Ivan Mládek, a native of Prague, has performed with jazz and country groups since 1966. From 1967 to 1968, he made a living in cabaret in France by playing the banjo and balalaika. He began performing with the Banjo Band in the early 1970s. He has written four hundred songs, still performs with the band and is also a writer, painter and screenwriter.
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You were born in the sign of Aquarius. Does your personality have any typical traits for this sign?
Maybe it’s just that I like to wash once in a while.
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The lyrics of your songs suggest that you are a cheerful person with a sense of humor. Is humor important to you?
Yes, it allowed me to make a living from music all my life. If I sang love songs and put them to death seriously, people wouldn’t come to us for long. Maybe they would only come once.
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Many musicians often say that being on stage practically automatically means being attractive to the opposite sex. Was that one of the impulses for you to start making music?
Absolutely no. In the beginning, we were so enchanted by jazz that we were basically not interested in anything else. Our passion rejected all the girls and we were aware of that. But it was stronger than us.
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When we had a date with the girls, instead of declaring love, we only got to list Louis Armstrong’s songs, rewrote various clarinet solos, and learn about how the banjo, guitar, and double bass are tuned. Logically, we waited in vain for them at the next meeting.
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Ivan Mládek is still giving concerts.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Právo
Do you remember when you wrote the first song and what was it about?
I started writing the first melodies sometime in the late sixties, more or less to order. I met drummer Jan Pacák in Prague at Václavák, who complained that his friend, singer Valérie Čižmárová, did not have any of her original Czech songs, and asked me if I would try one.
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I had a thousand jazz songs in my ears, so the invention was. So it wasn’t a problem for me to make five melodies that evening. The first was, I think, Vampire’s song and it was not sung in the end by Valérie Čižmárová, but by Jan Pacák with the Banjo Band.
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Why did you start writing songs?
I still don’t get it. I was a stubborn banjo player, and by no means did I want to do anything but play the tenor banjo. These songs were my first turn and then it started.
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I came up with lyrics, a connecting spoken word, scripts, and in the end the most incomprehensible came, I also started to sing out of coercion. The band, which finally wanted to play for money, made me do it.
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Your first two albums, which are now being reissued, were released in the mid-1970s. Do you remember how you recorded them?
The first album, Dobrý den, consisted mostly of our first radio songs from 1973 to 1975. The second album, called Nashledanou, was already recorded in Studio A for the then record company Panton. I don’t remember any happy story from filming because there was none. Our ambition was not to entertain with the right of a clumsy sound director, but for people who buy a record.
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Do you keep composing?
I haven’t composed or written anything for about twenty years. As Hercule Poirot says, I only use the cortex to come up with pictorial themes. I’m just painting now.
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How do you celebrate your round birthday?
I planned a march of majorettes through Prague, a festive fireworks display from the Castle and the takeover of the Order of the White Lion there. But because of the covid, I don’t translate it until the summer.
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