Proto-Slav (Praslovan)

I've thought about how to explain Zoran Predin for a long time.

Zoran Predin isn't a Slovenian that we stereotypically imagine.

We know that Maribor was a post-war industrial centre.

A great number of Bosnians came to Maribor for work.

On 16 June 1958,

some unfortunate Emina gave birth to a boy

and, at the same time, so did a Slovenian woman.

In the busy post-war Maribor, the boys were switched.

That's not a bad theory.

I don't think Zoran Predin is a simple figure or phenomenon.

The real Zoran Predin lives in Živinice near Tuzla.

The poor guy goes around town with Elan ski jumping skis,

while the real Nusret is actually Zoran Predin,

a Bosnian, a Balkan man, an Early Slav,

living under the fake identity of the unfortunate Zoran Predin

and functioning as a total system error.

I don't think he was switched. Zoran is just Zoran.

Forget Dežulović and his stories. I don't believe a word he says.

Contrary to Dežulović,

I don't think it happened at the maternity hospital.

The switch seems to have happened later.

Here we are.

This is where Zoran Predin was born.

Well, not actually here but at the hospital down there.

This is where he grew up and took his first steps.

On 16 June 2058, Zoran Predin will be 100 years old.

100 years?

Yeah.

Fine. Let's move on!

His parents, housewife Ruža and pharmacist Štefan,

gave him a sister and a brother,

with whom he spent his childhood on Pohorje,

at aunt Mici's in Starše in Dravsko polje

and with his mum's relatives in Vojvodina in Tavankut.

Tavankut...

It'd be easy to say in one sentence what Zoran Predin isn't.

But as Zoran Predin is one of the most interesting figures

of Yugoslav rock music,

the answer to your question requires some time.

Firstly, he's an anti-star.

Then, he's a father,

a grandfather, a husband, a rebel with and without a cause.

If we sublimated it all, I'd put it like this:

Zoran Predin is a travelling enclave of good humour.

Authentic. Which is invaluable in our business.

A marvel. An exceptional, brilliant artist.

Original in his voice colour,

original in the poetics of his lyrics.

I love to say all the worst about my colleagues,

so my scenes are usually cut from the film.

But I can't recall anything bad about Zoran, who's been very good.

He has a fatherly figure. I could easily see him in politics

as the father of the nation, as it were.

A great guy. To this day.

When I met him, he was also a great guy.

Zoran is a big boy,

who used to play the accordion.

No. Basketball.

A purebred Styrian.

Emotional, hot, temperamental.

Unless you're a basketball referee,

I think you'll never face Zoran Predin's wrath.

Zoran is the wittiest alpha male I know.

He has a unique sense of humour.

But I think that people love him precisely because of it.

A picture of integrity, to put it in two words.

A terribly considerate,

polite

and nice man.

That's already three words.

The first thing that comes to my mind,

despite all the layers and complexity,

is that he interprets really slowly.

He's a slow collocutor but has a fast fist.

He's so slow and so thorough in that

that a stonecutter could record his interviews as he gives them.

Impossible.

Kind.

Cheeky.

Zoran is a quiet and calm man.

I really liked how, at the beginning of his career

when he'd sit down for an interview with a young journalist

and she'd take out a tape recorder and one tape, he'd say:

"Just one tape? I devour tapes.

"When I answer the first question, it'll have run out."

So, dear visitors, welcome to the Zoran Predin museum.

No touching, please.

Is it possible that Zoran Predin was switched at the hospital? I was.

It actually began at uncle Ivo's.

My uncle Ivo, mum's brother,

was a member of the band Apollo 220.

They plucked at their guitars

and they all had Beatles' haircuts with bangs.

They shook their heads.

Then came high school.

The guitar somehow increasingly more often

occupied the place next to the books I read.

Especially after I'd gotten injured at a match

and basketball fell through even though I wasn't a great talent.

All those things had taken up all of my time,

so when I had to give up basketball, an emptiness emerged.

