our first LP was actually pressed by the author of that riff himself — Leďo, the original guitarist of ZÓNA A, who left the band back in 2002. He knows about our song and apparently he’s cool with it, haha, so that nicely closed the circle for us…

The name Lidské Zdroje (“Human Resources”) strikes me as sarcastic — what does this corporate term evoke for you today, after years of playing under that name ?

GO476910YB: Yeah, there’s definitely some sarcasm in it. It’s that defiant embrace of an unflattering label coming from the outside. That’s nothing new in punk tradition. Think of bands like MISFITS, BASTARDS, LOST KIDS or THE DAMNED. From our region, the Jeseník band ZRÁDCE RASY (Betrayer Of The Race) from the 90s would be a perfect example. Even the word punk itself has a similar history. Accepting someone else’s game and taking their insult with a provocative smirk. A battle of who gets the last word… It’s a great and effective strategy to weaken or completely flip the meaning of words. Various social minorities have a lot of experience with this. If someone sees a sign somewhere with this dehumanizing phrase and smiles because it reminds them of our band rather than corporate misery, then I’m satisfied.

 

Do you remember the first moment when you realized: “Yeah, this is no longer just rehearsing, this is a band” ?

GO476910YB: I don’t remember a specific moment, but it must have been sometime in autumn 2018, when our original drummer permanently moved from Brno to Vienna. Back then we lived together at EKH and used to bash away in the basement rehearsal room twice a week. Things started to move fast, and I think it was around that time that we agreed it was time to bring someone in on bass and go all in. A whole bunch of friends passed through our rehearsal room — Emil from VERRAT, Alex from DEAD CITY RADIO, Foivos from OLDSCHOOL REDNEX, Boris from REPUBLIC OF WASTE, Martin from VOODOO JÜRGENS, and others… for a while we even had two guitars before sticking to just one, and Marco, the guitarist from ASTPAI, joined us on bass. The original idea was that it would be a solo studio project. One record and done. At first I didn’t plan on playing live at all. The lyrics were so personal that I couldn’t imagine singing them in front of people. Though that changed after a few years. Our first LP “Pedalling Through… Part 1” is mostly made up of these early songs. I still can’t believe the record took ten years to make…

How much does it matter that you started out in Vienna and now you’re also based in Brno? Or how did it actually happen? Does it influence the way you write and function as a band ?

GO476910YB: It’s probably a bit confusing. I’m originally from Brno, but I’ve been living in Vienna permanently since 2012. When the first songs came out of me in 2014, I originally wanted to record everything myself — including drums. But that fell apart quickly. I asked Keyda, who at the time lived in Brno, in autumn 2014 if he’d help me polish the drum structure in the rehearsal space. For three years we kept visiting each other either in Brno or (mostly) in Vienna, and it soon became clear that Keyda would record the songs as the drummer. But our three-weekend-per-year rehearsal rhythm only changed when he permanently moved to Vienna. So the first lineup was actually two Czechs and one Austrian, rehearsing at EKH. At the end of 2021 the three of us went separate ways for various reasons, and I reached out to Honza (who lived in Brno at the time and had been hanging around the band since our first tour as a friend) and Tom (from BRÜNNER TODESMARSCH, LICKSPIT, etc.). It was supposed to be temporary — just a fill-in for one summer tour until I put together a stable new lineup in Vienna. The guys immediately roped in Klobi for second guitar, another Brno guy they were rehearsing with at the time and someone I’d been friends with for years. I knew these three dudes would not only learn the songs fast and play them with energy, but also that it would be fun with them. And it was. It quickly became clear that I wouldn’t find a lineup in Vienna that would work better musically or personally. So I started traveling regularly to my hometown, and we became a Brno band again. Whether it stays that way is unclear — Honza has since moved to Kutná Hora, so now two of us are commuting to rehearsals, and Paťo, the bassist who replaced Tom after a year, recently left as well. This year we were even without a rehearsal space for half a year and practiced wherever we could — even in Kolín and Jihlava. The way we function is definitely affected — it’s time-consuming, everything needs to be planned ahead, and every operation is more demanding than if we all lived in one city. The logistics are more complicated. But what can you do? If it’s worth it, you just don’t think about it. It doesn’t influence the songwriting that much yet. I write most of the songs myself and bring them more or less finished, so in rehearsals we mostly adjust arrangements and tighten things up. Plus, the guys are experienced and seasoned musicians, so if we don’t slack on home practice, we can manage even with one rehearsal a month or every two months. But it’s not ideal. And if we want to write new songs together more often in the future, we’ll have to adapt our rehearsal schedule to make that possible.

