Siegfrieds Muktupávels: I admit that the pandemic ruined the plans at that time. Were there any when you officially turned 30?
Juris Kaukulis: Yes, there were plans, but we had to take a break. Now is the time when this holiday must be celebrated, because the holiday must be celebrated.
Siegfrieds Muktupávels: Two years is a difference, now it would be 32 years.
Juris Kaukulis: Yes, 32. What I consider the date of birth is the first concert in Mālpils on April 23, 1991.
Siegfrieds Muktupävels: Do you remember how the audience reacted then?
Juris Kaukulis: I remember from the first moment how it happened and why the band and why that name. I had just come back from service, had a band before and had to make a band. That was the most important thing, everything else was unimportant, like continuing to study. It is hard to say which was the first song “Wolf” or the group “Iron Wolf”, but both probably at the same time. We still play the very first band song called “Wolf” every now and then. [..] At first, of course, the “Iron Wolf” was finned and didn’t know what he was looking at, but over time, the length of his teeth and claws grew and we have scratched quite far.
The beginning was simple – we wanted a band where we could shout, play the guitar loudly and sing lyrics that people would think they shouldn’t have sung.
Siegfrīds Muktupāvels: Kaspar, every now and then we notice that your love is for a completely different genre of music.
Kaspars Tobis: A good alloy was obtained there. I met Juri in the mid-90s, when we started going to Germany to play on the streets, and while driving in the car, our musical tastes gradually crystallized, because everyone played the same cassette that everyone had brought with them. The “Kraftwerk” atmosphere that prevailed did not rule out the idea that I could try to join a new sound.
Juris Kaukulis: It’s not a bad thing for a group to change their skin from time to time. The feelings have stopped and you need to somehow catapult yourself into the next life. It seems that a person lives one life, but you do not feel that you are changing over time. There was a need to make some changes, because “Iron Wolf” as such a substance cried out for changes. Then Kaspar, whom I had met in Germany, joined. [..] “Wolf” is always rock music with loud drums, but Kaspar’s melody and dreams of the digital and analog worlds flowed into our harsh environment.
Zigfrīds Muktupāvels: How was it formed, in which genre the particular song will be?
Juris Kaukulis: Everything is going well for us. Guitars are usually born first riffs with some kind of text, I would call it a text scrap, which is an opening or a chorus. Then somehow the rest of the song is born and in the rehearsal process it grows into a collaboration. After all, it is “Iron Wolf”.
From left: Juris Kaukulis and Kaspars Tobis
Photo: Santa Lauga / Latvian Radio
Siegfrieds Muktupávels: The main essence of rock music is protest, protest against anything. You were one of the first to hold a car concert during a pandemic and that’s when I realized that rock music is capable of punching a hole in any wall, even in a pandemic. You’ve always had a sort of subconscious instinct that we’re bound to do something we shouldn’t? It is always difficult to find those topics and many do not find what to protest against, what to fight for.
Juris Kaukulis: It was a difficult process and a period of closure, where to be. People were in the cars one by one, it was strange, but we still felt their presence.
The “Iron Wolf” concert is not just a concert, it is an exchange of energy with the audience and that’s where the power comes from.
Zigfrīds Muktupāvels: The individual activities of the group members, does it give something, does it show something about the group? Are they some unfulfilled dreams?
Kaspars Tobis: This is typical in the history of world music for a lot of bands that have side projects. Since I also worked in the studio from the end of the 90s, I always had to be both a session musician and be involved in projects. [..] From my teenage years, I thought that yes, I will be that kind of studio person who no one knows, but who makes and writes all the time, but what’s the point of making and writing if no one knows you, no one hears you.
Siegfrieds Muktupävels: But when you make one, don’t you have the idea that “Wolf” is enough, that this is the real calling that you want to fulfill?
Kaspars Tobis: These are not mutually exclusive. “Wolf” is such a plane above, mana [mūzika] there is such a helicopter, a little lower, but sometimes very stable.
Zigfrīds Muktupāvels: Juri, you also performed alone, without any assistant.
Juris Kaukulis: You mentioned that there was a pandemic and there were challenges, that the producer says that Yuri, we have 25 people, but only one can play, what do we do? I thought, how am I going to just go there alone with a guitar, well no. Then I had two weeks of preparation, I figured out how I could do everything. I started experimenting at home and it turned into a very interesting, happy feeling for me, because I suddenly discovered that I can still write songs that can be played by one person or by many. I also play with flautist Liena Dobičin, my daughter Ruta joined us with the flute for a concert, but basically I’m alone. What I really liked was that at these concerts I could talk to the audience, tell about the songs as well as about unbelievable or believable cases, sing together. Playing in a group has different rules, but it’s always the same draivs and you can’t let go. [..] However, “Wolf” is the foundation and it is my identity.
Zigfrīds Muktupāvels: Folk music is also a very important player in the history of “Wolves”, but it is quite difficult to involve folk music in its genre, you have succeeded.
Juris Kaukulis: It is such an unexpected challenge that came from Iveta Mielava. We wouldn’t have touched it at all, we had just released the first album “There are no women in my house” on her label. Yvette said on hot coals that we could sing folk songs with folk lyrics. From the beginning, I thought it wouldn’t really happen. And then we had a collaboration with Olga Zhitluhin, in which I played the mandolin, Kaspar played the accordion for a whole show. We came home and told Iveta that the melody will not be there, but the lyrics will be. [..] It continued like that and in the end it was clear that “Iron Wolf” and “Jauno Jāņu orchestra” could no longer work together, because people started to get confused. Then both the names changed and the members changed, now they are already independent entities – “Jauno Jāņu orchestra” and “Iron Wolf”.
Group “Iron Wolf”
Photo: Aija Kaukule
Siegfrīds Muktupāvels: There is no doubt that your music fulfills its highest meaning – to captivate the listener. Do you have your own formulation of where the music lies? Is that what you think about everyday?
Kaspars Tobis: Recently in an interview I was asked what kind of music I listen to – rock or electronic? I said that it is not important, the main thing is to have the fifth element. The secret that makes everyone suddenly see that there was something there. If we manage to achieve from the moment, then it is worth it. And it looks like it’s happening.
Juris Kaukulis: Again, for me, since I’m the one who sings and delivers those lyrics to the audience, if the lyrics are something I really want to sing, then the intonation is already of secondary importance, because I’m telling it as a story. The text I sing has always been important to me. That’s why I don’t often sing the old songs, because it seems that I don’t want to tell such a story anymore.
2023-09-20 14:14:07
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