"Liah and Alli," you ask your computer screen, "how in the world did you discover a Croatian indie rock band with the name Jonathan?" It's kind of a funny story, actually. It was 7:30 PM on a Friday night. We were getting ready to go to Alli's brother's basketball game. We were screwing around in her kitchen with her totally-not-recording-everything Amazon Alexa. She asked it to play songs by Jonathan. And it delivered. We listened to two of Jonathan’s albums that day and decided they were so good that we had to interview them. After literally ten seconds of discussion over whether we should ask or not, Liah sent Jonathan an Instagram message. Anyway, here are the responses to our questions, answered by Jonathan's guitarist, Darko Petković. 1. Why did you guys choose the name Jonathan? What does Jonathan represent? Jonathan is our imaginary person. We used to make fun during rehearsals of this guy who has very poor social skills, awkward when there are other people around him but also a very kind and generous person. It’s an internal joke so his persona is a bit exaggerated. For us, it reflects this idea of unity, Jonathan being a metaphorical single person with a blend of character traits and whimsies from each one of us. 2. Who are your biggest musical inspirations? Are you inspired more by music scenes worldwide or the Croatian scene itself? By music scenes worldwide, of course. We grew up back in the 90’s when TV, especially MTV, had a huge influence on teenagers, especially Nirvana and the whole grunge movement, and that’s where the English lyrics came up in our music. Each one of us emerged from different music worlds and genres, we all played in different bands before we started Jonathan (which wasn’t even supposed to become a real band). I would say that we seek and find the inspiration in each other because of that, it is diversity that inspires and also connects us. 3. What's your favorite thing about the Croatian alternative scene? We don’t have our favorite thing about the Croatian alternative scene because it’s very poor and not coherent, so we like to stick to ourselves, trying to do our best. 4. If you could replace the members of Jonathan with animals, which animals would they be? This is a hard one. Nikica would be a fox because he’s clever and canny. Branko would be a dog, he likes to bark with no particular reason but he is also very loyal and full of love. Zoran is a strange combination- sometimes an eagle that flies high, sometimes a little mouse that needs a shelter from all the other predators. Tomo would be a dolphin- it swims for an easy and joyful life, enjoying thesmall things, and has very sophisticated sonar for music. It’s hard for me to write for myself so I’ll leave that for some other occasion. 5. In your own opinion, what makes a Jonathan song a Jonathan song? Do you have a “trademark” part of your songs? We think our trademark is that we don’t have our trademark or music style, as we said in one of the previous questions. We are very diverse when it comes to music and we move through music genres and styles easily. Strong vocals and great writing skills is something that defines Jonathan, by the words of the media critics and the public here in our region. 6. (Alli) I’m actually Croatian! My great-grandparents were from there. My Grandparents recently visited and brought me back beautiful postcards. What part of Croatia do you think inspired you the most? It’s actually our hometown, the city of Rijeka. It isthe biggest port in Croatia and it was the main port in ex Yugoslavia. In the 1920s, there was a direct line to New York once in a month. A lot of ships used to come and go, with people bringing lots of stuff from all around the globe, music records amongst them. It’s a very multicultural city, known for its rock legacy. 7. I really enjoyed your video for “Maggie.” What was your favorite part of filming it? The whole process was very exciting and inspiring for us. It was our first video, we had no money, just enthusiasm and a bunch of good and willing people around us, to whom we are very thankful. 8. What place in the world do you dream of playing in? New York. We would like to be the band with the planet earth as our playground. You can stream Jonathan’s latest album, To Love, on Spotify, Bandcamp, YouTube, and iTunes.
2 Comments
Jillian
12/30/2017 03:02:43 pm
Bless Jonathan and bless you guys.... I have watched the music video for Maggie so many times
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Liah
1/3/2018 10:22:32 am
Haha yeah, it's an awesome video! I'm glad you liked the article!
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