Another of our series of interviews with bands who played at HRH Prog XV. The band members from VODA join me to answer the questions nobody usually asks…
DB: Please introduce your band and band members (as performed at HRH PROG 15)
Radek Kopec:
I founded VODA in 2014 in Kraków, PL. After a year or so we had to change the bass player, so Michal Marzec joined us and we’ve stayed together almost ever since (Voda had two bass players in 2018-2020 during Michal’s absence). The drummer Jakub Miarczynski joined us shortly before our Endorphinum Aquatum Europe & UK tour, so we have been in this shape for more than 3 years. Recently we’ve worked on our 5th album which is mostly recorded and just needs to be polished. As Polish we can do that.
DB: Did you enjoy the festival? Any highlights/ mishaps/ disasters?
Jakub Miarczynski: Yes!
RK: Of course we did. We’ve been amazed by the fact we got invited for this edition straight after our performance at HRH in Sheffield in 2023, after we just got off the stage. This time we flew in, so I had only one guitar on me. On the first song of our set, as most HRH attenders know, I broke the E string. To my surprise everyone was listening and quietly waiting for me to fix it. I did it rather quickly and we carried on. I think it is a great feeling to know you’re appreciated even when you do some other things than playing the songs . The set went really well. Never seen so many smiles in one place. We are glad that people liked it, they cheered us while meeting us till the end of the festival. Great feeling. Thank you.
DB: If you had to change your band name what would it be?
JM: Nuclear Cock
RK: Sometimes I think I’d love to keep the original name which was “Hetero Sapiens”, guys from the first lineup voted me over (well, didn’t really as both choices were my ideas). Maybe we will call some 60th anniversary album with this name..
DB: What is your favourite item of clothing? (Doesn’t have to be a stage outfit)
RK: Corduroy, surely I love caps too, I can’t stand the things you can’t unzip
JM: Simply Crocs
DB: What is your favourite trash TV programme? (Can be Netflix etc)
JM: YouTube football journalism. Of course not taken seriously.
RK: I don’t watch these at all (telly etc), I listen to podcasts, they can be trashy, but never trashy as trashy ones tho 🙂
DB: Books or computer games? And which ones?
RK: Criminal, dark stories, unsolved mysteries, also I think I’m getting mature as I’m more into history these days.
JM: Books. If I were a book, it would be The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
DB: If you had to be an animal which one would you be and why?
JM: I am the only member without a dog. I would love to have one. Or a cow. Or a capybara.
RK: That’d be definitely a flying one
DB: Pick one superpower
RK: Look up the previous answer. Also it would be great to make people understand each other a bit more.
JM: I have one. I’m a drummer.
RK: Kuba, you’re THE drummer!
DB: Describe your music to an alien who has just landed on Earth
JM: It goes to eleven.
RK: Hello sisters and brothers
DB: What is the most annoying thing in life?
RK: Time, mostly annoying
JM: Noise and light pollutions. Indifference.
DB: What’s on the cards for the band over the next year?
RK: We prepare for the release of our new album. We played some of it on Friday. During one song called Zarathustra I knew the audience felt us so much. Hope the whole album will be received well. The album will be followed by 15 or so tour dates, mostly in Europe in April and some bits later on. Hopefully we will do another nearly month-long tour in 2026 in the UK.
DB: Anything else you want to share or plug with the HRH readers
Radek Kopeć: Thank you for your interest in VODA, we wish you all the best and see you very soon!!!
Keep on groovin’
Jakub Jarosław Miarczyński
LINKS: https://vodatrio.pl/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vodatrio/
Bandcamp: https://vodatriopl.bandcamp.com/
Author: Doris Brendel