The interview, called "Everything is because of girls" was published in "Go" Magazine [source] in 2002, and Justyna translated it for me in August 2003. Just as a reminder: neither Justyna nor I wrote the following article. Justyna just translated it for me, out of the goodness of her heart and for the good of English-speaking Myslovitz fans everywhere.
„Go” Magazine (October 2002)
An interview with Artur Rojek, Przemek Myszor, Wojtek Powaga (that makes
three-fifths of the band Myslovitz) by Monika Brzywczy.
What do you remember best from Lisbon?
Przemek: Glasses sellers. They were everywhere, selling glasses which they had attached to the strings hung on their forearms. And when you showed any interest in what they were selling, from under their jackets they would take out those huge bags with millions of surprises.
Wojtek: Trams, driving through steep and narrow streets. There were only about 30 cm left for sidewalks and people were walking so close to the trams, that when you were going by one, you could touch the eyelashes of the pedestrians.
Being a musician is a bit like selling glasses. A musician is a kind of mage, who can discover and show others a different world. I put glasses on and I can either see more clearly, or I practically can’t see a thing. I guess you can listen to music in a similar way…?
Przemek: You could probably compare these things, but we are not trying to change anyone’s world. We’re simply writing about ours. We describe what we see with our own eyes. I mean, I’m not saying that we go through our autobiographies and take out the more interesting scraps. We avoid confiding, but anyway everything that we write is permeated with our perception of reality. We show it to others, we let them judge it, but we’re not saying that they should see it the way we do.
What is the meaning of life?
Wojtek: Ordinariness. Every day worries, emotions, suffering, problems. Everything that makes you more experienced.
Przemek: It’s that you do something in life, that you keep being active. You don’t give up standing up because you had to stand up, eating because there was some food on the table. You don’t live like a sheep, thoughtlessly just because life happens to you. The meaning of life is the aim.
How does Tunisia sound to you?
Wojtek: Hot and sticky.
And Lisbon?
Przemek: The clatter of the trams.
Artur: We were there too short to be able to describe it with a sound. Throughout few hours you can’t really feel the atmosphere of the city.
What are Mysłowice like?
Artur: There is nothing uncommon about them. Especially for us, since we were all born and brought up there. And we live there till now. It is a common Silesian town with gray houses and two mines. There is also a park there and it’s pretty green. We probably see more and feel better in Mysłowice than someone, who arrives there from the outside. But then, it also happens, that some of our friends who come to visit us are fascinated by Mysłowice, like for example Maciek Cieślak from Ścianka (another Polish band). When I showed him my primary school in the miners’ area Piasek near to the “familoki” (few-families houses of the miners) and mines, he was delighted. He explored all the backyards, climbed the fences and behaved like a small boy playing truant.
Now a question especially for Artur. Few years ago, you worked as a lifeguard at the swimming pool in Zawoja. You studied at AWF (Akademia Wychowania Fizycznego – Physical Education Academy?), you taught in a school. Do you miss those days?
Artur: I decided to take up these studies only in order to work later as a swimming coach. I
wanted to teach children in a sport club and landed in a school only because there was a possibility there to take extra (unpaid) holidays. Kids in the sport clubs have to practice regularly – it wouldn’t be possible for me to simply leave them for some time to give a concert with the band. I don’t miss school, but I do miss swimming sometimes. I have too little time. I run more often…
Is it easy to learn [teach] someone to swim?
Artur: I’ve never taught adults to swim. Only kids. First you have to let them get used to the water. You teach them how to breathe, then you help them to lay on the water and float. It’s all about making them feel safe all the time. If you manage that, then there are no problems really. You teach them the swimming technique, the way to work with their arms and legs, swimming on back and on front.
Wojtek: These are some strange theories. When I was taught to swim in my primary school, our teacher threw me into the water and kept pushing me away with this long rod. She kept yelling “Swim, swim!”.
Artur: Maybe she was teaching you how to dive?
Przemek: I was taught to swim in the same way.
Artur: Well, there are different techniques…
Is it pleasant to teach children?
Przemek: It depends on how many…
Artur: In my case it was very pleasant. It gives a great satisfaction, when after the fifteenth lesson you see a kid who two weeks ago could not swim and now he does and not bad as well.
Przemek: Teaching to swim is about teaching to overcome your fear of water.
Can you teach somebody love for music? Or do you have to be born with it?
