IVAN MIHALJEVIC - SIDE EFFECTS

💿 Hi, it's a pleasure for us to have on Hardrockheavymetal IVAN MIHALJEVIC of SIDE EFFECTS! Welcome!! Thank you! Glad to be here. 💿 Can you tell us somethin' about the birth of your band? When is this all begun? It all began in 2008 when I recorded my solo album Sandcastle and was invited to open a show for Paul Gilbert in Zagreb.

I needed a band to play my songs with and that's where the idea of Side Effects came from. 💿"DESCENDING RABBIT HOLES", your new full-length, is "hot'n'ready" and will be out from Sept 28th! Can you tell us somethin'about its composition process? Are you satisfied about this platter? We have the privilege to listening to it in preview and we were very impressed! Thank you very much! I think this is our best album yet. Some of the songs were written a couple years back before we took a hiatus, but most are completely fresh. I think it's a lot more stylistically cohesive than our previous releases and also more mature. 💿 The real "news" in music industry is the return of vinyl; what's your feeling about this classic format and the current music "business"? I'm from a generation that came after the golden days of vinyl, so I never really had a phonograph.

CDs are the medium that I grew up with. It's no secret that the music business, or at least the discography part of it, has seen better days, so the return of vinyl is great news, although I think it's not widespread enough to have a huge impact on the future development of the music industry.

I think it's mostly fueled by nostalgia and that new generations aren't into vinyl as much as the older folks. Maybe I'm wrong. Most kids prefer their music streamed and not being tied to any physical medium.

At least, that's the impression I get from working with lots of kids as a guitar teacher. 💿 Your new album will be out via ROCKSHOTS RECORDS; Can you tell us somethin'about relationships with them?

The relationship is still new, but it's really going great so far.

My friend and amazing keyboard player Mistheria released his album Gemini, that I also recorded some guitars on, on Rockshots last year.

He recommended Rockshots for this album. I also heard good things about them from a couple other musicians I know.

It's very rare that you hear good things from musicians about their labels, so I knew these guys were doing it right! I'm excited to see how it will evolve.

💿 Can you tell us somethin'about your live projects? Yeah, we're planning some live shows. We have a new bass player Petar Stojko, who is amazing, so I'm looking forward to start playing.

We're planning to start rehearsing the for the live shows very soon. I'm learning the stuff that I played on the album right now. I usually improvise a lot in the studio and then when the time comes to play these songs live, I have to sit down and figure out what the hell I played on the album.

💿 We love the cover of DRH.Who made it?

Yes, thanks for saying that, I love it too! It was made by a Croatian designer named Zorislav Knevic or by his artist monicker Zock. He's great and I'm really happy with how that turned out! 💿 Lastly, you come from CROATIA; Can you tell us somethin'about your local hard'n'heavy scene! Yes, very gladly! There are lots of great hard 'n' heavy bands from Croatia!

There's certainly no lack of talent here. Unfortunately, what we do lack is some interest from the audience.

It seems that the new generation prefers sitting in front of their computer screens and hearing bands on YouTube rather than going out to see a band play live. The older generations have jobs, spouses, children etc. and you can't expect them to be the core of the audience for a late night show.

We need a way to attract the younger generations who are interested in hard 'n' heavy music to come see the live shows, and there is a lot of them, I know because I teach many of them.

Go see bands live! It's much better than seeing a live recording on YouTube!

But anyway, let me finish the rant by mentioning some Croatian hard 'n' heavy bands that definitely deserve international attention.

Animal Drive is a band from Zagreb led by the amazing singer Dino Jelusic, recently signed to Frontiers Records, that are very promising at the moment.

I would recommend them to fans of classic hard rock done in a modern way.

Kryn is a band from Rijeka that plays modern metal and they do it amazingly well.

Inciter is a thrash metal band from Zagreb often compared to early Metallica and our drummer also plays with them.

I'd also like to mention our new label mates Sage for all the fans of power metal with historic themes.

On the subject of power metal, my friend Ivan Ivankovic does some great power metal on his solo albums. 💿 Thank you so much for your time! See you soon on Hardrockheavymetal!

Thank you very much for having me! Cheers!

(Thanks AsherMediaRealtions)

#SIDEEFFECTS