Do you feel that the punk scene in Austria and the Czech Republic differs in some essential way ?

GO476910YB: Definitely. Especially when it comes to Vienna. But it’s hard to generalize, because both Czech and Austrian punk are split into a dozen sub-scenes that only cooperate with each other to a limited degree. I feel like in Vienna it’s the most extreme. You’ve got several cliques here that look down on each other—sometimes for fairly understandable ideological reasons, but often just because of petty stylistic differences. In the Czech Republic there are plenty of self-appointed punk kings too, but Vienna definitely leads in this. Also when it comes to chasing current trends. At the same time, I feel like you can rely on people more in the Czech Republic, and that they care more about what they do. Austrians tend to slack off more. For them, punk is about being proud that even though you’ve got fairly broad possibilities, you deliver only the bare minimum. In the Czech Republic, DIY is more about giving your maximum despite limited options. I don’t know if that comes from the different histories of the two countries, but I definitely prefer the latter approach, and that’s also why I struggle to find people in Vienna I’d enjoy collaborating with. Otherwise, I still feel like Austria is in some ways ideologically a bit more radical—there’s a stronger emphasis on anti-fascism and feminism, and a lot of the bullshit that gets celebrated in the Czech Republic wouldn’t fly here, not even in the most antisocial corners of the scene. And I like that. But maybe I’m idealizing it.

And what about elsewhere in the world? You’ve toured quite a few countries—can you say where it was totally wild and where it was a bit boring ?

GO476910YB: The Balkans rule. Shows in Rijeka, Sarajevo, Belgrade or Novi Sad were massive. But there were plenty of bad shows too, regardless of the region. Either because there were too few people, or because the organizer clearly had no grip on anything (often both at once). But I think that whether it’s in the Czech Republic, somewhere in the middle of Serbia, in a small Scottish town, or at a Belgian squat with Trainspotting-style toilets and water dripping from the ceiling right onto the middle of the stage—those are exactly the nights that automatically kick us into some kind of harakiri mode, where we go in at 200% and smash it even harder. As you make it, so you have it. You have to play for the people who are there, with what you have. If we were supposed to play for those who aren’t there and whine about bad sound, we might as well quit.

You sing in Czech, English, and German — when do you decide which language a track will be in ? Is it intuitive or clearly defined in advance? Does the theme or mood determine it ?

GO476910YB: Mostly intuitive! Most of my songs start with a piece of text that’s running through my head, and with it comes the seed of a melody. And then it just unfolds. Since I think in all three languages interchangeably, it just comes as it wants. Maybe there’s a slight tendency that the more personal topics are in English and the social/political ones more often in Czech. But even that’s not a rule. I’d like to write more Czech lyrics in the future, but we’ll see what comes.

Do you notice a difference in audience reactions to Czech, German, and English lyrics ?

GO476910YB: Maybe just that abroad they’re more excited about the Czech songs than I expected. Maybe they enjoy the exotic vibe, after all, every second person sings in English these days.. And “Ich erwarte nix mehr” is always a killer. Probably also because it’s our only song in German. I’ve got two older songs in Romanian in my drawer too, so we’ll talk again once we rehearse those, haha…

How important is it to you that listeners understand the lyrics, or is the raw energy more important ?

GO476910YB: For me those things are connected. If you don’t understand the lyrics, I think it takes away from the energy. And I’m saying that as someone who grew up on bands like DISRUPT, GRIDE or MRTVÁ BUDOUCNOST — bands that could swallow half a sentence when the line didn’t fit the rhythm. So the bar for me is really low. But if I’m reading the lyrics while listening to a record and nothing sticks with me afterward, the record goes away. At a show I care less. There it just has to punch.

How would you describe your sound? It’s very garage and raw. I hear influences of punk ‘77 but also ‘82. How do you see — or rather hear — it? What does this mix mean to you personally ?

GO476910YB: I think I’d like people to feel like they’re listening to a fucking great mix-tape when they put our band on — each song a bit different, but with a common thread. I don’t want to make a revival or a ‘77 cosplay. I don’t want to orient myself toward one specific sound or era. But you can’t hide your influences, and what I listen to is definitely audible in our music. Music of the 21st century doesn’t speak to me much, and the bits that do are basically also just recycled stuff. Still, I think even those can be done honestly, and that’s what we’re trying to do. There’s definitely a lot of the seventies in there — mostly the British side. My interest in American punk, with a few exceptions, ends somewhere in the mid-80s. I’m also fascinated by early punk bands from less well-known countries. Each one has its own approach and sound, and it’s an endless source of inspiration for me. Same with blues, early rock’n’roll, beat bands from the 60s, or British guitar bands from the 80s and 90s. I’m a musical conservative, haha… Tattooed dudes from LA in shorts and baseball caps have a hard time with me!

