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Oct 06, 2010 Happy Pills By Laura Studarus

Some countries are known exporters. The U.K. has been a rock giant ever since the Fab Four busted out of their borders, Sweden has carved out a notable Scandinavian pop niche, and Canada has been busy breaking social scenes and setting arcades on fire for some time now. But what about other countries whose bands don’t always make it to stateside indie stardom? In such an interconnected world, why are there still large places on the musical map with question marks?

On a recent visit to Poland to cover the OFF Festival; Under the Radar set out to fill in some of those blanks. Assisting our exploration were musicians Natalia Fiedorczuk, Jacek Kąkolewski. Both scene stalwarts, and members of Happy Pills—a six piece who take cues from Pixies, Sonic Youth, and Smashing Pumpkins among others—they told us about the Polish music scene, cultural expectations, and their big break in the U.S. that didn’t happen.

Laura Studarus: I understand that your band is one of the first groups to become popular in Poland while singing in English. How was the decision made to write and sing in English?

Natalia Fiedorczuk: Happy Pills has sung in English all the time. One of their vocalists, at the start of their career in the early ‘90s sang in Polish, and he decided to split up from the band.

Jacek Kąkolewski: In the beginning we started with English singing—with a male singer. It just happened, we became a Polish band singing in English. When we changed a singer [to current vocalist Fiedorczuk], it was natural that we sang in English. When we signed a record deal with MJM—which was a major distributor for music in Poland—they became a branch of Sony—they wanted us to sing in Polish. And, well, it wasn’t us. It wasn’t good. They thought we should change our name into a Polish name. It was quite a tough time for Polish independent bands and major record companies in Poland. The 1990s was kind of different. Now a day, we’re recording for EMI. I can say the artistic side of the band is totally independent. So it’s us who decides about the songs, the covers, the singles and so on.

Do you feel that in Poland there’s a large emphasis on lyrics?

Fiedorczuk: For me, lyrics are just part of the music. They’re quite important but just 50% of the success of the song. There’s the melodies, the things that catch your ear. There are some bands that are totally focused on lyrics, but I guess the target is pretty narrow. People want to have a straight, direct connection to the artist, by the lyrics. But they’re different than the audience that wants to listen to the music for melody. So it’s divided.

Do you feel like your music appeals to fans who only speak Polish?

Kąkolewski: I think so. I think so because we are kind of a unique band in Poland. We’re not grunge and grunge is huge. We’re not metal. We’re not punk. So from one point of view we’re in the middle of nowhere because we don’t belong to any stage. So that makes us original. We didn’t want to work with major companies; we worked with a small company. We’re socially active.

Can a band make a living wage in Poland if you only appeal to the Polish people? Or do you look for ways to export more of your music?

Fiedorczuk: I play with three different projects [Happy Pills, Nathalie and the Loners, Cieślak i Księżniczki]. If I make a lot of bookings, if I book a lot of shows it’s possible. But it’s not the living of a rock star. Other people in our band have regular jobs.

Kąkolewski: The top Polish bands, I would say earn quite a lot. I think there are maybe two or three major hits sung by Polish artists in English. So there is quite a market for Polish things. But if you are a top Polish artist singing in Polish, you earn quite a lot of money.

Do you feel like there are growing opportunities for Polish artists who sing in English?

Fiedorczuk: Well, I do all English lyrics. I started thinking about doing the next record for one of my projects totally in Polish, but it’s hard to switch languages! Probably because the English language is more melodic. It goes really good with guitar music and the kind of music I make. In Polish, it’s more like you’re telling stories. Like I said before, a lot of bands focus on stories. I think a lot of bands in Poland are now singing in English, and they do it well.

Your manager told me about how the terrorist attacks on September 11th, kept you from playing in America. How did that come about?

Kąkolewski: It was a terrible experience for us, but of course it was more terrible for the people in the USA. Happy Pills had released a fourth album called Smile. It was released in spring in Poland, and it was going to be released in September in the USA. We were invited to play at CMJ Music Marathon. And then we were going to play five or six more shows on the east coast.

We were on the plane when [the terrorist attacks] happened. So the funny story was that there is a moment when we were going to fly across the ocean and they tell you to fill in all the paperwork, the immigration papers for the USA. So we were trying to fill in the papers. And then we were told we were going back to Frankfurt Germany. Something had happened in the USA. But we weren’t told what exactly happened. Somebody—maybe a member of the crew—said there were some plane issues, but nothing more. So we were turned back to Germany and in Frankfurt spent the night on the floor of the airport. A lot of flights were turned back to the airport in Frankfurt. So after that, as a band, we never came to America.

Oh wow. So after all that, you just recently reunited.

Fiedorczuk: Yes. Two years ago. The guys wanted to make some music together, with a similar lineup to what they had. I wasn’t a former Happy Pills singer. The guys sent me a couple of tracks and wanted me to make some vocals. So they listened to the results and told me, “This is Happy Pills. Let’s do it. Let’s have a new release together as Happy Pills.” So in April we released our fifth CD in their career [Retrosexual].

Kąkolewski: Before that, there were four CDs and compilation. “The Best Of” compilation was with the former singer—who now lives in New York. She went to Atlanta, and decided to stay in the USA.

Now that you’ve released a new CD, do you have plans to tour or promote outside of Poland?

Fiedorczuk: Well, we have plans, and we always dream about it [laughs]. But we’re afraid something could really happen! But we can take shit.

Kąkolewski: We would love to play at CMJ. At the tenth anniversary of the happenings. We tried to fly there in 2001, so it would be 2011. That would be a good story. A good end of the story.

(Under the Radar’s Fall Issue features more Polish scene exploration in the Detection article, Poland’s OFF Festival: Four Days in Katowice.)

(www.myspace.com/happypillsband)