So how did you start with the tribute band?
Joyzi: Well, basically we started with the band about 9 years ago, because we are SOAD fans, as most people are if you like metal music. So we decided to form a tribute band, we did some UK shows but we are all in different bands and stuff so we have different priorities and with the last couple of years, three maybe, things are just been kicking off and getting bigger and there we go, here we are in Zagreb tonight, you know, playing this fucking fantastic show for an amazing crowd. And because things started going up and the band becoming international, we decided to make this more of a priority for us, we are taking this a bit more seriously, and taking it as real band. And that’s how it came about. It’s between the love for SOAD and the love for playing live music. What we get in return, the crowds and the love we get from people, you know, nothing pays for that. So, you know, that’s why we do it.
Still, you are working in lot of different bands, you have your main bands, but why did you start with the tribute band?
Joyzi: Yeah, If you remove the ego part there is nothing wrong in playing other people’s music. You know it’s live music, there is nothing I love doing more than being on the stage playing heavy metal. Especially songs that I love and to be honest I have no problem at all playing other peoples songs. If I join a band tomorrow, if I join Slipknot, I’m playing another band’s songs, it’s not my songs. So what’s the fucking difference? You know, if you remove the ego and the pride part of “like oh it’s my own music, I have to play my own music”, you know, if you leave 70’s behind, you will find that the world is a beautiful place, and again here we are in Zagreb.
So this is the second time here in Zagreb, how do you like it here?
Joyzi: We love it.
Martin: Half the guys weren’t here the first time, and the first time was definitely the show of the year for us. It was the best show of the year, the biggest attendance and just the crowd, the energy, it was just something we don’t get every day. It has been getting better for us, like in general, but we just weren’t expecting it, you know. Like so many people.
Was it like you were here with your main band?
Martin: Yeah, it was incredible, just like tonight. But first time it was a surprise, tonight I was expecting it, and we were expecting it I guess, but the first time was like “What the fuck is this? Why are so many people here? Why are they so happy to see us?”.
Joyzi: You get younger people and you get the people from my age, and Martin’s age, our generation who were teenagers or young people when SOAD came out and lived that era, and meanwhile, SOAD don’t play live at all or when they do it’s in America and at the festivals or something and people do seem to want to listen to SOAD music live and because they don’t get the chance that often to see the real band, they come to see us, and we appreciate it.
So how do you like it in Zagreb?
Martin: We love it. Like, as Joyzi mentioned before, like we had an absolutely insane time earlier this year. He mentioned it was like such a beautiful surprise like this all extra new level that we’re just blown away. We had an absolutely incredible time, so for all of us, even though we are playing on this European tour about 20 shows, this is the one we’ve been all looking forward to.
Joyzi: Martin, Tom and I, we were here the first time in February, but the rest of the guys weren’t, so we’ve just been telling them the whole tour, for like weeks, we’ve been telling them wait till we get to Zagreb, you know, that’s the show. That is THE SHOW, that we gonna get on the tour. In Zagreb definitely the highest numbers on this tour for our own shows, and last time as well. I think it is an unusually big audience for what we are doing at the moment. We are aiming to do this all the time everywhere, but as it stands, Zagreb is our biggest audience that we get.
So sorry for the questions, but how do original bands receive these kinds of tribute bands?