Is there a band or record you return to every time you lose the desire to keep playing ?

GO476910YB: My biggest songwriting inspirations remain Sonny Vincent, Egor Letov, and TV Smith. That holy trinity always delivers. And then of course anything related to OASIS.

When you record, do you have an audience in mind, or do you just play as if you were doing it only for yourself ?


GO476910YB: For me, definitely the latter. It may sound eccentric, but just like when I was a kid and took pleasure in drawing several issues of a comic about a mutant boy and a blowfly, pretending I was publishing a real magazine, I approach the band in a similar way. I’m its biggest fan (but also its biggest critic) and I do it mainly for myself. The only difference is that I no longer share the band’s output only with my family — I put it out into the world. But the main driving force is still that same childish joy from everything we manage to bring to completion, whether it’s a recording, a video, a poster, or a finished tour. If someone else likes it and it resonates with them, that makes me happy of course, but that’s just a bonus. I don’t think it really influences what we do.

What does writing lyrics together as a band mean to you? Is it a collective process, or more of an individual contribution from each member ?

GO476910YB: I take my hat off to bands that can write lyrics with several people involved and it doesn’t turn into a mess. Even writing a solid text between two people is an art. You need people who are truly a tight-knit team, who complement each other perfectly for it to work the way it should. Otherwise you have to go down the path of compromises, and those have no place in creative work in my opinion, because they only mess up the result in favour of someone’s ego. In Lidské Zdroje so far all the lyrics are from my pen, but that’s not a law. If something passes a certain filter and is good, we can play anyone’s lyrics. For me, the bigger question is how to set them to music. I don’t have much good experience with putting ready-made lyrics to music. For me, the text usually comes hand in hand with the music/melody. With the previous line-up we played a really nice song, “Ghosts In My Room,” for which Keyda wrote both the music and the lyrics, and I only contributed slightly to the arrangements. But that’s all for now.

Punk is still music about anger and defiance. What personally pisses you off the most today and drives you to write ?

GO476910YB: Well, it probably still is, but I’ve also kind of stopped worrying about whether what I do fits some punk clichés or expectations. What’s essential for me is that what we do is authentic and honest — or if you prefer, from the heart. And if it happens to be a love song, then so be it! I’ve seen enough loudmouths who disappeared shortly afterward or turned 180°, so I don’t take many of those big pseudo-political proclamations from punk bands too seriously. But sure, plenty of things piss me off. A lot of them probably won’t ever change — people’s stupidity, their blindness, and their need to look for scapegoats. Naivety toward narcissistic egomaniacs. Blind hatred toward everyone you can kick without consequences to relieve your own frustration and sense of powerlessness. But also the superficiality of all of us who perhaps consider ourselves to be some “more enlightened” part of society. Our unwillingness to hold up a mirror to ourselves and question our own behavior. This self-satisfied conviction of our own exceptionalism. Two sides of the same coin that has been weighing on me for a long time… When I wrote lyrics for FESTA DESPERATO’s final thematic EP 15 years ago, I thought the theme of the fascisation of society was exhausted for me. Today I know it isn’t — and never will be.

A lot of your lyrics feel very personal, like diary entries full of frustration. Is writing more of a therapy for you, or a challenge to capture the mood of the times ?

GO476910YB: It’s probably a bit of both, song by song, depending on the mood and the topic. With the more personal lyrics, it’s definitely more like self-therapy. And it works great. Almost instantly, haha. With lyrics that have some social or political edge, it’s about half and half. I’m definitely writing out some anger, disgust, and frustration. At the same time, as you said, it’s a kind of monument to the era—something we might smile at twenty years from now, remembering what strange times we lived through. There’s not much more to it. I gave up the ambition to convince anyone of my truth through lyrics back when I was a teenager. I’m more like someone quietly watching from a distance and shaking my head while commenting on what I see.

You often sing about frustration, resignation, and similar feelings. Do you have a song you yourself would describe as positive or hopeful ?

