Partyzant is a rock band from Poland consisting of a father as the guitar player and his son as the drummer. they got the chance to visit Tehran, Iran for the first time and did a show at Vahdat hall. As they would say it was their first time visiting Iran, but won’t be the last.
1-Can you tell me about yourself and your career please ?
Mikolaj: Actually the whole thing started with my dad when he started playing with the famous Polish band, “Dzem” and he was playing even before I was born. Now we’ve been touring as a band for five years, and we did some shows and it went so huge that we are right now in Tehran. It’s so great and we are very happy about that.
2-How do you define your music genre ?
Mikolaj: I think it’s rock music
Krzysztof: Rock music, metal music, classical music! Persian music!
Mikolaj : everything ! you see we try to put things together and search for some new things I guess and we are experimenting like we are trying to create something that hasn’t been done before, and we believe that we can do it, we’ll see !
Krzysztof: We just love to create new styles, you know..
3-How did you form your band, Partyzant ?
Mikolaj: Well It started with dad and my mom actually! he’s been taking me to shows and showing me a lot of stuff like he showed me musicians, instruments, and at the age of five I just decided that I want to play drums, and I’m doing it until today and when began to play kinda good, he was like let’s do it together and play together ! and I didn’t know how long it would actually last, but we did a few shows and we kept extending.
Krzysztof: It started ten years ago.
Mikolaj: and now that’s all we do, it happened naturally I guess and now it’s getting bigger
Krzysztof: now it’s officially what we do, and we are just a band and we play, and we are getting better and better.
4-how many albums or single tracks you’ve released so far?
Krzysztof: as for Partyzant only one album, but as I’ve made a lot of CDs, about 19
Mikolaj : yeah, but as a band together we made only like one CD, the second one is being made in Poland right now, we are recording it right now, and that’s all I guess, cause we don’t have like single tracks, whatever we do we do on Youtube and Facebook and other social media.
5-Who are your biggest influences?
Krzysztof: I very very much like Chopin, Paganini, that’s for classical music, when it comes to rock music, Metallica is my favorite band and I started because of them ! they played in Poland in 1987 to promote their album Master of Puppets and I was there of course and it was after when I knew I should start playing guitar. So Metallica, Metallica and Metallica and METALLICA!!
Mikolaj : for me things were kinda different actually, we are very similar in music taste but it all started with Slipknot ! it was all because of them, I saw them for the first time when I was 6,and I fell love in with them right away and it keeps on growing, they’re like my biggest inspiration. Basically that’s it, I could name some drummers but if it wasn’t for Slipknot, there wouldn’t be me playing drums I guess.
6-How do you feel being in Iran?
Mikolaj : it’s amazing, I can actually show you (shows a footage he shot during their show at Vahdat Hall) the Tehran audience went crazy ! how can we not be happy with that audience ? they treated us like we felt like home, they were quiet, they were loud whenever they should
Krzysztof: we are one big family ! we’ll be back !
Mikolaj : exactly ! and I’m so happy to be here, I’m about to buy a house here, I mean I love this country, I’m wondering where should I buy it, in Tehran or somewhere outside Tehran, or maybe both ! I personally fell in love in this country (father says me too!)
7-What Iranian bands or artist do you listen to ?
Mikolaj : I can name one artist actually, Masoud Saeedi, and our friends gave us albums of interesting bands, and the most interesting one was Andisheh Hozhabr. So we listened to his album twice and it was very good, we’re gonna listen more.and we also listened to our friend Arash Koochakan, he has made music for movies, advertisements and it’s a different style, it’s great.
Mikolaj : some say It’s kinda like reggae and similar to Bob Marley, but it isn’t, it’s very original.
8-What else do you do other than music?
Mikolaj : do we do anything other than music? I don’t think so! well we fly by planes, we travel by cars, we sleep, we sleep a lot, and here in Iran we eat a lot ! the dishes in Iran are so delicious and crazy big I mean the size of them is crazy, it’s like I’m supposed to eat half of it and give the rest to some homeless or something.
9-What is your favorite Iranian dish?
Krzysztof: we had noon barbary and sangak, they were delicious, and jooje kabab, and gheime bademjaan and one more thing, Dough ! I love dough !
Mikolaj : and my favorite is kabab actually, and there’s this non-alcoholic lemon beer in Iran which I love, you can get a cold one when is warm outside, or when you’re thirsty and it just kills your thirst!
10-What are you future plans?
Krzysztof: we’re going back to Poland today, and then we’re playing two shows there, and next we play Germany for two weeks and after that we’ll record some new song
Mikolaj : I already told you about this recording, and we are about to finish it
Krzysztof: we just signed a contract with an agent in Iran that we will be playing here in the future
Mikolaj: yes we signed a contract with Alireza Farhadi, and now we can promise you that we will be back, it was our first time here, but won’t be the last time.
Krzysztof: now our question! what should we see next time in Iran?
Mikolaj: yeah what shall we see in Iran?
Aida : I hope to see you guys SOON again and let’s hope the next time you come to Iran, things are going to be better in here and we gonna have more concerts and stuff!
Mikolaj : and I wanted say thank you very much for the interview and spending time on us.
Aida: it was my pleasure.
interview by Aida Zarifian