Sound

”FISH IN OIL”, A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BAND FROM BELGRADE, PERSISTENTLY DEFENDING AN IDEA
Instinctive Musicians
They say that their art history smells like the street; that they are on the margins, that Modigliani, Soutine, Basquiat, are their friends. They read various books, they are engaged in other arts, but the basis of their music is not theoretical. Defending themselves from the epochal invasions of mediocrities, from harmful politicians and critics, they are attempting to create their own little world, their fortress of meaning and sound and dedication. Like John Zorn, like Jack Smith. They are dealing with instrumental music only, under a strong influence of missing lyrics

By: Zorica Babić
Photo: ”Fish in Oil” Archive

”Fish in Oil” is an alternative jazz band from Belgrade with an international reputation, whose music resists precise generic definitions, which is the band’s actual intention and expression of rebellion against any kind of formalization. Thus, their instrumental compositions are moving on the roads of rock, punk, jazz, experimental and particularly film music. The band’s history comprises of a few ”paradoxes”: the band was founded in 1993 but has existed for only a few years in this formation. Besides, they published their first album in 2012. They cooperated with the most eminent musicians, including Matija Dedić and international star and ”guitar genius” Marc Ribot, who was guest at their performance at the opening of the 2018 Belgrade Jazz Festival. All of them, except Bratislav Radovanović who is painter by vocation, perform in several other bands. The New York Jazz City Record writes about their performances, but they say that the money they earn from concerts, excluding festivals, is low, and that they have to work parallel jobs in order to be able to do what they love.
Currently, the band members are: Dušan Petrović (saxophone), Bratislav Radovanović (guitar), Branislav Radojković (double bass, bass), Feđa Frenklin (drums), Veljko Nikolić (percussion).
This is an exclusive group interview for National Review.

It can be noticed that you deal with music in an unusual manner. Some of you play in other bands. Here you decided to play only instrumental music, in different styles. On the other hand, you have titles that reflect a strong influence of lyrics and words on your standpoint. Your ”literature” is also recognizable to a certain degree.
Bratislav: Nice that you have noticed. We have influences from the other side. From painting. I am painter by vocation. Subjects are always the same, whatever one decided to deal with. There are not many subjects. If one deals with them seriously.

The way you create compositions is interesting, originally perhaps more literary than musical: by developing motifs and using associations, variations, paraphrases?
Dušan: Titles for our songs are created later. Titles reflect how the entire music story unfolded. We are all into it intensively while the songs are created. The best proposition is always accepted. What it brings to other people and what they read from it: I guess the beauty of instrumental music is exactly in the fact that it has no explicit verbalization except the title, so it’s open for everyone to imagine whatever they want with that title guideline.

I wouldn’t agree. The very compositions and their way of developing have something beyond-musical within: by the way of arranging motifs which often come from the outside.
Bratislav: Most musicians think about how they will play sounds, while the essence is the story they will tell.

CHOSEN MARGINALIZATION

Your non-musical knowledge and interests are noticeable: philosophy, literature, pop-art, comics, hip hop?
Dušan: We have a strictly rock and roll background; no theoretical basis. Of course, we have all dealt with it in different periods, in different ways, we read all kinds of books. We educated ourselves as much as we could, but our core, our essence is that none of the musicians in ”Fish in Oil” has any formal education based on jazz or classical music; from the most instinctive rock and roll, we were all so interested in playing and dealing with music, that we took a step further and entered instrumental music. There we found a polygon for like-minded engaged in it, and that is called ”Fish in Oil”. We are instinctive musicians.
Branislav: We deal with life. Just like painting and literature deal with vital subjects. That’s what occupies us. We’re on a tour, we experience something together and turn it into a song. The emotion.
Bratislav: He called it a rock and roll background and I call it the street. Everything we like from art history smells like the street.
Dušan: We are street bums who love to play music and that’s it. The margins. Modigliani, Soutine, Basquiat, they are all our friends.

Outsider winners?
Dušan: I don’t know if we’re winners, but I’d agree that we’re on the right path.
Branislav: We’re already winners, because it’s how we chose to live.

Considering everything, where does the name come from?
Bratislav: The band was founded a long time ago, in a previous life. And the name has never been changed because we’ve never had any ideas. It is my teenage band from Priština, because I’m originally from Priština. It was a teenage joke, which has a completely different meaning today.
Dušan: Pollution. Global. For a while, we had a sign on our trucks with the ”spill”, ”toxic waste”, and fish in oil. Luckily, Aleksandar Obrenović took care of our logo.

Your criticism of jazz is appropriate. However, it doesn’t refer to jazz only. It also refers to all things that survived, but lost their original meaning?
Dušan: We relate jazz with rebellion. However, we don’t see it in contemporary jazz. Original jazz is instinctive. This now is institutionalized, canonized. It became everything it was originally against. We love the initial stage. We are all standing behind an idea and defending it with our bodies and lives. If we lived in New York, it would be the same as it is here.