GO476910YB: Maybe some of the love songs—there’s at least a spark of hope in those… “Brand New Start” and “Ten-Meter Fence,” at the very least. With the other songs, it’s tougher. I’ve been trying to write a positive song for ten years, and every time it derails. At the height of the pandemic five years ago, I wrote “Right to Choose” while walking in the woods outside Vienna, and the original idea really was to write something like a little boost for hard times. But I feel like what came out instead was more of an annoyed smirk at people who have it easy and still complain about their first world problems. Maybe a hidden message to myself. Actually, quite often when I’m poking at someone in the lyrics, it’s aimed at myself. “Moře, bouře, vlny” carries, despite all its nihilism, at least a hint of hope in the ending – the kind that comes from accepting reality. That’s probably it. You’ll still have to wait for our version of “Reach for the Sky” or “We’re Coming Back”…

Were there any shows that literally changed the way you look at your own band ?

GO476910YB: Not really, at least not in the sense you mean. But most of our shows are a kind of small mental cold shower for me, repeatedly bringing me back down from my parallel fantasy world where everyone in this band is as excited as I am. A regular reminder that we play a pretty niche style in an already niche genre, and on top of that in a country most of the world couldn’t find on a map—and that the number of people who appreciate what we do is absolutely minimal, even within the punk scene.

When you step on stage, what goes through your head right before the first note ?

GO476910YB: Usually nothing at all. I rarely get stage fright. Maybe just a bit of nervous tension in my stomach, wondering if everything is really set up properly. Then I just try to remember the first line of the first song and not trip over the first chord. Once I’m halfway through the first song, I switch to autopilot. And that’s what I enjoy the most about it.

Do you have any rituals before or after the show ?

GO476910YB: Hug the guys, and—if I remember—wipe down the guitar so the strings don’t rot by the next day. There’s usually no time or energy for more. But maybe we should introduce some brutal ritual voodoo practices…

Is there a moment from rehearsal that stuck with you more than any big show ?

GO476910YB: Probably the feeling of finally hearing the songs I had been putting together alone in my room on an acoustic guitar played in full band form for the first time. And I also remember the joy when Klobi and I stood in the same room with guitars around our necks for the first time in 20 years. That was an emotional moment, big time.

What keeps you together as a band when cabin fever hits—like in the van on tour ? I know from experience that the second week isn’t always easy.

GO476910YB: We have plenty of conflicts, and I think what keeps us together is that we’re usually able to talk about them constructively, and that none of us are the openly confrontational, argumentative type.

What’s the biggest screw-up that happened to you on stage or during a show ?

GO476910YB: Man, apart from the usual nonsense—like starting the encore and realizing your cable isn’t plugged into the guitar, saying something off the cuff between songs and getting tangled in your own words, or starting a completely different song than the rest of the band… all the classics everyone’s probably lived through—nothing else really comes to mind. That’s how professional we are, haha… A few times I’ve thrown something off stage in the heat of the moment, and someone who got hit in the face came up to me afterwards, pissed off. But I guess that’s an occupational hazard. The biggest embarrassment was probably in Serbia, in Novi Sad, but I wrote about that in the tour report that should come out in Bitch zine.

At your shows you usually play some covers too. Can you say which songs you borrow and what they mean to you ?

GO476910YB: I’ve always loved covers. For me, it’s a way to pay tribute to the bands that influenced us and that we respect. And it feels quite different from playing our own songs. I enjoy it, though I get tired of covers pretty quickly. There’s been a lot we’ve played at different stages of the band!
THE UNDERTONES (Teenage Kicks), THE DAMNED (New Rose), THE JAM (In the City), BUZZCOCKS (What Do I Get), TESTORS (Together), THE NERVES (When You Find Out), SEX PISTOLS (Silly Thing), STIFF LITTLE FINGERS (Alternative Ulster), UK SUBS (Tomorrow’s Girls), MISFITS (I Turned Into a Martian, Halloween), D.O.A. (Fucked Up Baby), REAGAN YOUTH (Degenerated), ELEKTRIČNI ORGAZAM (Zlatni Papagaj), ZABRANJENO PUŠENJE (Anarhija All Over Baščaršija); from Czechoslovakia SMRT MLADÉHO SEBEVRAHA (Kdo Jsi), DAVOVÁ PSYCHÓZA (Všetko mi je jedno) and EXTEMPORE (Den co den — sometimes even in the original English version by GENERATION X)… For soundcheck we usually play ROKY ERICKSON (I Walked with a Zombie). I also remember playing SOCIAL DISTORTION (Winners and Losers), OASIS (Fade Away) and TV SMITH (My String Will Snap, Runaway Train Driver) during some unplugged sets… That enough? Now some asshole from the copyright office is going to have a field day.

