Vladimír Mišík

"Then I remember when it started to get very serious, it was a concert at the Lucerna [music hall], sold out, a great concert. There was also the band Blue Session, Petr Kalandra, C&K Vocal, a really wonderful concert. We had an idea of projecting on the back wall a documentary by our good friend Mirek, a cameraman, who had made a documentary as a school exercise about how they came to my place in the morning, some of the mates from Moravia were staying overnight there, then I was talking in the kitchen... just a documentary on the theme of 'my day'. It ended at Špejchar [pub], where we used to go in the evening, and there I was standing leaning against the formica tables and I was saying something like that there were such beautiful wooden tables and benches, and now there are these tables here, and what our future will be like - is likely to be such a formica future. It was basically fun - school exercise. So we screened it in the Lucerna, without approval, of course. And then came my ban. That we'd taken too much liberty, and that it was an unapproved programme, which was what we normally did. That was another example of how they tried to keep us in line - we had to play an approved program, and then even composed programs. It was already clear that we couldn't play anything else because it was a composed programme, and once we broke that, which we did routinely, we were banned for maybe a month. And so it continued at that pace. But as a result of that Lucerna evening, I found myself in a situation where my license was revoked and I was banned from public performing. That was pretty rough."

"The attitude was simple. We were ordered [to go to the Theatre of Music] by the Central Bohemian regional agency. It was 1977, when we were still playing, and it wasn't during the ban period. And we got a notice that we were to attend the meeting at the Theatre of Music. It wasn't at the National Theatre, it was at the Theatre of Music. But we sort of disappeared from Prague. We didn't accept the invitation and nobody from our band came there. So it wasn't that we had to. There was no punishment for that. I just mean that those who were there simply thought they had to be there. That otherwise their careers might have been more complicated. However, it's a fact that then there was the ban in 1982. That they focused on us. So, of course, those who had been there were probably right that it was a better solution for their future under socialism."

"This was kind of difficult for me in the sense that I have never been a person who would consider Miloš Zeman serious. Ever since the opposition agreement I deeply disagreed, or I was almost angry, because it seemed to me that they were just dividing spheres, it was probably just business, it was just about money. So then when he became president, I didn't vote for him. Then I got a notice that the President was going to give me the Order of Merit, and I was thinking it over. I told myself he was an elected president. I have to respect that, democracy is like that, even though I didn't vote for him. So I was determined to come. I was not happy about it, but I would go. But then there were all kinds of pressure around me from friends, musicians. They had all kinds of derogatory names for President Zeman, and I explained to them that I was only going there on principle, for nothing else. But then I didn't sleep all night. And finally I said no. Just no. So I called the Castle, I think I talked to Mr. Forejt, and I told him that I was sorry, but that I wasn't coming to get the decoration. He said that I couldn't do it anymore, that the Prime Minister had already signed it, and I said that it was in his job description to sign things all the time, I relaxed a little bit. So then I published my version where I apologised, and we sent it to ČTK (Czech News Agency) so that it wouldn't get twisted somehow. But it wasn't a demonstration, and I'm not too proud of it either. But I just had realized that night that I couldn't go. Although I deeply respect the people who received the award. That had nothing to do with it at all. Mr. Suchý and all that, that's absolutely fine. But I personally decided not to go to receive the award from President Zeman. And then we went near the [Prague] Castle in the evening and celebrated October 28th in a pub, we had dumplings with cabbage and pork and drank a few beers and had a lot of fun."

"And then, of course, 1968 was a major turning point. That's when things started to get tough. The filth surged out. All sorts of firing peolpe from work and stuff like that. As you watched around, the conviction began to grow that this was going nowhere, that this was no dream tomorrow, but on the contrary, that it was a dictatorship. Then the various street committees, as I told you, were interfering in one´s life. The so-called house custodians were informing on people. Watching this, it was clear that we were living in a world that was nothing much. Then also thanks to some literature, for example, George Orwell's 1984 was circulating, and a lot of samizdat, things that were not published as books but circulated among people on paper, cyclostyled and so on. So that made it clear in my mind that it [the regime] was not worth anything. And then also the borders. Suddenly we were aware of not being able to travel anywhere."

"The ban was basically nonsense. I refused to cooperate with State Security and got banned from playing for two years, and then it slipped into a kind of socialist daily life." - "And what did you do in those two years when you couldn't play and sing?" - "I was annoyed. I didn't have to go to work, so we had an open-door flat, and we also dealt with it by swearing. I was such a punk at the time, no future. I was always in the pub. I'll admit it was such a decadent period where we didn't know what to do. We didn't think they [communists] would ever leave. Nobody believed that the regime could collapse. In those days it seemed like it was going to last forever. So I lived from day to day." - "How did the ban end?" - "It ended with a phone call from Dr. Chlíbec, the art manager of the Prague Cultural Centre, we were on first name terms, he was such a nice guy. He said that things were looking good, the ice was breaking and the possibility of me being able to work was shaping up. Then I went to the director, Němec, the head of the Prague Cultural Centre, and he gave me a condition that if I didn't do anything, I could play. Then I brought lyrics, and they only approved half of it. Then I started touring, but I broke it [the condition] right away anyway. The only awkward situation came when Dr. Chlíbec called me and said that unfortunately - he said unfortunately - I would have to go to Sokolov for the Festival of Political Songs. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me to come and see him. And at the meeting he told me that it was the condition. That if I didn't do it, then... that it was simply the condition. So I went there, I didn't involve the band, and I decided I'd handle it on my own."

After being banned from playing, an offer came to cooperate with State Security "I was banned from public performing, which was quite tough. After three months, our chief technician came to me, who owned the equipment and had been earning a lot of money - we had earned from 300 to 400 crowns and he would get from 1,000 to 1,500 per performance for the depreciation of the equipment, so it was a bigger loss for him than for us. He was a State Security collaborator, so he came to me that it could be sorted out. Coincidentally, there was a meeting with someone from State Security in Reduta [music club] at that time and I said I wouldn't cooperate. The offer was kind of funny - that Elvis Presley moght not have been Elvis without the CIA and that my musical contemporaries were also cooperating. And so I said I wouldn't... I was a bit shaking. I was no hero. It was quite dramatic. I said goodbye, and I mumbled something about having to pick up Maťo from kindergarten or something like that. I got out of there, and I was really relieved. And the chief technician, who had arranged the meeting, said, 'Don't fool around, Láďa, you'll fuck it up, they won't let you, you'll be fucked up.' So I was fucked up, but only for two years."