That emptiness was filled by the guitar.

With the guitar came Bob Dylan and with him rebelliousness.

It's thus no wonder

that the lyrics of the first song I'd ever written, "Old Soldier",

were taken from the end of James Jones's From Here to Eternity .

Not everyone can love like me, an old soldier.

It's Friday and I'm rushing into town again,

wanting beer in vain.

My friends are all broke

and the waiter says: "Get out, poofter!"

When he was 18 years old, his first son, Andrej, was born.

My first son was born when I was 14.

Hats off to you!

He falls out with his dad,

so he moves into a four-storey block of flats,

where he gets a job as the caretaker.

He also works part time as a postman, insurance agent, record seller

and a night watchman.

Did he study anything?

He actually studied your language. But he didn't graduate.

He was two exams short, which isn't a lot but...

The booze ran out.

It was my birthday. 16 June 1979.

I grabbed a few bags and set off for the Mariborska koča hut

to get the booze.

Oto Rimele was here with some friends.

And they had a guitar.

Then Oto said: "Zoran, our singer is doing military service.

Would you come to our rehearsal on Monday and audition for us?"

This is where we had our first rehearsal,

in the home of our drummer Andrej Pintarič.

They suggested I sing "Child in Time" by Deep Purple.

I said that I didn't have a high voice

and that I preferred soft ballads.

Then they sent me out into the hall.

After a while, the door opened

and they said I was accepted as the singer of the band Zeus.

I suggested a few changes,

such as also performing our own songs and changing our name.

Once, a biker fell down in our little street.

The policemen found the culprit.

That's when Hungry Franz became a sadist.

I suggested Lačni Franc (Hungry Franc),

inspired by the unfortunate character from Joseph Heller's Catch-22 .

Oto then changed 'c' into 'z'.

And when we first wrote it on a wall,

we knew it'd attract a lot of attention.

We had our first gig at the II. gimnazija Maribor high school

in October 1979.

We had great stage fright, at least I did.

That might've been the only time I thought about what I'd wear on stage.

I put on a postman's hat,

which I'd kept from the time I worked as a postman.

I pinned on it a badge from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

in which Jack Nicholson's head was locked with a lock,

which seemed an important message to me.

And I wore Ray-Ban sunglasses, which I thought made me look cooler

and prevented the audience from seeing my fear.

God doesn't have a phone.

That's the song we'd usually open with

and it was actually a good choice.

It built the atmosphere

and enabled us

to push the audience right into the heart of it.

On this basketball field, I saw Lačni Franz for the second time.

The first time was a few days earlier at a youth festival in Subotica.

That's the first and the last time

that a totally new band and people I didn't know

made me feel the need to go backstage, which I did.

That's how I met Zoran Predin.

They modestly walked out on stage at the festival in Subotica

and when they began to play,

I was sort of bewildered

and then, after 15 minutes, I had a feeling

that's difficult to explain today.

It's the same feeling I got when I saw The Doors on the Isle of Wight.

It was like in a dream.

In one place, you could see the elite of the Yugoslav new wave.

We went there by train, had a good gig, got an award.

Immediately after the festival, we played in Belgrade for the first time,

in Kalemegdan Park, on a playing field. But it wasn't...

Oh, wait. I have to show you this. You have to see this. Follow me.

This is what I wanted to show you.

When I saw this for the first time, it blew me away. I have to admit.

On the outside, it doesn't look much, but when you come inside,

it's totally...

You see these wonderful cars.

It's like being in another world.

The small petite one lives at the pub,

making love behind the counter and sleeping in the kitchen...

At the time, nobody in Belgrade knew Lačni Franz

except for a handful of people who followed the new wave.

It was an amazing gig.

I think there were 18 or 19 people besides me in the audience.

So in this huge space and the stage was big too.

It's funny to put it like this, but there were ovations.

Those 20 people were enthused.

When there wasn't much audience, we played best.

- For those who were there... - On purpose.