Q: Yes, but don?t you think Polish musicians should adapt the music to the words rather than the music to the words? They could create some sort of new genre, perhaps.

A: Well, you know, I?ve heard Chinese rap...generally it is a language that has no choice but to adapt to 4/4 rhythm, because this rhythm is everywhere. There are few exceptions these days, but they do exist.

Q: Your lyrics are quite important. Do you think that a person that doesn?t know Polish is deprived of some part of your music?

A: Hell yeah. Half of my music is lost in this situation.

Q: Yes, but ? say ? in Jaromir Nohavica?s music, his lyrics are extremely important, and yet he still has a huge non-Czech speaking fan base.

A: Well, maybe it?s his interpretation...you know, we have no idea what Rammstein are singing about yet we still listen to them.

Q: Yes, but for Rammstein, the music is more important than the lyrics. As with your Homo Twist and Pudelsi projects. But then again, comparatively, the music on your solo projects is, well, quite simple.

A: Well, I don?t know what a non-Polish speaker loses, nor do I want know. All I know is that they certainly lose something. We do have some lyrics in English on the new Homo Twist album, however. These lyrics are mostly the poems of Emily Dickinson, and I?m gonna sing her poems till the day that I die. She wrote a lot of gorgeous poetry and I am not going to pretend that I can write anything better than her. I have translated her texts into Polish before and tried to present her to the Polish audience. This time, however, I decided not to translate anything. Yeah, so I sing some things in English now, but it has been a natural and genuine development. And, well, I do think that I want to be recognized somewhere outside the Polish ghetto as well.

Q: You have played in the West before, haven?t you?

A: Yes. These were concerts primarily for Polish ?migr? and they were quite useless and meaningless.

Q: So you can?t say much about the reactions of a non-Polish speaking audience?

A: The sound engineers loved it, haha.

Q: How was CBGB?s??

A: Haha, CBGBs is the club where every band brings its own audience with them. Generally, it is all about switching bands and audiences. A band finishes playing, leaves and their audience leaves with them. The next band starts to play just as their own audience arrives. That?s how CBGB works.

Q: In your musical catalogue there is this recurring Witkacian or Bulgakovian tendency to ?diabolize? or ?demonize? the Eastern European reality. You seem to be searching for the metaphysics in all of it.

A: Yeah, sure.

Q: Could you expand upon this? Is there really a devil, here in Eastern Europe?

A: Yes, but the devil is everywhere, even in the States. Look at Marilyn Manson for example, haha. Here in Poland there are plenty of devils, and all because of Polish girls ? an army of devils came out of hell and started to run after our girls. They have their tails hidden in their trouser legs and pretend to be humans among us, stealing our souls. They cannot go back to hell though, because they started to marry our women, and they won?t let them back. So there are a lot of devils in this country, and all because of our beautiful women.

Q: So this should be a huge reason for someone to come to Poland ? if even the devil leaves hell for Polish women.

A: Hell yeah, haha.

Q: When talking about Eastern Europe, it is impossible not to mention the Gypsies. You sing about Gypsies. You love their music. Even the language you created and in which you sing some of your songs is based on the sound of the native Gypsy tongue.

A: The language I created...I sing in this language when there is lack of words. Only emotion. And I created it when I started smoking marijuana. Large amounts of marijuana first started appearing in Poland in the late eighties, and of course, I was one of its pioneers. I was one of the first to discover its wonderful magic powers, haha. My primal conscience opened up and I started to speak in tongues I never knew before. That was my language. And I speak it until this very day. That?s how it is.

Q: You were like an apostle haunted by the Holy Ghost, haha.

A: Oh yes.

Q: Great to hear that story, but I was asking about the influence of Gypsies upon you and your music? A: Oh, right. When I started to play on the street with my acoustic guitar (and I played on the street for many years by the way ? first blues standards, then my own compositions) there were Gypsies playing on the street as well: crippled Stefan on violin and two other guys. And I was afraid that there would be a fight, you know ? competition and such things. I was quite surprised, because they turned out to be really nice guys. ?You live like us? ? they said ? ?so our kids won?t steal your money,? haha. We were friends, but we couldn?t play together. I had no idea how to play tango, and they couldn?t play the blues.

