Interview: Robert "Yogi" (SMAR SW) talks about "Suicide"

In the ranking of the most important Polish noisy albums of the nineties, "Samobójstwo" would be at the forefront. I asked Robert about a few things that had been bothering me for years. An interesting story came out of it.

In the biography of SMAR SW, posted on your website (smarsw.com), mentioning "Suicide", you devoted most of the space to the QQRYQ label. What was that time like for you?

The time was very good, we were a few years ahead. And at the same time, we were more and more terrified of what we saw and what we had to struggle with in increasing loneliness. I dropped out of college, self-education was more interesting. I told my mother that I couldn't go to work for a year, because I was making an album and I wouldn't be distracted by some shitty (there was no other) job. She agreed. Until the evening (or until the night when we had a rehearsal) I was engaged in music and reading, and then I was partying with the crew. It was very fragrant and very psychedelic (laughs). Plenty of time to create and think. A good team composition, frequent rehearsals and we were very excited about what was being created.

And I wrote a few words about QQRYQ so that people could see how the matter with the "independent" publisher looked in practice, because for a long time we were criticized for releasing the album in Silverton. And we released it in Silverton because no independent label wanted to release us. "She didn't want to" is perhaps the wrong word - because they wanted to, but they didn't have the money to pay for the studio (NNNW). Or, like QQRYQ, they were afraid of what "people would say". And we didn't have time to wait for the money to be there. Or Pietia (founder of QQRYQ - note three sixes) will gain courage. We already had another material, and the old one was unreleased. And when they released us, QQRYQ never settled for the record, and they lost the mother tape. I waited for a "copy" for several years, tormenting Pietia at every festival or concert where I could meet him.

You also wrote: "it turned out that the album was too far ahead for those times and was appreciated only a few years later". During the premiere, did you also receive positive feedback, or did you encounter a complete misunderstanding?

It wasn't about misunderstanding, after all, we were singing about the same thing from the beginning, so the message didn't change. The form has changed once again. People have a lot of resistance to any change. Once they get used to something, get to know something, they want it to be permanent. They know the band and the lyrics, they can hum each other songs, etc. We have always had a problem with this at concerts. When we were making new songs, we wanted to play only this material, because it turned us on at the time. People, on the other hand, wanted us to play old songs that they knew. It ended with the explanation that a punk gig is not a concert of wishes. I don't need to watch the same movie or read the same book twice, and I like to go to concerts where bands play something I haven't heard from them before.

Here in Rzeszów (in many other cities as well) there was an atmosphere to develop and play as you want. You listened to so much different music that it was impossible to stop in one place and record the same albums as the previous ones, because that's how it would be, because of the "aesthetics" that the "stage" took at a given moment, or anything else. All the major bands from Rzeszów made their best (in my opinion) albums at that time. We have always had a great crew with SMAR SW, in which there was an intellectual and musical ferment. We were growing rapidly. We partied a lot, we often went to Berlin, Amsterdam and Turbacz at that time. For our community, and people like us, it was not a surprise how we played and they appreciated it. Others appreciated for what we started from and what we ended up with.

And this change in form didn't cause people from slightly different backgrounds to become interested in your work? I mainly ask for opinions and reviews from "non-punk" media.

I don't know such media or their reviews or I don't remember them. All our work is well reflected in the song "My Life" from the album "Awareness": no one has the right / to eat my life / with duties to the state / and similar nonsense / no man has the right to decide for me / even if he thinks / that it will be better for me that way. I think it's above the environment. Musically, it is also difficult to unambiguously classify "Suicide", I think it reflects well what we sang about. From the e-mails that people write to me, whether it's about SMAR SW or THCulture, and from our music, you can conclude that these are people who value their own minds, their own decisions, open, curious about the world around them, who want to oppose the tyranny that limits their own mind and their own decisions and constantly tries to limit them more. Our work seems to provide the energy needed to survive and sometimes get up from our knees.

There is no denying that the latest album of SMAR SW resembles Neurosis in many aspects, especially from the period of "Souls at Zero". You have created monumental, dirty, powerful, sludge, but at the same time spatial compositions. What did you listen to then, what exactly inspired you?