Wojtek: I think that you can. And it seems to me the later the worse. The older people get, the less flexible they become. They don’t want to open to some things.
What does your car look like?
Artur: Normal, with comfortable seats, pretty big.
Przemek: Volkswagen. We have a TV in it.
What do you do in this car? Talk? Sleep?
Wojtek: It is best to sleep. Sometimes we watch films and the person who chooses the most ambitious film for us to watch, is always the first to fall asleep.
Artur: I am always the first who falls asleep.
Przemek: Yeah, but you’re also always the one to yell, that we’re not to show the films in which there’s a lot of shooting.
Artur: It is hard to watch films in a car. One moment and I’m asleep.
What is your daily routine?
Artur: It doesn’t really differ from the routine of any other person who lives from music. When we get back from a tour I have some free time, so I make up arrears, I meet with friends, go shopping, take a dog for a walk, sometimes run in the forest, eat breakfast… Nothing special really, I spend my time commonly.
I’ve heard that you get up at six in the morning…
Artur: Not always.
Przemek: Sometimes he goes to bed at six in the morning.
Artur: I got up at 10 today.
Wojtek: When we’re sleeping in a hotel, I hate sleeping with Artur, cause he gets up at 6.
Przemek: He stamps.
Wojtek: Then he comes back from a jogging. He takes a shower and that’s again some more noise. I like sleeping with Przemek best. I always have to wake him up.
You can run to run away, to change yourself, to unite with nature. Which kind of running do you prefer?
Przemek: Wojtek is on whole a part of the nature. He doesn’t have to run. He goes to the forest. He talks to the trees. And then these conversations he puts into songs. We’re not making fun now or anything.
Artur: Once, during a walk, Wojtek said that some bird was singing like a command in a computer, or in a school. As for running – it depends a lot on where you run. Usually I run in a forest. I regain energy there. For example I see trees all in snow. Tiredness and nature go with each other really well.
When did you first start to play?
Przemek: I had a piano and a violin at home. They say when I was little, I would sit at the piano and play, and to the music I used to make up some stories about kittens which went to the forest.
Wojtek: At my home we had a guitar. Dad used to play it during various parties. And an accordion, which my grandpa played.
Artur: When I was little, my grandma taught me to play harmonica. She played harmonica and flute. She taught me this religious song “Boże coś Polskę”.
She could play the harmonica, your grandma?
Artur: She played carols for Christmas.
Wojtek: She had to look really cool.
First song that you sang…?
Artur: “Mamo moja ty”. I learned it in kindergarten when Mother’s Day was coming. I remember, that I sang it during one of the family parties. My uncle made me stand on the chair and told me to sing and since he was already somewhat drunk by then, during the second verse he started crying. I was four or five then.
If you were a thing, what would it be?
Artur: A record player. Music always accompanies me, in fact it is there in every moment of my life, so to become a record player… that would not be a bad… thing.
Grandma and harmonica, grandpa and accordion, dad with a guitar, a piano in the room. Are Mysłowice a special, musical town?
Przemek: Pure accident. Every musician gets in touch with music pretty early in life. Anyway everywhere there are people who make music. Boys have guitars and play by bonfires.
Wojtek: That was cool. You’d go to the camps at the sea with a guitar. And you’d learn to play the guitar to impress the girls.
Przemek: Everything because of the girls.
You mean it?
Wojtek: What do you think, why Artur plays the guitar. In high school…
Artur: In high school I couldn’t play. I’ve learned during the studies.
Wojtek: That song you played then was amazing – “Będzie bal”.
You sing quite a lot of songs in English. It seems like Artur has known English forever. How come that you sing without the Polish accent?
Artur: Do I? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because while in kindergarten I liked to pretend that I sing in English.
Your next album will be called “Skalary, mieczyki i neonki” (these are names of different species of aquarium fish). Does it mean that you like fish?
Przemek: You mean to eat them?
Artur: Wojtek used to collect aquarium fish.
Wojtek: And I will have an aquarium.
Artur: Once he’s retired.
Przemek: Wojtek is already making holes in the walls, cause he wants to have an aquarium that would take up two rooms.
I divide music into music which cries and the one which laughs. Which variant would you prefer?
Artur: Both kinds are beautiful, if they originate from the real feelings. You can laugh through tears.
Wojtek: If they are not exaggerated in one way or the other.
I guess everything is relative, regarding Artur's "lack" of Polish accent! I am fond of it, though. Thanks again to Justyna for the translation!
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