Interview with Vladivojna
Vladivojna La Chia
In 2007 she graduated from the studio of intermediate forms at the Faculty of Art in Ostrava. But Vladivojna is mostly known as a Czech composer, singer, songwriter and artist. She is currently performing with her band Vladivojsko and she is devoted to her solo work along with the composition of film and theater music.
In 2011 she composed the music for the film Innocence (Nevinnost) from Jan Hrebejk, for which she was nominated for the Czech Lion and the Czech film critics. Also created the music for the show Jan Hrebejk - Up to ears (Až po uši).
In 2013 she began collaborating with theater director Ondrej Zajíc of Prague Metropolitan Theatres, for whose performance in the Rokoko she created incidental music.
In 2001 Vladivojna released their first EP with Big Pussy beat girl group Kočičíčíči. A year later she co-founded the rock band Banana.
In 2011 she released the album Boheme with fantastic book full of illustrations and their own original fables called Vladibajky. This album also became album of the month in Berlin Dussman.
In 2013 third solo album ŠRAF was released, that Vladivojna filmed mostly in her studio, only a saxophone made under the leadership of Vladivojna great saxophonist Joe Cohen in San Francisco. Currently she has already four solo albums.
She performed for example with Amit Chatterjee, Lenka Dusilová and others. With group Banana she was opening for Marilyn Manson, Richard Müller, Waltari (tour CZ / SK) or the Scorpions.
Nine years she is on the Czech Radio – Vltava, where she has her own show Tearoom (Čajovna).
You're probably best known as a singer, composer, lyricist ... You've originally studied fine arts. How did you end up in music business?
Around the age of nine I founded a band with my friend Adam. He wrote the basic materials on key and I was inventing lyrics and I singing. So music has fascinated me since my childhood, but I have always drew, so my parents thought that I will be happiest on any fine arts.
Recently we can hear you with your - as I know, so new - band Vladivojsko. You play metal. Isn't it quite big contrast to your solo work?
It's a great contrast. Actually my intimate solo work was created as a contrast to Bananas, my old rock band. And now Vladivojsko is contrast to my solo work. It's probably because I need to nourish themselves on both sides. Even the wild, and the fragile. And most importantly I have always something to do not to go mad in my private life.
What do you mean?
Well, I have just learned that I need to keep on creating something, because otherwise I am going crazy. So when I'm sick, I either write lyrics or draw comics, and if I do not exactly have anything to pull me in, I have dark thoughts. I know that the path to true happiness is inner peace and serenity, but I still can not open that inside me.
When one listens to the lyrics, finds out they are very interesting. I would say that it seems they are trying to describe the current time... Is that so? How do they arise?
Lyrics of Vladivojsko I wrote precisely all in May when I had pneumonia and was lying in bed for a month. It helped me a lot that I was so inspired by motives, that guys sent me. I had time to really concentrate on them. Maybe that's why they are so broad and thematic. You know, in Vladivojsko I feel the desire to write about what bothers me in the society and world. Whereas in my solo songs I don't absolutely need that. There I focus on the power of the moment, love, poetry and playfulness of words.
What I really like about you is how you go straight for you goal. Other people tend to comment on it in all sorts of ways. But you, from my point of view, don’t deal with it. Is that so? How would you describe this "attitude" of yours?
Well, let them comment. The whole world comments everything, I don't mind. Once one astrologer maybe in my twenty has made me an in-depth explanation of the stars. I do not care whether anyone believes it or not, and I make nothing big of it either. However, he told me one thing that I held on to: that my task in this life is to create and to play and that's exactly what I feel inside myself and what I want. Consequently, on that I dependent everything around me.
What do you think is in the world (in life) really important?
I think that really important is the inner peace that I have talked about, and another thing – to have insight over our emotions (control over your emotions). Then the person can reach far deeper and see things much more clearly than when he/she is dragged with the emotions. I wish I knew how to do it myself. I can not.
Is there some message you would like to send to the young generation of people that is now living here on Earth?
Take it easy.
Thank you very much for the interview.