At that time, I was mainly influenced by Neurosis. I once ran into Sezon (vocals - note three sixes), and he turned on a song from "Souls at Zero" (the one with the bells) on some "dachshund" and said that they were just going with the crew by train and hitchhiked to the band's concert in Berlin. I didn't like this part, but I thought that the trip itself was a sufficient reason, so as I stood I went with them. It was one of the best concerts I've been to. The opportunity to listen to them live with material from "Souls at Zero", "Enemy of the Sun" and excellent sound made a huge impression on me. The second such band was Einsturzende Neubauten. For me, one of the most interesting bands I've ever met.

Apart from that: Swans, Ministry, Young Gods, Pig Face, Shellac, Jesus Lizard, Primus, RATM, Nomeansno, The Ex, Dog Faced Hermans, and many more. Sezon also listened to bands from Amphetamine Reptile; I especially liked Hammerhead and Janitor Joe from this stable. Słoniu (drums - note three sixes) listened to a lot of hardcore, and Kaktus (bass - note three sixes) loved Joy Division and I don't know if he ever heard Neurosis. Unless I forced it a few times, I don't remember (laughs). I think this mix of people and music allowed us to record an album inspired - mainly by me - by Neurosis, and yet different from Neurosis. Apart from music, inspiration was provided by psychedelics, literature, society, politics, people with whom we discussed and partyed.

I've always really liked this roaring, grainy production of "Suicide", but the text shows that you weren't satisfied with the producer's actions. So what was this album supposed to sound like?

Just like "Awareness", only with those rattling (a little better) guitars, distorted bass (a little better) and voice (a little better). The main complaint I have about this album is the drums, sometimes you just can't hear it. There is no snare drum at all in the song "Na rzeź", and it is extremely necessary there. The model I gave to the producer to listen to how we wanted to sound was "Enemy of the Sun". He didn't even listen to the guitars until the entrance. From this perspective, you can see how colossal the difference was between our expectations and what the producer did. It was annoying for us, because we had previously recorded "Awareness" with a good producer - so we knew that it was possible and that we could. There was also no money to improve it.

Where did the idea for such a cover come from?

An acquaintance was on a trip to the German concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen. It was a photo from a leaflet from this camp. It depicted an emaciated prisoner immediately after his liberation. It suited the title and the content of our album. It was the beginning of the 90s. In Poland, capitalism was "sacred" - the cover showed the past in its performance and a vision of the future under its rule. The same bankers who once financed Hitler are financing the current US bandit, globalization and the NWO. That is probably why this album becomes legible for many sooner or later, when the vision contained in it becomes reality. It is enough to listen to it to make it clear.

If "Suicide" had been recorded in the "Internet era", where musical divisions disappear much more often, could the fate of SMAR SW have turned out differently?

This is not about musical divisions. In the "age of the Internet", probably a thousand new "genres" were created, there must be divisions. Punk ended long before the "Internet Age." Most people, forced by the prose of living in the new reality, have forgotten, consumption, conformism, passivity and subordination have won. We have come across an intensified period of "rebellion", fueled, as it turned out for many, only for the purpose of systemic change. The next generation, on the other hand, was only supposed to close the treadmill and consume - preferably online. Fitness instead of pogo. So the fate of SMAR SW turned out right. The same as the subculture we were part of.

In the 80s and early 90s, the main venues for concerts were student clubs, community centres and occasionally the open air. The mid-90s was the worst period to play. Student clubs and cultural centers have declined under capitalism. Independent culture does not bring much profit, so it began to disappear or was replaced by commercialism. This was clearly visible on the example of Jarocin. There weren't too many music clubs or pubs that we know today. They were just being created. There were few concerts. Layoffs, unemployment, black despair, as in our music and on our cover. Many bands broke up at that time or suspended their activities. Some bands, such as Armia, saved themselves by playing in parishes. We "fucked up" Jarocin and committed "Suicide".

