Interview for Dangus Production(Vilnius,Lithuania) with Gudrun by Lahka Muza, APRIL 2003

D:The question which most interviews most often start from is probably the one asking to describe what the name of your band means. We won't be original here - so, what means Ľahká Múza? By the way, you have not only chosen Slovakian name for your band, but also sing in your native language - could you describe your emotions in English as good as in Slovakian?

G: You`re right, you start really traditionally. So… Ľahká Múza means in the translation Light Muse, but it is used here to express by these words something useless, belonging to the edge of an interest. And we try exactly by our work to define this "edge" of being and find its seeming borders… In the picture brilliantly does express it David Lynch and we do it with word and sound. As regards to our language it is from the commercial point of view pure unwisdom, but our roots are tightly joined with this country, which expression is also language. We are not Anglo-Sass culture, we are kind of mixture of Celtic and Slavonic cultural provenience.

D: You will play a concert in Lithuania - what is more important for you, playing live or recording in the studio? Do you wear a mask during your concerts, which I have seen in some photos, and what is the meaning of it?

G: It is half to half, the same portion. Each part has its special magic. We like to meet people at the concerts and we are glad if we can during our show establish nonverbal communication. I hope it is going to be the same in Vilnius too. The mask has purely artistic and metaphoric meaning. It allows to suppress your own identity and to present rather the archetypal irradiation. Now I don't use the mask for live presentation, performeress Cora uses it.

D: The elements of fetish, SM are clearly visible at your performances. Is it just for your live performances, or do you practice it at your private life also? Your opinion about tantrism?

G: Besides the musical band Ľahká Múza we also have electro/ performance project Hieros Gamos, where we more devote to action performance… but we try to implement some elements also into the shows of Ľahká Múza. And since I do busy myself with designing and creating extravagant clothing, my models are naturally presented also on our shows. In the end, on this scene it is quite natural position. We are not only musicians, we devote ourselves also by video art, we make photographs etc... Some elements of SM have for us only symbolic character and present certain states of relationships. As to tantrism, you'll surely admit that it is not possible to express yourself in two sentences, but I can tell you, that old Taoists didn't waste their life energy in the wrong direction, exactly the opposite… they did find the fictious west philosopher's stone exactly through tantrism…

D: It also seems that you pay a lot of attention to your clothes - latex, leather. Where do you get these clothes, and do you try to wear them in all circumstances (for example, at work)?

G: As I have partly said, some part is my own work and then I naturally buy some models that interest me. Well there are other possibilities… for example cooperation… These days finish Polish firm Leder Stahl one model from metal according to my design. I suppose that the results of our cooperation we shall see already by the end of May in Polish Poznaň, where we plan also one small photo session in new metal dress. What concerns me personally; even to work I go almost all the time in black leather… I cannot imagine it any other way…

D: Your singing is, without any doubt, the strongest part of Ľahká Múza. Did you get some singing lessons and which singers you would call the most influential for you?

G: I am glad that you give to my singing so high appreciation, but I personally guess that it is the same important as music with which it melts to one whole. The singing breaths in it special and no mistaken atmosphere. It became the common sign of the band. And to my honor belongs that it is none mistaken able. Basically it is more than 15 years that I sing in this band and I have developed my own special vocal expression and its technique. As belongs to the singers, I like the most the male voices such as Gira of Swans and from females Diamanda Galás and Jarboe. Definitely I am trying to sing on my own…it is mostly only the spiritual linking…

D: What is the "dark scene" situation in Slovakia? Do you play live in your home-country? How has the life in your home country had changed during these 10 years - did it really gave "democracy" and "freedom" or even bigger materialism? Your opinion about European Union.

G: There is no such situation at all… Besides us there are 2-3 bands in the rank of EBM-Industrial- gothic, no agency, that could coordinate such activities and so on… and so we mostly move to Czech part of once Czechoslovakia, that's been sadly broken up for us for ten years now. At least on the music scene we are not the strangers though departed by the boundaries… finally even with the Baltic states we are going to be in the same union… As belongs to the changes it is everywhere the same… it is the capitalistic jungle with the elements of early fanatism and slavery…people are very changed by this, unfortunately to the worse… what we welcome with EU is the idea of a better playing without problems at the borders… the rest shall reveal the time… but you can't stop the evolution, even when the time shows that it was the development…

D: Your music is described as "shamanistic" by some, "ritual" or "magic" by others. Are these descriptions correct? Do you practice some kind of magic, or shamanism?

