About us

How did it all start? – our story

In the 90s When I was a teenager, everyone listened to the music of bands such as Dire Statis, AC / DC Metallica, Guns N Roses and punk bands from local countries. It was no different in my case.

Together with David, my peer from primary school, we decided that we would be Rock Stars and as young boys we started a band called Duct tape.

Why we called our band “Duct tape”

Probably many of you wanted to form a band when you were a child, you just set up in our case we only had an old broken snare drum and bass drum that did not have a drum head.

Both my parents and David’s parents did not have the money to meet the whims of the boys and in the early 90’s new instruments were very expensive. Imports from China did not exist, so domestic producers had very high prices for equipment.

For an ordinary working-class family of just a few kids – such a purchase of a new instrument was definitely out of reach.

We did not want to give up on our dreams for any treasures, so using sticky tapes and taped the bass drum in such a way that it imitates the drum skin.

When proud of our work, we banged the drum with both sticks, we decided that the name of the band should be called Duct tape, we had no idea what music would be recorded and we will generally record it, but more on that later in the story .

Of course, we didn’t have a working pedal for this improvised bass drum, so for me we hit it with a stick with one hand.

This is how the band’s first improvised instrument was created.

How to earn money for other instruments?

Probably my eldest brother brought from when you drive home an old damaged electric guitar because like me he had an episode with his own band.

The guitar had some very weak pickups and it made a lot of noise when plugged into the old amplifier, but it didn’t matter to us.

In a local music store, I bought the cheapest analog distortion – powered by a 9V battery and connected it to my father’s regular AV receiver, on which he listened to music.

Of course, to buy this distortion, I was collecting scrap metal with David and taking it away for purchase. We collected everything that could be sold: glass bottles, scrap iron and copper.

Basically it took us a whole 2 month vacation to collect this money.

In retrospect, I am full of admiration for our enthusiasm and commitment – today it is so difficult to explain to children what the world looked like 20-30 years ago, where the Soviet Union collapsed a moment earlier.

Once we had cleaned our basement – the idea of collecting started was that we were visiting local companies and asking if they had anything to throw away for scrap.

We explained that we are collecting money for instruments for our youth team and, surprisingly, despite the difficult times – many entrepreneurs gave us, for example, used batteries or scrap iron, which we then brought to the purchase of recyclable materials and in this way we earned a little money.

Thanks to our holiday efforts, we already had improvised drums and an electric guitar that made a sound.

Learning to play, trying to write texts

The next natural stage is learning to play and the first attempt at composing simple chords and writing lyrics.

Our rehearsals took place in a shared drying room – an underground room in a block of flats, to which we managed to make a key trick.

The rehearsals took place next to drying sheets and bedding – hung by the inhabitants

We could smell starch all the time…

Of course, we had to hide the instruments in the basement and endure them every time – including an electric guitar.

In the beginning, we played without an amplifier, only with distortion and an old radio as a speaker because as I mentioned the more powerful equipment was at home and belonged to my father.

At home, no one could stand this inept clanking of the strings,

So these were totally improvised conditions and full conspiracy but I think a lot of youth teams work exactly the same way at least in the early months of their activity.

to be continued…soon

This is how we, the creators of this project, look today