The punk scene has a strong DIY tradition. Is there anything about it that still surprises or moves you ?

GO476910YB: Almost every time. All the more because in the circles our melodic rock’n’roll speaks to, the DIY ethic is nowhere near as strong as in the more hardcore-oriented environment. I grew up in DIY hardcore punk, and even though it has its flaws and you still run into idiots there, I’ve never experienced anything that could compare to it. People who selflessly work, create, and support the culture they love are a treasure that needs to be cherished.

What does sharing the stage with other bands mean to you — is it competition, inspiration, or simply the joy of community ?

GO476910YB: Definitely not competition. That whole rivalry thing belongs more to heavy metal and movies about Chuck Berry. Inspiration — rarely. I’m getting pickier and very few bands impress me these days. But when it does happen, and we get to play with a really outstanding band, I live off it for weeks. And the joy of community — absolutely! That feeling when you spend an evening with people who share the same passion you do, when you realize you have a similar sense of humor, similar values, similar experiences, mutual friends… That’s probably the biggest driving force and source of energy that keeps me in this. Though I have to admit that I’ve been having fewer and fewer of those moments lately.

If someone completely outside the punk scene came to your show, what should they walk away with ?

GO476910YB: Our record, haha! But seriously — that’s up to them. Anyone who leaves a show feeling like they experienced something that touched them, something they can relate to, something they’d want to try themselves… Someone who walks away thinking they finally felt among their own, accepted as they are, someone who realizes they’re not alone in their worldview and their interests — that person has discovered a treasure. The disillusionment will come sooner or later, but that’s another story…

How do you manage to balance music with everyday life (work, relationships, family) ?

GO476910YB: I teach teenagers at a secondary school in Vienna. Balancing an anti-authoritarian mindset while being in an authoritative position is always tricky, but if you never try, you’ll just keep complaining. I try to approach it better than the people who made school miserable for me. Hopefully I manage most of the time. Timewise it’s worse. I do have quite a lot of time off, but I can’t choose when I take it — I’m tied to school holidays (that’s why we usually tour in autumn or right before Easter) and to my schedule, so random weekday shows and the best weekend dates are off the table. On the other hand, my girlfriend also teaches, so we have the same holidays, and it’s not too hard to coordinate band stuff with time together. None of us have kids. If we did, we’d probably play a lot less…

Has playing punk changed you in your personal life as well? Something you would never have done without the band ?

GO476910YB: Without a doubt. Punk first and foremost helped me, at around fourteen, to realize that I’m simply different from many of my peers in some ways — and that it’s nothing to be ashamed of, quite the opposite. And that there are more people like that, and together we can give all that pressure in our heads some sort of outlet without placing ridiculous expectations on ourselves. That the end result is, to a certain degree, less important than the path leading to it. After that, everything else just built on top of it naturally.
The experiences you get from playing in bands, but also from all the related activities — organizing shows, writing a fanzine, releasing records, participating in protests, etc. — those are priceless. They give you a kind of healthy confidence, self-knowledge… And also openness to everything life offers, openness to alternatives. Through punk I became really interested not only in complaining about how fucked up the world is, but in searching for other paths and trying them out firsthand. And that definitely had a big impact on many of my life decisions — the good ones and the stupid ones. My life would look very different, I’m sure, but who knows? Maybe I’d reach a lot of things by a different route anyway?
I feel like my personal life has recently closed into some kind of loop, and that in many ways I’m back where I was as a teenager — only this time, thanks to all the experience, I’m much more at peace with it and more content, because I’ve already been through many of the experiments teenagers idealize, only to later find out they’re not that special. But unless you go through it, you don’t learn that.

Music surely follows you outside the band too — what do you listen to when you need calm, and what when you need energy ?

GO476910YB: I wake up and go to sleep with music, and if I’m not listening to anything, at the very least something’s playing in my head. I mostly listen either to old-school punk or British guitar music from the ’80s/’90s. Also primitive ’60s rock’n’roll. But in recent years I’ve also been listening to a lot of old guitar blues. I don’t even turn down classical music — Vienna is getting to me! When I need something really energetic, I’ll reach for thrash metal, old-school grindcore, or various filthy noise records — but those are mostly scenes I no longer follow actively, I just listen to whatever randomly makes its way to me.