"Suicide" has become very popular in some Internet circles, it is mentioned on a par with "Trauma" Krzycz, as one of the "lost" Polish classics of the nineties (by the way, now "Trauma" has been revived by Instant Classic). How do you approach this? Do you feel satisfied that you have finally been so clearly appreciated, or do you rather look at it from a distance?

I don't feel or expect any special appreciation. I don't really know what it would manifest at the moment. I don't follow, apart from the things that interest me, any "Internet circles"; Music forums, like cultural centres in the past, have declined, no interesting discussions are held anymore, because the political correctness that is in force on today's "stage" closes such a possibility. I don't use facebook, which has completed the destruction of the internet that I have come to know and like, i.e. versatile, open and free. So I don't really know what you're talking about with this clarity. I didn't feel anything like that.

It's nice to read emails or comments from people who talk about how much our music has meant and still means to them. That people still listen to it and that all this is up-to-date and works despite the passage of time. It still uplifts your spirits, gives you the strength to live your own way and sometimes you up about how much you get sucked in by the matrix. Before the "Internet era", I received hundreds of letters from people who wrote the same thing in them as today in emails or comments on the website. We have saved several people's lives (as they say) and helped many to survive a difficult period in their lives. A few years ago, a friend who rides a bicycle alone around the world met the same loner, probably from France, who gave him the cassette "Suicide" while riding through an industrial district in China. A friend said that she fit in with her surroundings. What more could you want?

We were punks, we didn't do it for applause, we just expressed ourselves as best we could for that time. We didn't give a fuck what someone would do with it and whether they would like it. The important thing is that we like it. And we liked how we played. From the beginning, this album had its listeners, less than the previous ones, but quite a lot. In the following years, there were more and more of them, and all the time someone was discovering it there. For years I have been "harassed"/encouraged by listeners to re-release "Suicide" and I am trying to do just that. The album will be remastered by the same producer who recorded "Awareness" with us, maybe we will be able to fix something and at least bring closer what we wanted to achieve back then in terms of sound. The album was supposed to be released in the spring, but it will be in the autumn together with the new album THCulture, which we will now record.

How do you perceive the SMAR SW from today's perspective? Do you remember the old days, do you go back to some of the recordings?

Sometimes someone turns on something at a party and we reminisce about old times or someone remembers one of our adventures. Sometimes I turn on my own or it flies on my radio (radios.cz).

SMAR SW was one of the best moments in my life. That was our youth. Interesting people getting to know the world together. Growing together. Defending together. Attackers together. By playing and spending time together (because concerts were only a good excuse for that) we met a lot of equally interesting people all over Poland. We were a radical group of people, in the full sense of the word. We are still despite the end of the stage, which was the SMAR SW. Thanks to the fact that we were authentic, people respected us and still respect us. We had a great crew. We partied like few others. The girls liked us (laughs). You could make a drama, a comedy, a morality story, a good action movie or a crime movie, or even a TV series about it - so much was going on.

What are you listening to at the moment? Since then, your taste has changed a lot, or maybe you still stick to "proven names"?

It hasn't changed much, it's only widened. I still listen to all the bands I mentioned earlier. I miss such teams now. All these bands contributed a lot to music and opened a few doors. It's hard for me today, despite the fact that there is an internet and it seems easy to find such bands. After a few conversations about it, it turns out that it is not only me. For ten years, together with a friend from the Czech Republic, we have had our own radio (Radios.cz) with music that interests us, so that's what I listen to most often every day. A few days ago I was at the 1984 concert here in Rzeszów. All in all, it was m.in from going to their rehearsals and concerts 30 years ago that our adventure with playing and SMAR SW began. The concert was very good, there was a lot to listen to. By the way, you could meet a few people from the old crew and talk.

After the band broke up, you didn't give up playing. What do you do now?

After the recording, and before the release of "Suicide", I founded the band THCulture (check thculture.com ). In the fall, our fifth album THCulture - "Individual Against Authority" will be released. On May 13 we play a concert in Krakow at the Pharmacy. You are cordially invited. You will be able to listen to what the SMAR SW 2017 would probably sound like. Thank you, greetings to all old and new listeners and friends.

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