G: Yes, I think that it has in it the ritual and sacral force and we are glad if our listeners can find and feel it there and feel it with us. In this idea we act only as the connectors to the higher energies, to which you can connect your conscience, if you are able to do it…Each of us lives its own life in special rituals: The difference is only in it that the most is not able to understand its message and to keep its message and to keep therefore in the move the archetypal energies of the Universe.

D: You have played at Wave Gothic Trefen, which quite often is called the most important gothic festival in the world. Do you reckon yourselves as part of this gothic culture (at least you get the biggest recognition from this so called goth-press)? Don't you think this movement also has too many clichés and the image here is sometimes more important than the inner meaning?

G: I see it as a wider artistic community. Certain part of it uses more the musical elements, while the other mostly the image or performance…there is nothing wrong with it, exactly the other way…it is good when you can join it into one whole… on the other hand these things are identical also for the metal scene, also you could say that it is only a mess of make-up and artificial blood… it only maters if besides this image the band produces (if the band wants to be considered as a band) interesting music: and in this view are such monstrous actions not about the music anymore , the musicians are only the sound scape for the common character of the action… they only work as a meeting of people. Many people you can see during the festival in the surrounding parks debating even with the tickets in their hands…

D: In your creation you have moved through different musical stages - from post punk to industrial, electronic sounds. Do you think "traditional" instruments aren't so much important in the age of electronic music any longer? Does the future really belong to cyber-music?

G: We are basically the experimental type of a band and so this search is clear to us… I do not want to take away the bread form the sociologists watching the phenomena of the developing of our society, but it is sure that the degree of a digitalization of our being reaches in the third millennium its top and this touches also the musical area… in the end the picture itself is nowadays mostly digitalized… and since everything is leading there, we try with our small deal to join the messages of the ancient and the new age… as certain element of a success of the ethnic and world music exactly in this fear of saving the identity and the truthfulness of the being… the cloning and the virtual reality are the messages from the future that we unfortunately live through already now…

D: Do you live usual urban-life in your country or live somewhere in the forests/ mountains? What is your "main" work for earning money?

Years ago we moved from the city into a small village underneath the mountains and we are happy here… here is our home - our castle…from here we handle our excursions into the huge cities and wild woods… as belongs to the artistic creativity, we have it 100% full for we really do not live out of our playing. Just the opposite, we all do have some work to earn the instruments and the things belonging to it and it is neither very easy nor funny… Each of us works in a different kind of an employment. I live for example thanks to the informatics, the guitarist by economy and the bass man does the art glass.

D: What stimulants do you use in your life? Alcohol, drugs, something else? Do you use some of them in your creative process?

G: It is maybe unexpected on today's scene but we are famous for not using alcohol, neither do we smoke or use drugs… So we do not use it at all not even when creating our artistic creating… We live our lives by our full conscience - even it is sometimes really hard… on the other hand we learn to know each other and we know that what does not kill us it shall strengthens us…We do not leave the reality of this world, we just create our parallel world… So our work alone becomes the biggest support in the boredom of a general grey day… We were given the gift of creativity and we have to follow its calling…

D: I think, you have heard something about Lithuania. What are you willing to see/ feel most here?

G: Of course. I personally have had in the past visited Tallinn in Estonia and I was astonished by its atmosphere, which remembered me of the old Prague. We do see you out here mostly as one part - the Baltic States - that's why I mention Tallinn. And so I am looking forward to see also a piece of Lithuania and Vilnius. Surely the old city can delight an eye wit hits magnificent buildings, but what we are mostly looking forward is that we are maybe going to find there an understanding and thankful audience and maybe even to make friendly relationships, which could make it possible for us to come back to your and to bordering countries… and to keep on in what is going to start in only few days…