Joyzi: Well I will tell you what, that is a tough one. Because up until maybe three years ago, there was a huge stigma with cover bands, especially with the people who were in real bands, a lot of them, not everyone, but a lot of them are like “Ah you are playing in a cover band!” And I personally had a lot of shit from that. I heard that so much, I work with DragonForce and Cradle of Filth as a roadie and I’m in my band as well, Breed 77, and people I think people who are over 45, they have that problem. People who are younger than that, they understand Tik Tok and the modern days, they don’t have a problem anymore. So you are dealing with middle aged old people in bands who did the whole pride “Oh, look at us, like, Power Metallers, oh my god I’m so powerful because I can play really fast notes. OMG” You know? But once you get the fantasy thing out of the way, what happens is…. huh… I’m gonna fucking say it because I had three Jeger’s – my cover band is bigger than the band I was in. And there is nothing wrong with that. Because at the end of the day I try to explain to them and to a lot of other people – Live music is live music. It’s entertainment. People want to be entertained. This whole ego, arrogance, fantasy that you’re better. I don’t know, but the guy in the audience I just gave the drumstick to, maybe he’s a fucking doctor, maybe he’s someone who matters. But once you get that stuff out of the way, once the people are humble and down to earth and they understand that it’s a privilege to get people that are paying to see you do what you love to do. Regardless if you are playing someone else’s music or your own music. It is a privilege to have hundreds of people every day on the tour paying to see you be you. There is nothing more privileged than that. We are not trying to be SOAD, we are being ourselves musically, and that’s always been the main thing for me, is that we’re not trying to copy SOAD as in precisely, no. When I started this band it was like, I’m only gonna pick the guys who are outstanding musicians, I never brought in anyone that is average. They are all great. So, we are not trying to be best SOAD we can, no, let’s play these songs our own way the best we can.
How is it being in two tribute bands at the same time?
Martin: I love it, to be honest. It’s two different experiences. We’ve done different supporting acts in the past, so obviously we always do a SOAD set, but then we’ve done other tributes like Killswitch Engage and Disturbed, but this time we are doing Machine Head, and it’s great. And for me, with SOAD I’m usually in the front, singing, with Machine Head I’m more taking a back seat playing a guitar, doing some backing vocals, and it’s a completely different experience on stage. Cause it’s a different role you’re playing, it’s also completely different style, even though it’s all metal music. I don’t know. Typical singer, love being the centre of the attention, right, but like it’s also nice just to sit back and riff out and just go crazy with the guitar, I love it. Just another aspect of the live performance that you can invest your self in on the stage, so I love it. It is exhausting, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
How do you manage between your main bands and your tribute bands?
Martin: Huh, time management. It’s the answer I guess. We all want, even as Joyzi was talking about, we love music which is why we are doing tribute bands, and it doesn’t matter if it’s your own music or if it’s covers bands. Obviously you get a certain level of artistic satisfaction from your own music, which is great and I love doing my own stuff with Confide that’s amazing. We did a couple of festivals this year, we did a new single recently and I love that stuff. But I mentioned this in other interview recently, is that when you are playing in your original band, sure you have that satisfaction on putting your own art out in the world and connecting with the people with the stuff that you have written, that’s great. But you kinda are doing two things when you’re playing this shows, not only you are trying to do an amazing show that people love, you are also having to sell people on your music as well. On songs they never heard before, which is a fun challenge, but it is a challenge. When you are playing in the tribute band, the work has already been done. All the people tonight knew every song we played, or most of them. So you just focus entirely on the show, you don’t need to worry about if you need to sell the music, they know the music. So everything is just about the show. So it’s a completely different experience, and it’s hard to compare.
Joyzi: It’s really enjoyable though. We have so much fun playing this songs. We have our own things in between the band, the level of expectations is very high, and what you see on stage is also the result of a lot of conversations and a lot of work over the years and that. We are always aiming higher and higher, being the best. But once you get to the point, more or less where we are now, which is we have a show, we try to stick to that more or less every day, it becomes just a Tuesday, you know, it’s a day, a fun day out and that’s what we do. And today was perfect example of that. I spent the whole show smiling cause I could see the energy and no one is trying, we are just doing it. No one is trying hard, no one is worrying about anything. This is what we do. Personally, I have to say I feel very privileged that I get to do this, play this gigs and get the opportunity to tour the Europe and worldwide. Playing in Australia was incredible. New Zealand as well, the response there was also fucking something else, it was almost like SOAD was there. It’s amazing.
On scene, do you miss SOAD?
