Damian Westfal, Interia Music: How’s life? We would like to ask for a small update, because last time, on the occasion of the premiere of the album “Beginning”, you talked about losing yourself between your private and professional life, about understanding things and the world anew. How is it now? Have you slowed down?
Miuosh: – Kind of like that. I certainly try to raise anchors less often, perform tasks related to my specific work less spontaneously and less aggressively. I try to live a more family-oriented life and I no longer look for projects that would take me out of everyday life one hundred percent, and if such projects come my way, I try to get involved in them with my wife or with my wife and daughter and simply combine it all. . Life shows that it is possible. It’s definitely better, because I’m not alone in all this, and I was – and at my own request. I’ve understood a lot lately.
What made you decide to continue the “Contemporary Songs” project?
– First volume. It was actually the day the first volume was released, three years ago. Then I saw and felt for myself how this project was received and how people approached it – differently than another release or another rapper-producer. I already knew then that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a one-time thing and I can still try to accomplish many things in this, not fully defined – apart from me and the Śląsk Band – company. I think there’s still a lot of music to be made that can draw from this idea and evolve.
Was there already a dream about a second volume?
– Yes, I already realized that my dream would be to make another part and give myself three years for it. Somehow it turned out that this idea was realized. Three years have passed since this project very quickly, because he was still alive, with only very short pauses. We went on tour relatively quickly after the premiere. Some people start playing, like me for example with my solo album “Returns”basically a month after the premiere, and yet “Songs…” requires grinding it a bit, rearranging it, and preparing for it more. When it comes to concert production, it’s a great project and you have to build, rearrange, and invent a lot of things, and I also wanted this concert project to be a bit of a show, an experience, and not just a performance of a dozen or so songs from the album.
– I had three, maybe four months to do it. The tour started, it took a while, in the meantime we got Fryderyk, then we started the summer part of this tour – the festival, which was also another challenge.
– After a route located in quite specific, subtle spaces that allow you to present something in a delicate way and suddenly take it to an outdoor stage, for example at Męskie Granie, where you play in front of a non-seating audience, you don’t have the same time, the same conditions, you have to do it differently. It was a challenge and it also taught us a lot. It worked. That summer passed quickly, then we went on a second tour again, which was already a huge project, because we played a lot of these concerts, we got the Fryderyk award again for this project, in the meantime we released a live version and I was already working on the next volume.
In fact, the concert tour of the first volume was a prelude to the next volume, because people who appeared only on the second volume played there.
– It was very interesting, because some of the people who played songs with us during the tour were not often the original performers of the songs from the first volume. This is what happened with Dawid Tyszkowski, Natalia Schroeder, Wiktor Waligóra, Maciek Musiałowski – these were people who performed other songs from the first volume, and I was already working with them on new numbers for the second volume.
How did you choose artists for this project?
– I am always guided by musical vigilance. I really appreciate good things in people and I only speak to those I consider good people, that’s the most important thing to me. I can’t imagine inviting someone to the project who could somehow blow it up or move it with their character. You have to know a person a little, meet someone at least once, see him at least once, to know what resonates with him. The second important issue is simply the musical character, atmosphere, abilities and uniqueness. In my opinion, everyone on this album has something that no one else in this country has.
Why don’t we hear you on this album?
– In the first volume, I was hidden in one issue, but only in the limited version, because we included there a song that was created as the first issue in cooperation with the Śląsk Band and was not supposed to be included on this album at all. I don’t feel strong enough to sing anything. I’d love to, but it’s my mega complex that I can’t sing half as well as others on this album. And when it comes to rap, I didn’t want to do rap songs for this project, not like this, not this time. I didn’t see it, I didn’t feel it. I absolutely exhausted myself as a producer there. What I really like about this project is that when it comes to a concert and I go to the side and I’m a bit of a performer and a bit of a recipient, I get satisfaction from it. I’m not at the front and I don’t have to give this kind of energy. In return, I give another and I also take another. It’s a very honorable place to be the recipient of this album live performed by all these phenomenal people. I’ve never dealt with this aspect in any of my projects, and it’s satisfying here, so I didn’t want to spoil it.
September is the month in which exactly three years have passed since the release of the first volume. Three years of touring with this album… Were you surprised by the popularity of this project?
– When I create new music, I never wonder whether it will follow any trends. I approach it quite egocentrically and it seems to me that if I feel such a need, it is worth fulfilling it, or at least trying. A very important element of this project are the concerts themselves and the fact that we did not approach it as a typical tour with performers, but as something that is not to be just a play and sing-along of the album, but something more – another part of this adventure . I’m glad that it was appreciated and people are buying these tickets. We’re just selling out our next tour, which starts in January. This project really has some power in it that overcomes many barriers. Tomek Organek, when we were recording it, was laughing that we would be playing it all our lives. He was right, because good music does not have to end if it is good, if it has the courage to reach deeper and wider and bring together wonderful people.
I can see how much fun you’re having with this project.
– I’m glad that “Songs…” is not just another mass production. I went into the fire here with something completely unexpected that no one caught on to, and that’s what gives me peace now. At first I had to fight hard when I started explaining to my colleagues what this project was about. This is not music that will be heard on radio stations. These are songs that are at best five minutes long, so they will most likely be played on the radio for the first and last time during some interviews with me. I express myself completely musically, ambitiously and lyrically.
How did your adventure with folklore begin? On the one hand, you rap, so you present urban, contemporary music, and suddenly you show something different. Has this type of music always been present in your life?
– I come from Silesia myself. I believe that music education has a huge impact here: the one that comes from above, at home, in the family and that provided by friends. My story and the stories of all the other musicians I know show that this is the environment after all. The music we grow up with and its level shape what kind of musicians we will eventually become. My parents listened to this particular type of music, they listened to it on specific days and even in a specific way. In my house it was Pink Floyd, Queen, Michael Bolton, Dire Straits, Mike Oldfield, Republika. If you add everything that came to me in my teenage years, i.e. some electronics, some hardcore, some rap, then you create things that your inner side of sensitivity reaches for if you want to create something.
And this is what translates into “Contemporary Songs”?
– Since the album “Pop” I started to combine rap with something else more often. I wanted to show that I’m not just made of rap. “Songs…” also gives me this opportunity. If you listen to the second volume, you will hear how much of the 80s there is in its sound. When I was preparing this album for mixing and rendering the tracks (there are simply numbers of 320 tracks each), I sometimes listened to it without the choir, without the orchestra, without live folk instruments, without the bass. It was really like the sounds of the 80s, things that I either have and always wanted to have, or I just know from bands like a-ha or Kombi. These sounds exist on this album and are a bit of a showcase of how much of the music I grew up with is not only in my head, but also at hand in my studio.
Is there a chance for a third volume?
– If health allows and if the world does not end (laughter). My friend called me after one of the concerts and said – without knowing that I was planning to record the second volume – that when the concert ends and you leave the hall, you go home with the same thought and with the same feeling that accompanies, when your favorite series ends and you watch the last episode. Suddenly the question is: “What’s next? Will there be a second season?” It’s a very mentally, financially and time-consuming job and a huge project, but I’m also glad that I have this project and that only I can decide about it. I know I don’t have to, but I want to – and that’s cool. And until the moment I want to, I will continue to think about doing it.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m curious if when your next solo project comes out, whether these folk elements will permeate your solo projects.
– I see what I’ve been enjoying lately. I see that it gives me happiness and contentment on my face. I know for sure that I would like to do something solo now, I just don’t know if I will have the strength and time to do it in my cycle, to, for example, prepare something new for next fall. Maybe only after some time… when I feel that I have good material, good lyrics and I am fully satisfied with it.