Next in line we interviewed our friends from Austria, the band The Zsa Zsa Gabor’s.
I really like this band. We visit here and there outside of the concert. Great people, great music. I recommend listening. How do their bassist and singer see it? How was this year for them? What are they planning for the future? And what can we expect from them next? You can find out all this here!
Hi Matthias. How are you? It’s the end of the year. What about your band? What was the most successful for you this year and did you notice something new?
Hello Tomas! Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you about our band! We celebrate our 10 years band aniversary and had a big concert in our hometown St. Pölten. We are happy to still have fun together. We enjoy every rehearsal and every gig. So how could it be better? After some band members got more children, concerts became a bit quieter. But we enjoy every trip even more.
How were your anniversary celebrations? According to the photos, it must have been a proper Rock’n’Roll. It’s a pity that I couldn’t come to see you, but circumstances wanted it differently. Did everything go as it should?
It was absolutly great! Byside of the 10 years anniversary of THE ZSA ZSA GABORS our concert collective Rock’n’Roll Highschool Concerts celebrated 20(+2) years anniversary. We were able to confirm THE INCREDIBLE STAGGERS for this. They play very rare live concerts and many people wanted to see them again. Also SKARFACE from France and THE RIOTERS are famous in our area. So it was a fantastic evening with many friends.
Skarface played in the Czech Republic two days before they came to you. But they did not have such responses. But we have a bit of a problem with this and I think you know it yourself and have seen it sometimes… Now you have the last concert of the year before this (I hope that we will be able to publish this interview before this concert). How do you prepare? And what can we look forward to next year and where can we tentatively see you?
Our plan for next year is to prepare our new songs for the next recording session. This will be our 6th album then. We also try to do so much live-concerts as possible. Fixed are gigs in Praha (Tomas 30-birthday-party!!!), 3 gigs in Germany and we will come to Olomouc with our friends Degradace. We played gigs in Czech Rep. since many years and they are always funny!
Yes. It’s always fun with you. I can’t deny that and I always look forward to seeing you again, but after all… Those people just don’t go to those concerts here. Isn’t it a little depressing for you to go here and know that there will be something like twenty people there? The last time was in February?
Of course, it’s never nice when a concert is poorly attended. But what can we do? We play our show in front of 20 people with the same intensity as in front of 200 people. Fortunately, our concerts are usually well attended. We don’t think much about it anymore.
You also organize some concerts yourself. There aren’t that many, but there’s always a big name. And from what I’ve seen so far, those people really come to your place, but only sometime in the past. Didn’t you ever say enough was enough?
We have been organizing concerts with our agency Rock`n`Roll Highschool in St. Pölten and Vienna for 22 years, and previously also in Linz and Krems. There are really great evenings with a wild party, fantastic bands and lots of people dancing. Of course we also had concerts where we had not so much visitors. There are always those points in time where you say and now that’s enough. We put a lot of time and energy into the organization and if this is rewarded with little response from people, we are of course disappointed. But overall the shows have been going quite well. So we will also give some concerts in 2024.
And do you already know what you will try to invite for next year?
We have planed some local acts like Franz Füxe, Demenzia Kolektiva, Wild Evel & The Trashbones and we will mix it with internations acts like Sham 69 and The Movement. And there will come some more.
Wow. They are interesting bands. I will definitely come to see you for something! J You have come a long way in your relatively short period of operation. What was the success?
If you meen The Zsa Zsa Gabors: The secret of success is friendship and many years of music experience. We enjoy every rehersal, talk together about everyday problems, family stories and so on. This is important for everybody in the band. That always gives us strength for new songs. We are a band and we are friends. Thats it!
Nicely written! A lot of bands should learn from you! As I already wrote, you have accomplished a lot in such a short time. Specifically you. Do you have a best experience you can remember with the band?
Oh thank you. I think we are very effective as a band. We write new songs very quickly. We also have enough concert offers, it’s running. There were many beautiful experiences. The best memories remain of endless wild parties. We always try to approach things positively and také a lot of things with humor. So it doesn’t matter if a concert doesn’t go well. Our support gig of Flogging Molly at Arena Vienna in front of 2000 visitors will definitely be unforgettable.
Conversely, your worst experience?
We played one of our fist gigs in Slovakia in a Metal Club and there were zero visitors… We played in front of the second band members. But we still had a great party afterwards. So always think positively. Something like that can happen.
Yeah. This also happened to me once, when I had zero paying people come to a concert I was organizing. One can only smile at that. Well Today is generally difficult. Is there anything that bothers you about these days, bands, organizers, visitors?
Times have obviously changed. Kids these days aren’t that into classic punk or rock anymore. We often have to work with the remaining old rockers – haha! I’ve stopped being disappointed at these situations. You can’t force people to go to live shows. Either you offer a good evening, then enogh people will come. Or you do a small show with unknown bands, then fewer people will be interested. You always have to weigh things up.
As a band, you have quite a large repertoire from which to choose what to play. But, is there a song you play live that really pisses you off? J
Yes, of course there are some songs that we would rather not play anymore. But these are exactly the songs that people want to hear again and again. And these are also the songs that are best known. So we have to play these live. It’s also really fun when the crowd sings along to the lyrics.
So yeah, we’re coming to the end. Is there anything you would like to ask us? J
Thank you for the interview, Tomas! What are your plans for the upcoming year? Any highlights, bands?
Yes. There will be interesting bands. As far as I can reveal, in the Czech Republic I will have Polish street Oi punk legends The Analogs, English Codename Colin and [spunge], Thanks to you Sham69 and their manager and I are already working on other bands, German Erstausgabe. And if it goes well, maybe next year I’ll have the Swiss The Peacocks! And for the first time in my life I will organize a concert in another country, in Germany.
Now, in the end, we will give you space. Is there anything you would like to tell people?
It is important that we reflect on the roots of the punk tradition and také more control of ourselves again. You can reach a lot with little knowledge. Just try printing a t-shirt or creating buttons. Record songs yourself and play them on cassette. Or publish your own drawings with texts in a fanzine. This is punk – DIY
Thanks for your time and see you soon!
See you soon Tomas!!