Joyzi: Absolutely. I am the right age, I lived the high years. When Toxicity came out they did a tour, and The Dillinger Escape Plan were support, I never heard of them before, and this was the first and only time in my life that I woke up early, because the show sold out very quickly and I went to the Colosseum. And I’m like fuck – there is all ready people here at 8 in the morning. So I went to work, I went to do my job, and I had someone there, they were queuing for like 10 hours, and I said I don’t have a ticket I need to see this show. And it was the first time in my life, the tickets, the normal price was about 30 Euro at the time, it was a long time ago, and I paid 75 Euro to some scum-bag that bought 20 tickets and was selling them on the door, so yeah, I was scammed big time. And I saw SOAD and it was the curtains matched the drapes. The music and the show. They made too many mistakes, it was ridiculous, but the music was not like today when you go to watch a show and you expect to listen to CD perfection, but no, back in the day it was about the energy and the curtain definitely matched the drapes. Fucking Darren on the floor with his guitar, it was amazing. And it’s the shame they are having this issues or what ever it is that they’re actually having because songwriting wise they are, you know, the top of the tops. Songs are so catchy, so emotional. You listen to some band, every band has the formula and they stick to the formula, but with SOAD it’s just, there is lot of songs, it’s very hard to put set list together because they don’t have shit songs. Most bands do have a lot of shit songs, they don’t. They were pioneers when it comes to the vocal harmonies, epicness in something that is very musically very lightly and very energetic and stuff. And what they do if you put it this way, Korn, thousand bands tried to copy them and all other bands, but no one ever tried to copy SOAD.
Did SOAD ever contacted you?
Martin: No. The most we had was is that; we as musicians have to spend half of our lives on social media, right, but we are always doing the right hash-tagging and stuff and tagging the members and seeing what happens. But last year we did the UK tour and guitar player we had in for that was Theresa and she was posting all, tagging the members and eventually, Shavo, bass player for SOAD , was liking her posts and reviewing her stories. So he knows that we exist, weather he shared that with other members, I don’t know. We are not in contact with them at all, but it’s possible that they know who we are and that we exist.
Joyzi: The Machine Head definitely knows that Machine Ed exists. They do, yeah.
Robb Flynn?
Joyzi: Yeah, I met him a few years ago, I was with DragonForce in America, San Francisco maybe, and Logan’s band was supporting, Once Human, and I was doing my job and I walk in the dressing room and there is Robb Flynn. I was like “Hey man, how’s going?” and I just started the tribute to Machine Head UK and Fred, the bass player from DragonForce had the time and said “Oh, Robb, this is Joyzi, he has a tribute to Machine Head.”And Rob was really nice he was like “Oh, that’s cool. What’s it called?” and I said “ Machine Head UK, sorry I was in the hurry.” And yeah, he definitely knows that we exist. We are friends with other band members.
Do you like latest materials from Machine Head?
Martin: I mean, me personally I think their latest album they did, it was brilliant. Some of the best materials they’ve done so far, the album before that, not so good. I liked that they were going for very eclectic style but it wasn’t very well executed. Me personally, I am a Machine Head fan boy I like almost everything they ever done, it’s just catharsis’s super charge and than I’m like mmmmm…. But yeah.. Yeah I think they consistently put out great metal records, like everything really, it’s really hard to pick one.
Do you like Serj original stuff and solo projects?
Martin: Yeah, I’m a big fan of Serj music. Especially that first album. So the white suit that I’m wearing is on stage is inspired by that era of Serj Tankian where he put on the white suit, he also had a top hat and a cane but it was a bit too much. But as Joyzi said, we are not trying to be SOAD, when we are deciding what we want to look like on stage we want to pay homage, so this is my homage to Serj. And yes I really enjoyed that first album. And it’s always been a huge inspiration to me as singer and a song writer.
SO do you like Inciter?
Joyzi: Inciter?
Your t-shirt, they are Metallica tribute band, but they also have their own materials.
Joyzi: Ah, there is story about that, I don’t know them. Our van got robbed two days ago in Greece and I have no clothes so my friend gave me this, I don’t know what I’m wearing.
Thank you for the interview.
Joyzi & Martin: Thank you.
