Old Night Interview (Luka Petrovic)

After talking to you about “Ghost Light“, the third record of the Croatian metal band Old Night, in May we had the pleasure of chatting with Luka Petrovic, mastermind of the band from Rijeka. Here is the report of our very interesting chat.

Enjoy the reading!

Interview by Marco Donè

Puoi leggere l’intervista in italiano qui.

Hi Luka, I’m Marco from Italian metal portal Truemetal.it. It is a pleasure to have you as a guest on our pages. How is it going?
Hello Marco! I’m doing really fine, thanks for asking and for having me as a guest. It’s a real pleasure!

The first question seems obvious to me: with the end of the restrictions due to the pandemic, you have resumed performing live. You played in Zagreb. What was it like to go back on stage and play in front of your fans?
We managed to play a couple of concerts during the whole pandemic crisis, but this was the first concert after two years that had no restrictions. It was just awesome to not only to be able to promote our new record to the audience, but also to have some semblance of normality again. From the very first notes played, it was obvious how much people missed a live environment and how everyone was really happy that the concerts resumed after such a long time.
We’ll finally have the promotion in our hometown this weekend and we’re beyond exited.

I’ll tell you something: when I first got in touch with Old Night, I was immediately struck: you play a very personal doom metal: melodic, icy and deep, a sort of soundtrack for a solitary self-rediscovery. Something that goes against the idea we have of your country, in some ways: when we think about Croatia we usually think of beaches, sea, summer holidays. An aspect that surprised me at first. How would you explain this sort of contrast?
I completely agree with your statement. Croatia is not a country that is famous for its metal scene. In most aspects it’s not a homogenous scene at all. For that, among other reasons, not many Croatian bands are famous, or have a following outside the confines of our country.
A lot of people tend to forget it, but Croatia was invaded in the 90’s and a big part of my childhood and adolescence was during these times. Although the region where we live wasn’t affected as other parts of Croatia, I think that made an everlasting impression on me. Plus the city where we live in is one of the rainiest in Europe, so maybe a little bit of everything is showing up in our music.

Focusing on your name, Old Night, which I think it is perfect for your sound. How did the decision to choose that name come about and what is the meaning that you give at the “Old Night” image?
Old Night is a term from Jon Milton’s Paradise Lost. It represents one of the two powers or spirits that Satan encountered through the turmoil of chaos. These two deities, Chaos and Old Night, rule over the wild Abbys that is the womb of Nature. The whole idea sounded great for there is no mention in classic literature of deities that ruled and mantained the chaos above Hell. It also sounded like something ancient and maybe something that you have heard of, but don’t know what it means. And in my mind, it was the perfect name for a band like us.
Obviously, it developed further with the creation of our logo and symbols that gave a visual aspect to the idea. Nowadays, we use them as backdrops and stage props on our live shows and in my opinion, they became a trademark of our band.

In each of your records I really appreciate the lyrics, so deep and full of meaning. Can you tell us the themes that you touch in your last record “Ghost Light”?
“Ghost Light” is the end of the trilogy that we started with our first record back in 2017. From the first album I wanted to write about some very personal things, situations and people around me. Sometimes it was really explicit, on other occasions it wasn’t so obvious, but people who know me have an idea about what the songs, and albums, are all about. “Ghost Light” was intended as a sort of epic closure and a farewell to that era and our main protagonist.
I worked in theatres for almost a decade and from that time I got the title of the record. As the term “Ghost Light” is used when they close theatres and leave a single light burning on stage as a promise of returning and reopening them at later times.
Croatia, as other eastern European countries, is facing a widespread emigration caused by the economic crisis, but also because of the systems we live in and our governments. I used that as the platform to tell the story that a lot of people can relate to. The whole album follows the story of our main protagonist, and all the lyrics basically follow one another, in his quest for a place under the sun, love, family but also struggle, depression and finally the inevitable farewell. The story is divided in 8 chapters and the whole tale comes full circle with the last song as it starts with a version of the musical theme presented on the intro and with an alternative version of the fist verse on the album. It’s the same person looking at the same scene with different eyes before he says his last goodbye.

How important is the connection with your land, for you and for the rest of the band? What are the most influent elements for you? Its history? Its nature?
I just love my country! (meaning the land itself, I despise the government) I really think it’s the most beautiful place on Earth. The nature is beautiful beyond words and we have a rich history as does the entire region. I think the whole Mediterranean has an almost magical vibe to it. It’s the smell of the pines, salt of the sea and that strange melancholy that gets us all with the first Summer rains. I don’t know if I could live somewhere else and even when I thought of moving I was wondering how it would affect my music. I don’t think that I could be inspired by another place in the way I’ve been inspired by Croatia, it would be some other kind of “Old Night”. In a way I wrote “Sacred South” as a doomish ode to the Mediterranean.

In these last two years we lived in a pandemic era, with some restrictions. Have these events had any impact on the songwriting process of the “Ghost Light”?
Not at all! I’m going to sound really selfish and say I quite enjoyed it to a certain degree because the whole isolation somehow put all the unimportant things out of focus. I could dedicate more of my time to my family, my music and my friends. I can’t say that the pandemic itself inspired me, but it did give me more time and a different perspective when I worked on my music. We were only affected as we could not have rehearsals the whole time since we were all positive at least once in the last two years. But even in the months of complete lockdown we would have skype calls and record demos and work on song arrangements or just go through some details of the compositions.