If your band were a film, what genre would it be ?

GO476910YB: Probably some absurd sitcom like The Young Ones. Sometimes I feel like those four characters were written based on us.

If you had to sum up the feeling of playing in Lidské Zdroje in one word — what would it be ?

GO476910YB: Depending on my current mood: Happiness, Joy, Fun, Fulfillment, Outlet, Privilege, Foolishness, Frustration, Stress, Punishment, Life Sentence, Suicide.

What was the hardest moment for the band — when you wondered whether it made sense to continue ?

GO476910YB: Nothing specific comes to mind, but what pushes me to the lowest point are situations where I feel like I’m pulling the cart alone. When I pour tons of time and energy into something and someone who I’d expect support from throws a wrench into it. When I feel like no one in the band shares my enthusiasm or drive. But those are usually momentary things, and it’s mostly just a different point of view. As long as I have some creative pressure inside me and can still hold a guitar, I think it will always make sense for me to keep going somehow. The only question is: in what form ?

And on the flip side — when was the last time you felt truly alive, like all of this actually makes sense ?

GO476910YB: When we’re sitting in the van, a good song is playing, everyone’s in a great mood, joking around and excited about whatever we’re about to experience together. And when we’re playing a show with an interesting band and I feel like I’m among people I genuinely connect with.

If you could turn back time and play any concert or tour in punk history, where would you teleport yourselves ?

GO476910YB: Hard to say, maybe the two-day 100 Club Punk Special festival in 1976, or some rager at CBGB’s? Or the festival in Jarocin, Poland in the mid-80s? Or we’d teleport to 1984 to Prague’s Žofín, kick Visací Zámek off the stage, and save the future of Czech punk, haha!

How much do you care about physical formats — vinyl, cassette, CD? And what does it mean to hold your own record in your hands ?

GO476910YB: As I’ve mentioned before, one of the biggest joys for me is when we manage to finish something we’ve created — and that goes double for recordings. I grew up with physical formats as a kid and I can’t imagine music without them. Even though I also use Spotify, Bandcamp, mp3s and so on, a real release for me is still the one that also comes out physically — with artwork, photos, and a lyric sheet. Even if it’s just a tiny run of a few copies. Holding your own record in your hands is like a brief moment of materializing the idea that if you want something — if you set your mind to it — it’s achievable. A reminder that if you dive headfirst into life, suddenly it’s full of possibilities, even if one of those possibilities is that you’ll occasionally smash your head in the process.

If you had to choose one of your own songs that will outlive you — the one you’d want people to remember you by — which one would it be and why ?

GO476910YB: That’s a tough one. Probably “Moře, bouře, vlny” or “Frustrating Times.” Both have something positive in them…

What’s next for you — are you leaning more toward planning, or do you want to go with the “we’ll see where it takes us” approach ?

GO476910YB: Man, from the moment we started playing, I was basically planning nonstop, and we managed to pull off most of it. The last three years especially were super intense — we barely stopped. And honestly, probably at the cost of some big losses. Our bassist Paťo just left, and we’re feeling pretty worn out, so we’re taking a few months off, both from playing live and from planning. We’ll rebuild the lineup and focus more on working on the second album. And then we’ll see where it takes us!

That’s almost everything from me — is there a question you’ve always wanted to answer but no one has ever asked ? Now’s the time. Ask it and answer it.

GO476910YB: Do you want to play with UK SUBS? Yeah, we do.

And one last question — do you have any final message for our readers ?

GO476910YB: That’s a proper 90s-style question, so I’ll keep the spirit alive: If there’s something you feel is missing in the punk scene, you’ve got to make it yourself. Don’t eat animals, eat Nazis.

 

Discography:

Live Demonstration demo kazeta (Humane Recordings, 2019)
Ich Erwarte Nix Mehr / Right To Choose EP (PHR Records, 2023)
Špatnej Vtip“ flexi-disk (Humane Recordings, 2023)
Pedalling Through (…Part 1) LP (PHR Records, 2024)

Band:

Paaya aka GO476910YB – vocals, guitar
Honza aka CI485980YB – drums, vocals
Klobi aka SO574969YB – guitar, vocals
Patrik aka LO180040YB – bass, vocals

INSTAGRAM: https://1url.cz/LJvz3
BANDCAMP: https://1url.cz/zJvzk
YOUTUBE: https://1url.cz/2Jvzs
FACEBOOK: https://1url.cz/lJvzT