ŽELEZOBETON
Bio:
The band zelezobeton formed some time in September of 1988 and is considered to be one of the first metal bands from Murska Sobota to take its music from Pomurje to the audiences in the wider Slovene area. The band’s music is a mix of different styles of metal or, as the band members themselves once called it, MTM – mad trash metal.
Ivo Luneznik – Idi (bass), Vito Sterman – Piki (guitar) and Andrej Siftar (drums) first played together in the band St. Cross. After they were joined by the much younger Tadej Roposa, who previously played in his first band Nightmare and stepped in as both solo guitarist and lead vocalist, they changed their name to zelezobeton. Many wondered about the origin of their name – simple: beton (slo) + dicti.. concrete (ang) + ferro = ferroconcrete (ang) (reinforced c.. zelezobeton (slo).
Their first performance in October 1988, which was also the only one that year, took place in the courtyard of the Murska Sobota Castle. The band made a deal to play three songs but they didn’t finish the last one. That evening, they played alongside the bands zuta minuta (later Yellow Minute) from Radenci and Lene kosti from Ljubljana. For Tadej, that evening was uneasy because he had to decide whether he would sing or not (fortunately, the sound system at the venue was excellent for those days).
In 1989, the band began to perform steadily at many concerts and private parties and to write their own material, although they also performed songs by other bands (probably due to the length of their performance) such as Metallica’s Master of puppets, Slayer’s South of heaven, Kreator’s Lambs to the slaughter, Iron Maiden’s Transilvania, Abba’s Cikitita etc.
The following year, the boys headed to the studio Bon-ton in Rogatec (where they recorded all their material) and recorded three songs – Before you die, Confess (you are a witch) and the polka song zelezodur. With these recordings, which were played on radio station Val 202’s show Novi Rock, and with the help of articles by Du--an Hedl (CZD) featured in several magazines, the band garnered an audience and soon established their ground on Slovenia’s alternative scene. By the end of the year, the band moved into their own rehearsal quarters (the rehearsals took place at Idi’s, at the high-school which Tadej attended at that time…).
The band spend the first half of 1991 working on new songs, thirteen of which they also recorded in June (during the occupation). Their first demo tape, entitled Sound of the building ground, was published by the band themselves. It was a solid production for those days, containing thirteen powerful and aggressive songs with thematically highly critical lyrics. Their breakthrough performance followed after an invitation to play at the cult club K4. The song Shit climbed surprisingly high on radio station Radio student Ljubljana’s charts, to the astonishment of the members themselves, who were on their way to play at K4 when they heard the news. Afterwards, they played all over Slovenia – at the Cona Industriale festival in Koper, at Ptujstock, Metelkova etc. Sometimes, they played as the opening act and sometimes as the headliners.
Unfortunately, they never had the support and management structure necessary to make it to the foreign markets or to get a contract with a major label.
Five songs, recorded in ’93, were intended for promoting the band to labels, however, the split due to the age-difference between Tadej and the remaining members was becoming apparent in their music. The new songs weren’t as aggressive which Tadej disapproved of, and all of a sudden, the band died down.
This year, on November 18th, their material will be performed at Rock Projekt 2006 by the following lineup: Tadej Roposa (Guitar and Vocals), Andrej Grabar (Drums), Robert Ferencek (Guitar), Andrej Gorcan (Bass). The gig will take place in the youth club Mikk, in M. Sobota. Whether anything will follow from this? It remains to be seen!
more is comming...
Železobeton Website
Železobeton @ MySpace