LEAVING TRACES

I have the impression that the gap between mainstream and underground and the so-called elitist culture now supported by only a few people is much bigger today. It seems that conflicts and differences were smaller earlier and that the alternative had a bigger influence on mainstream and more space, money, audience for itself?
Dušan: In better times, conflicts are softer. That is part of the answer. The other part, if we’re speaking only about the local perception and that, so to say, segregation of ultra-underground and ultra-mainstream, most of the segment between, which would make our audience, has emigrated. Two million of our peers have departed and went to live somewhere else. Out of those two million, at least 300 thousand are our potential fans. I also think that internationally people of such profile are retreating before this mediocrity invasion.

I think that they have always existed, but that they have become much more aggressive than before?
Dušan: Yes.
Branislav: We are dealing with this for ourselves, regardless of whether we have concerts or not, whether we have audience or not. We are doing it for eternity. To leave traces behind us.
Bratislav: Now I remember. My favorite John Zorn says: ”Politicians have been destroying lives for thousands of years. It did not start today or yesterday. The key is to surround yourself with people you love and raise a wall against everything else.” That’s it. that is the bottom line.
Dušan: There is a great story, also Zorn’s. About the guy he assisted. Jack Smith was a man who made theatrical plays and performances, movies in squats. And everyone stole from him, from Warhol to the architect who did theater and architecture… (John Waters – note by Z. B.). He had the ”urge” to do what he was doing. While Zorn was still a kid, he liked what he was doing and applied to be his assistant. He carried the light, helped him with theatrical plays. He once worked on a play which lasted four hours. Since the plays were performed in squats, sometimes there were 15 and sometimes 50 people watching them. Then came a day when no one came to the play. However, the man prepared himself and played the entire four-hour play at the scheduled time. ”That day” – said Zorn – ”I learned what dedication is.”
We don’t depend on concerts. We play, no matter what. We recorded our first album after a woman approached us after our concert in ”Nišville” and said: ”This is fantastic. Do you have any albums? Do you want us to publish a CD for you? We are SKC Kragujevac.” The woman was Ivana Maraš and we’re still great friends. When you dig into what you want, things happen despite all circumstances. If your drive is clean and true, it happens.
Bratislav: I realized the same thing in terms of painting. When I decided to dedicate myself to it, I somehow managed to find a way.
Dušan: Of course. You literally energize everything in front of you. When people ask me ”what kind of music do you listen to?”, I say: ”I listen to truthful music.” The genre is not important at all.

DICTATORSHIP OF MEDIOCRITY

I’m interested in the ”Jazz in the Garden” festival. What is you experience in playing in such a space, open-air? Playing in the Botanical Garden is unusual. How does it sound?
Bratislav: Playing in the Botanical Garden is unusual for me as well. The atmosphere in the Garden is wonderful. It felt a bit uncomfortable, I have to admit. The sound was excellent. The sound system was excellent.

Does it influence the resonance? Do you feel it?
Bratislav: I haven’t thought about it. Except that it’s nature, which makes it very pleasant.

Did anything change regarding copyright?
Bratislav: We became friends with Marc Ribot by chance and played with him. He’s a guitar player. World league. Professional musician. He wrote the history of music. He is a copyright activist. And human rights activist.
When I was young, I had a thing for guitar heroes. And guitar heroes, if you approach the issue philosophically, are burials of music. Then, in a moment, I realized that I couldn’t listen to the guitar anymore. That’s how it goes in music. And in mainstream jazz. Egoism makes the music suffer. And basic ideas. Everything is crystalized while working on yourself. It’s even worse in acting. One of Charlie Chaplin’s movies, one of the last ones, where he plays an entertainer, he’s drunk all the time, and he has to come up to the stage. His partner in the play approaches him and says: ”You’re a professional. Go up to that stage and blow them away”, something like that. And he replies: ”We’re all amateurs. Life is not long enough to be anything else.” That sentence stayed in my mind. Anyone who calls themselves a professional raised a wall and cannot advance any further. And you advance all your life. That’s the meaning of life.

There are many examples of artistic narcissism. Both the successful and less successful, the best and the worst, are all susceptible to it?
Bratislav: My wife is also a painter. You follow the scene. There are some turning points in life, temptations. The Biennale in Venice functions by lobbying. There are different interest groups. It happened that one of the selectors wanted to call Ranka, my wife. At the end, someone else participated and it’s not about quality, it’s something else. You’re representing your country. Will you accept? You are participating at an international exhibition, but the background is political. My impression is that in the XXI century, in art history, mediocre critics are ruling and determining what is good and what is not.
I have a friend, one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. He speaks ten languages. He is philosopher by vocation, makes a living from painting walls, he makes instruments. He plays all possible instruments in an incredible way. He looks as if he’s living under a bridge. We occasionally play music together.
I make a living from painting. My paintings are dedicated to old masters. I am vocationally entirely dedicated to it. Everything created in art after the 1950s was more or less business. What they call conceptual art became mainstream.

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Albums
Albums published by ”Fish in Oil” up to now: ”Poluostrvo” (”Peninsula”), 2012; ”Drnch”, 2013; ”3 ključa” (”3 Keys”), 2016; ”Sve će biti u najboljem redu” (”Everything Will Be All Right”), 2018.