The legend of the Czech year in an interview on A11 TV.
Source: A11 TV
The Django documentary is now in theaters. In it, the director Olga Špátová Malířová captured two years of the legendary rock singer of the Olympic group Petr Janda. He hopes that his musical career is not over yet. And he adds that a “proper” rocker should die on stage.
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The movie Django premiered last week. What do you call him?
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I always have such conflicting feelings because I don’t like looking at myself. When there is a program regarding me or the Olympics on TV, I watch it like a “naked movie”. I’m just shy. And I’m also afraid that people might not like it. But so far, everyone who has seen it has praised it immensely. I’ve seen it three times already, but I can’t say anything regarding it.
How was the shoot? You lived with the authors of the film for two years.
Yes, filming was challenging. With Olga, with whom we have already become friends, including her husband Honza Malíř, whom I have known for years, we said that if we get down to it, I will accommodate her in everything. And I did that too, although I have to say that in those two years I got a little fed up with it. But it’s not that she’s misbehaving, but it’s been an awfully long time. She always called me and I was already terrified when they wanted to come to us once more to film. They were with us for Christmas and Easter. They almost crawled into our bed with the camera. But I hope the result will be worth it.
What is the movie regarding?
It is regarding the last two years that I have lived with the band and with my family, and in it my historical development is partly depicted.
How would you sum up your life when you look back on those 80 years?
I think the career was long. And I hope it will last a while. I am a musician in body and soul. I just love it. I can’t stand without music and I’m afraid that it just won’t work. I am absolutely terrified of it! I don’t know what to do at all. And I don’t mean to blaspheme, but a “proper” rocker is supposed to die on stage.
It seems a little paradoxical to me that rockers who lead wild lives, like you or Mick Jagger, are still playing. And then next to you, some 80-year-old man, some clerk, knocks.
How is it possible? You know, I’ll tell you one thing I don’t understand. I have peers who I met maybe 20 years ago, and they told me how much they were looking forward to retirement and that they would no longer have to go to work in the morning. Being retired – it’s kind of like an antechamber to a funeral, because there’s not much going on there anyway. Because, I recognize it myself to a certain extent, one can be lazy. That’s once, twice, and then it’s a bad pitch. So I guess I can’t be lazy. I’m still fired up.
And isn’t it because they, some, went to work with reluctance? Whereas you did in your life, what you wanted and what you enjoyed?
I also went to work, I repaired telephone exchanges for almost two years. Today is completely different, today I wouldn’t be able to do it anymore. And I remember that when I was leaving work, it wasn’t so important to me that I wouldn’t have to get up. I didn’t have to anyway. I had my district and reported to work by phone. I dialed the number from my bed, I said Janda, they made a dash and I was already at work. So it wasn’t regarding that, but the freedom that I would be able to strum during the day and that I would be able to go somewhere on a trip for maybe a week, that was amazing.
How is your day? And how much do you play, despite your advanced age?
We play around 80 concerts a year with Olympik. Then we have some rehearsals, some TV appearances or some filming. So, let’s say 100, 120 days a year we devote ourselves to the profession. Then, of course, everyone rehearses and works at home, and I, as a bandleader, have thousands of other responsibilities. And then I have the other side, and that’s Daddy. I am a father of five children, now I have two last little girls who are getting old very fast. I regularly drive them to school three times a week in the morning, I get up at 7:30, and then I go to pick them up and we have to go to clubs – horse riding, tennis, piano, music lessons and choir. They really have a lot and I go through it with them and I like doing it. I have already started my regime, I also go to my favorite tennis, sometimes I go to billiards, to the theater, to the cinema, sometimes even to a party, so I really have a full day.
How are you enjoying your late fatherhood? And how does it differ from the previous ones?