Old Night line-up

Luka, I know that your family has Italian origin, from Friuli, if I’m not mistaken. Have you ever visited those places? Have you ever felt the need to get in touch with your family history?
My grandmother was from a small town called Tolmezzo in the province of Udine (Friuli). As a matter of fact, we even had a family house there until the war started in Croatia. Unfortunately we couldn’t afford to keep it and had to sell it because the inflation during the war and postwar years was unimaginable. I spent some of the most carefree days of my childhood there visiting my great grandmother and my uncle. We went there rather often while my uncle was still alive. Nowadays, when I’m feeling blue, I just google earth our old house and watch our garden as on the photo there’s still our old apple tree in front of the house.

Let’s talk about “Ghost Light”: the record came out via Solitude Production, a Russian label. Due to the war among Russia and Ukraine you had some problems with the distribution, can you tell us what happened?
Our record was released on the 4th of March for Solitude Productions. Unfortunately, the troubles started even before the release of the record since two days prior to the presale date Russia invaded Ukraine. We, as basically everyone in Europe, were in a complete shock as we didn’t know at the time how will it all develop. We weren’t even sure that the label will go forth with the release of our album, but they did. We immediately noticed that the PR wasn’t coming through, there were no interviews only a few reviews and as it became obvious it will be a full-fledged war. Only four days after the release of our record, Solitude Productions closed and stopped all its activities.
I know that in the great picture one small band is unimportant, but we were really devastated. We put so many hours and emotions into the making of “Ghost Light” just to see it end at its birth.
And I want to make one thing clear, I have to say the guys from Solitude were nothing but great to us and went far beyond what was expected of them just to send us more CDs even after the airlines were cut off just so we could get more copies to help us out.

I share with you a thought: in February many Nation give some economic sanction to Russia to damage its economy, so that it would stop the war. Now we are in May, the war is still going on, while art seems to stop, like happened to you, with Solitude Production, or like happened in Italy, with some theatrical pieces. What do you think about this? Would you like to reflect with us on that?
I think that at this moment EU and the western world sees the sanctions as the only way to make a stand against the invasion. Unfortunately, the pressure will destroy as many innocent people as it will those that support the current regime in Russia. Everyone that’s old enough to have lived through a war knows that in the end everyone losses.

About Old Night, I think your band has a huge potential. Your sound is personal and every record is inspired and has a high quality level. Despite this, I think you are not getting the follow-up and attention that you deserve. Could the fact that you come from Croatia, a country that cannot boast the metal tradition of a country like Sweden, for example, be a reason for this? What do you think?
It certainly has something to do with it. We’re a small country that has only 3,8 million people and despite all the tourism, we’re not a rich one. This is not a big market for music let alone for heavy metal, and whether we like it or not, the moniker Croatian doom metal doesn’t carry that much weight in the eyes of the promoters. If you look at a classic festival bill out of the hundred bands you’ll see only a couple of doom metal bands and none from Croatia. And to be quite honest, we’re not run of the mill doom metal. We don’t play safe and don’t do it by the numbers. To add insult to injury, this is a niche genre to start with.

Luka, a question about your past… We’ve come to know you as the bass player for Ashes You Leave. The band’s last album dates back to 2012. How is the actual situation of the band? Will there ever be a new album?
I have to say it feels weird seeing it printed, but yes, it has already been 10 years since our last record. After “The Cure for Happiness” we had out 20th anniversary in 2015. which included a number of concerts to mark that milestone. We played the last gig in our home town at a local festival and even back then it was clear that some members won’t be able to continue living in Croatia. Things are far from ideal where we live, and it came as no surprise that people started looking for better futures and job opportunities elsewhere. At the present time, I’m the only member of Aahes You Leave still living in Croatia. So, to answer your question, the band is on hiatus and there are no immediate plans to record new material under that name. Then again all doors are still open and you never know what the future will hold!
As you know Giada, our vocalist, is busy with Frozen Crown and they already released their third record “Winterbane”, and our drummer Dalibor “Insanus” is active as always and is currently working on new Black Cult, Zvijer, Suton, Hibernum and possibly other bands and projects.

Luka Petrovic in action

And now? What are the future plans of Luka Petrović and Old Night?
As for immediate plans, we’re working on the re-release of “Ghost Light”. We should have all the details in a matter of weeks, but the CD edition is set to be released (or re-released) late September or early October followed by the vinyl edition. We just need to go through all the details and then we’ll make the public announcement and reveal the label that will handle it.
If you’re asking me about music, I have a new Ep in the works that’s almost finished. My plan was to release it this year, but with everything still in the air with “Ghost Light” I think it will have to wait for the next. I still feel that excitement of new music brewing, so there will be a lot of news from us in the upcoming period.

Luka, we’ve come to the end of this interview. I thank you for the time you dedicated us and I leave you the last words for a greeting to the readers of Truemetal.it. We’ll see you soon on the road!
First of all, I would like to thank you Marco personally for following our work since day one! When no one gave us the time of day and we were just a name in an endless sea of bands, we had a review on such an eminent portal as Truemetal.it. We’ll forever be grateful for that.
Thank you very much for the interview and the chance to present Old Nght to your readers. I would like to invite you all to check our band and our new record “Ghost Light”. Hopefully, we’ll meet on the road!

On behalf of Old Night,
Luka Petrovic