Q: Don?t you think that we could say that the Gypsies and their music come from a similar place as African Americans and their music? And by place, I am referring to some sort of deep, transformative, physical and emotional turmoil.

A: Of course. It?s the very same thing. Both populations were pushed into ghettos, and forced into the dregs of their respective societies. The only way for an individual to get out was and is to make a music career.

Q: Especially because they don?t have any soccer representation?

A: No soccer representation, no basketball representation, they have no idea how to play rap. But they definitely have their own style. And, as I said, playing music is one of the two ways to get out of the [Gypsy] ghetto. Another one is to become a thief, and a good one at that. So they are educated in two disciplines primarily; to become either a master thief or a musician. And, as far as I have noticed, the musicians don?t steal. There is this division between those who steal and those who play music. If the kid has no musical talent, they educate him to be a thief. And vise versa. Musicians simply play on the streets and collect money in their hats. This is their enterprise. The thieves? enterprise is something else entirely; they work parking lots, railway stations, bridges and on and on, haha.

Q: Now something about Homo Twist. Is it really a band or is it just you and group of musicians ? a different group for every new album?

A: I?ll put it this way ? I am Homo Twist. But, at the same time, Homo Twist is the band. The fact that I switch the musicians doesn?t change the fact that the group exists. I?ll do everything to keep the band stable, and I will do that even by changing the musicians every month. If I feel that I have the wrong guy in the wrong place, I?ll fire him. I have just hired a new band but this doesn?t necessarily mean that I am going to fire them. You don?t think about a divorce while you?re getting married. And actually, I can even fire myself, as I did in the group Pudelsi. I will drop everything for Homo Twist. Solo career, Pudelsi, theatre, weddings and even funerals.

Q: And what about Pudelsi?

A: Pudelsi is finished.

Q: Tell me a little about your new musicians. Titus from Acid Drinkers is among them. They are talented and even important musicians. So it is my guess that they are probably influencing the direction of Homo Twist?s music. What exactly is each of their roles in Homo Twist?

A: I?ll answer a little bit enigmatically: Let a part remember the whole, and the whole remember the parts. The role of the parts is to make the whole thing work. You need to listen to the CD, You?ll find out yourself.

Q: You have two drummers. You said it is because of the jazz idea of making the rhythmic structure more solid. Are you thinking about getting more into jazz?

A: I listen to jazz, but I?m not stupid enough to play jazz. You can say that I have some sort of jazz approach however. I can play a jazz guitar solo. Besides, what Homo Twist plays is not jazz, but at the same time it is jazz. It is metal, but it?s not metal. It is rock, but it?s not rock. It doesn?t necessarily have to be the same thing that a man from California thinks about jazz. Because the things I play are just my imagination of how something should sound. I?ve heard Chinese rap and rock...

Q: I?ve heard Mongolian?

A: That?s it. They only think they know how something should sound. It?s only theirs and my f**king imagination. But still ? it?s audible.

Q: In the past, you have always rooted your music in some sort of Polish reality. But now, it seems that you are starting to play more hard rock music, more universal stuff. You even started to sing in English. Is this because you want to be accepted in the more commercial mainstream?

A: Look: inviting Titus from the thrash metal group Acid Drinkers to the band was symbolic. It is a signifier of the direction in which the band is about to evolve. But Titus, to my surprise, turned out to be a great funk player ? even though he has never played it before! He?s got the same idea of funk as I have of heavy metal, haha. Because in the genre of metal ? he?s just in it, he?s an icon. I?m quite impressed though, because Titus can play all these pirouettes on his guitar while singing and doing this whole dancing thing as well, haha. I can perform some guitar acrobatics myself, but only under one condition ? no singing.

Q: One last question ? You once said you?d like to have a younger audience...

A: Well, I don?t just want to have all these old curmudgeons in golden haute couture, you know? I need an audience more in the Acid Drinker?s demographic; with piercings, long hair...you know, generally more intelligent.

Edited by: (T. M. Chase)

Ziemowit Szczerek