I am much more responsible, I really take care of them. From childhood. If I might breastfeed, I would. I changed them, bathed them, put them to sleep. You know, I had a bit of a debt. Marta and Péťa, those were my first two children from my first marriage, when I played regarding 250 concerts a year… I didn’t really care regarding them. And I was still very young. I was 25 years old, I was broke. When I finally had time off, I was thinking regarding where I would go to another party. But now I am responsible. That is the essential difference.
What is your favorite song? I, for example, your mother’s tears gray…
I have a lot of those songs, I have them as my children and I don’t want to leave any of them behind, but when it comes to this question, I like Questions the most. When I started singing it: How many days until the last one comes?, I was regarding twenty-seven, so I thought it was ridiculous. Today I really sing it like a grown man and I understand it.
How do you evaluate the development of Olympik during its operation?
Of course, that music developed in some way, Olympik developed, and I also developed in some way at that time, but still, the burden of the past, of the prehistoric big beat, as we said, is simply there in a person. But Olympik spread out a lot, we absorbed some styles quite vehemently, like metal and punk, maybe even a little bit of reggae, we touched on those styles, but from my point of view, as a person who has some historical insight into it, I unfortunately have to state that rock’n’roll is over. It is already at the end of development, nothing really interesting has happened for maybe 30 years. Unfortunately, it reincarnated into some revivals, but no major new style emerged. Computer music works a little, but that doesn’t concern me, I’m essentially a live player. This is a bit sad for me.
But do you still stick to rock’n’roll?
Sure, the foundation is rock’n’roll, but I’m saying, that evolution disappeared sometime in the 90s. I’d say the last band that had anything to do with it was Nirvana with their grunge, but nothing has happened since then.
What is the composition of your audience?
My peers don’t go anymore. I always ask if anyone is in their eighties, and no one says so. So I’m discounting for seventy, that doesn’t happen there either. The oldest is twenty years younger than me. But young people go too, of course. I think Olympik made songs that are timeless. I have such an example. When my daughter Rozárca was nine two years ago, she came and sang. I came up with a lot of ideas. And I asked her what song it was. I was acting “stupid”. And she said it was the kind of song girls sing at school. And now I was wondering if I should tell her that I made it. So that she doesn’t think I’m pulling out. But then I told her I composed it and she was like yeah that’s good.
Do you lead the girls to music?
The older one, she’s such a studious type, she’s very high on her feet, and the younger one, Rozárka, doesn’t like practicing the piano, but she sings well. I already taught her guitar, but she put it down once more. I don’t want to fundamentally force her into it, even if it’s what we’re going to talk regarding. But I think that Rozárka is a type like Marta. But we’ll see.
Many interesting personalities have passed through the Olympics. Who stuck in your heart a lot?
Definitely Béda Berka, as we called him. Mirek Berka. He was definitely an excellent rock’n’roll pianist. There were few of them here. I would say that regarding two or three were born here who knew how to play rock’n’roll, how to play it, boogie like that. Today, I don’t know if anyone else can do it at all. Then I would also name Jeník Pacák, who was the drummer. He was such a godly man who never learned anything in his life and the folk instruments always suited him, so he played the flute, harmonica, drums. Not on the guitar anymore, it was too complicated for him. But everyone from that old group, Chrastina, Klein, were somehow special, interesting. I call the entire first composition, from 1965 to 1969, which was not such a long period, an authentic Olympian. And then there is Pochrastinovský, some people left, we said goodbye to some. The last goodbye was three years ago with our keyboard player. Milan Broum has been playing with me for 36 years. I didn’t start Olympik either, so there is no longer a founding member. The drummer has been with us for 11 years, Martin Vajgl, and the keyboardist Pavel Březina for three years. Over the past three years, we’ve worked together wonderfully, we understand each other very well, and I’m very happy regarding that. I have to say I was worried regarding this. Every new member is like a bet in the lottery. If he can play, we’ll know, but what kind of person is he? He can pretend pretty well, and then he’s a pretty badass, but in this case, hey, it worked.
