When did you first meet the singer Petr Muk?
We met on September 1, 1980, when I started high school in České Budějovice. Quite by chance, we sat down next to each other on the bench. Actually, it wasn’t such a coincidence. I was from Týn nad Vltavou and as a cross-country skier I arrived quite early and sat down on the last bench. Peter arrived in about eight minutes and the only vacancy was next to me.
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At that time, I played in a band that performed on so-called teas, which were basically dance parties. Petr listened to punk and Frank Zappa, his urban musical taste was wider than my country. Later I joined the punk band Dural, which was founded by Petr and Láďa Bartoň. That was in the third grade. That was the first time we played together. I played Delicia’s electric organ and trumpet. The ocean was formed in 1985.
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Mrs. Vozáryová, the mother of our later colleagues from the Ocean, Dušan and Honza, taught us at that construction school. Honza was two years older than us and went to the same school. Dušan worked as an machine shop, which was in the next neighborhood.
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The ocean was a great success in the late 1980s. What did it do to you then?
That success did not come from day to day, we have been striving for it for several years. Our goal was to be freelance musicians, which we succeeded in May 1989, when we did plays for the Central Bohemian Regional Cultural Center. We made those plays that were mandatory for all bands and musicians before the revolution because we won the Rockfest music show in 1988.
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It changed our lives a lot. We had a little more money and in 1990 we recorded the album Ancient Earth, which was our dream. Success came, we continued in peace, other albums came, Prague accepted us, where we had a number of friends who helped us. We felt a bit like a dream. In addition, we toured England with Erasure.
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Petr Kučera today.
Photo: archive of P. Kučera
Our bands didn’t tour much there.
Our manager Jirka Vatka worked as a guide at the then Youth Travel Agency. He spoke excellent English, so he took care of the band Depeche Mode when it was first in Prague before the revolution, and then also about Erasure, who played there later. He pushed the cassette with our songs to you.
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The revolution came about, and after that, Erasure offered us to make them a front band in England. For us, it was not only another dream come true, but also an educational journey. We knew the professional approach in all aspects.
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You founded Shalom in 1992, at a time of great ocean glory. Why was the band formed?
Ocean and I returned from England and had songs ready for two records. For the money we received from Erasure, we bought a recording program for the studio so that we could shoot on our own and in peace.
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But Petr Muk sniffed Erasure pop in England and started writing songs that were a bit like that. He thought the ocean would play them, but the band didn’t make it. It was great music for me, but Dušan and Honza Vozáry got too pop. Some things, such as the Green Gem, the ocean and I even rehearsed, but songs continued to fall from Petr Muk in that spirit, and the band’s relationships began to diverge.
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And so Peter and I said that we would do his songs in another project and then return to the Ocean. But that was only half the case. There was a joint tour of the Ocean with Shalom, but then we didn’t meet in the Ocean. Relationships were musically severed.
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Jewish themes appeared in Shalom’s songs. How did you get to her?
It was brought by Petr Muk and I, as the author of the lyrics of the song Rachel, were not against it. It also seemed quite provocative to me. Peter needed to rest in something at that time, and that Judaism seemed like a good way. He was a romantic tornado and believed it would give him more order in his life.
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Was that Judaism and the topic of your discussions?
Yes, we talked about him. Petr Muk gave our lyricist Petr Hons topics, they dealt with it a lot. We had lyrics with Jewish motifs on both of our albums, Shalom from 1992 and Message Gates from 1994.
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You shot clips in Israel, and it was not common in our country for bands to go abroad to shoot them.
It was not usual, but Petr Muk pushed it through at a publishing company. We recorded in Slovakia, Israel and Greece, later it made more bands. But the creators of our clips were a little unhappy, claiming that they would make Israel much better in the studio for the money that our trips cost.
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During the shooting of the first clip, Petr decided to stay in Kibbutz and live there. I drove with him through Italy, then we continued by steamer through Cyprus to Israel. He wanted to have a car in Israel, learn to speak, stay for about half a year and then return.
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But when he climbed into the port of Haifa and saw armed women and a dusty city, he said he would not be there for a minute longer than was needed to shoot the clip. I remember the dust terrifying him from the harbor. He experienced great disappointment.
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He flew home with us and left the car there. Then we went to Trieste for them, where he had a hard time picking him up.
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Shalom Group
Photo: Ivan Pinkava
Some sources state that Shalom ended its existence in 1994, others two years later. How was it?
After the release of the Gate of Messages album in 1994, the band’s popularity went down. To make a living, we also started performing at halfplayback discos. I was so free-spirited at the time and maybe a little naive, I thought that the well-being, when everything was going relatively well, would still last. Peter then started getting various offers from the music scene, maybe he was also thinking about a solo career, so we thought that the third record was not worth shooting.
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We dissolved it in peace, which took place at a gas station near Humpolec on the D1 motorway. Petr continued to perform at the disco and I went back to České Budějovice.
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There was no ocean, no Shalom. Didn’t you lose a little meaning in life then?
It all happened to me much later, basically recently, in my fifties. But then I thought life was moving on. In České Budějovice, I fit into a party formed by a Dutchman who immigrated there. We put together the band Smutný Karel and used cannabis and psychoactive substances. It was quite cheerful.
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I also started going to work. Some time ago, I relaxed and started to pay more attention to the cat, dog and hens that I keep. But it looks scary, I’ll probably have to get somewhere before retiring.
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What are your current music activities?
We play with the Ocean, which got back together after Petr Muk’s death. Jitka Charvátová sings in it. I also work in the band Bratři Karamazovi, which is such an underground from Český Krumlov. But only the founder of the original group remained in it. I also played with Eva Turn, but it fell apart.
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I’m no longer focused on just one band. I like being part of more bands that play different music. It’s not as cool as it was young, but it’s good.
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