The latter were formed in 1984 in Seattle, which a few years later, thanks to the success of Nirvana, became the Grunge Mecca of the world. Much as The Walkabouts appreciated Seattle's sudden explosion of musical creativity, they never felt part of the whole grunge thing, and preferred to focus on extensive tours of Europe. It is quite ironic that their vocals-and-guitars music, inspired by American folk, country and rock traditions, found much more of a following on the Old Continent. But, as most American musicians and DJ's will tell you, European audiences have always been much more musically receptive than American ones, regardless of the music in question. Eckmann's musical talents do not stop with The Walkabouts. Music-wise, he is insatiable in exploring and combining different musical traditions and styles. His lyrics are poetical, and concern themes such as human relations, loneliness and restlessness. His penchant for emotional, instrumentally rich music, accompanied by melancholic and mellow vocals, has produced many musical projects, including some film soundtracks. He has a habit of getting hooked up with musicians around Europe and it was inevitable that after settling down in Slovenia he would sooner or later become enmeshed with Slovenian musicians as well. Was it difficult to arrange all the paperwork to live in Ljubljana as an American musician? It certainly wasn't easy (he laughs). In order to get married to Anda, I had to get a paper for the Municipality saying that I had never been convicted of a crime. So, I went to the American Embassy in Ljubljana, the guy asked me to raise my hand, say "I have never been convicted" and I did. He said OK, checked nothing, gave me the paper and I could get married. Then, there were a lot of Catch 22 situations when I applied for the Temporary Resident Visa. The fact that I was married to a Slovenian woman meant almost nothing. In order to apply for this Visa, you have to have a rental contract for a flat. But, in order to rent a flat, you need to have a Temporary Resident Visa first. So, you spin some circles. I have this bizarre status because I get paid by non-Slovenian sources for my work, so the officials went through a lot of my financial records in order to make sure I was not going to live off the Slovenian state. I can understand that, it's a small country. But the final straw came six months after applying for the Temporary Resident Visa. The Slovenian law had changed, meaning a foreigner now has to pick up his Visa in his home country. You cannot pick it up at a Slovenian Embassy in Trieste or somewhere in Europe. I had to go all the way to Washington, DC to pick up my Visa, and it was an 11-minute process, including the chat with the officer. I mean, it's absurd. Has settling down in Slovenia influenced your music in any way? It's hard to say. If I had moved here in my twenties, it would have had a profound effect on what I do. But having lived in other places in Europe already, it doesn't sort of grip me like, wow, now I'm in Slovenia! I like it here a lot; it was a very positive thing for me to move here. I don't know whether it has pushed me somewhere else on the artistic level, I tend to think not... but then again, I'm preparing an album based on the poetry of Dance Zajc. They are quiet songs in my style, based on translations of his poetry into English. I have Dane's blessing to do it my way, so I'm not trying to base them on Slovenian folk motives or something. I've worked with Maja Weiss on some film soundtracks, that's ambient electronic music, and I collaborated with the Slovenian RTV Orchestra on some pieces. I teamed up with the Croatian surf rock band The Bambi Molesters because we had common friends from the Glitterhouse label. The Bambis were recording in Novo mesto and someone suggested I go see the studio. I went down there, we had some beers... They are an instrumental guitar band, but suddenly, one of the guitar players appeared with some lyrics and suggested I sing them. I went away into a room for two hours, wrote the music for it and that's how we started. Occasionally, I would play with them as a guest, but we enjoyed hanging out together and we ended up with a band, The Strange. Most good bands come round when people like to be in the same room together, as opposed to some super group where you attach people together in an artificial way. To me, it's more interesting if you just like each other. Your music friends and collaborators are scattered all around the world. How do you get together to rehearse? You go on a plane and do it. I produce a lot of foreign bands and often invite them to come record here. Going to Ljubljana has an exotic sound to it and I can offer them a nice experience with slightly cheaper studio prices. Carla from The Walkabouts is coming here in summer, to work on a new Chris & Carla album. She's been here several times. I've worked with some Slovenian musicians as well, Vlado Kreslin, Jani from Siddharta... I met Vlado through R.E.M., they recommended him to me because I was preparing an album of European songwriters' covers. Vlado has this ability to put together people from an enormous range of ages and musical styles. I play with him live sometimes; he's very vital and inspiring. What he's doing, taking traditional ideas and dragging them forward, is very important. He's not afraid to be challenging, but at the same time, he understands the value of this music. I have a good background in American folk music, and think that with such an approach folk music becomes alive and exciting. When people start acting purist about it, saying "this is how it has always been done," I start falling asleep. Purism makes folk music a prison, it makes it ridiculous. You've collaborated with some very well-known musicians. It is very difficult to follow all your numerous projects. For me too, trust me. (He laughs). I have the same criteria for all my collaborations, liking to be in the same room with someone. The problem with professional musicians is the schedules. Mine is insane and so are theirs. Many ideas cannot be realized because of tight schedules, not because there'd be a lack of desire to work with someone. I think one of my strengths is working as a collaborator. I like bouncing off people and seeing what happens, I like the philosophy of bands. Understanding their chemistry helps me greatly with producing them. Working with orchestras is very exciting, too. I like solo work, but it's lonely and darker, and I don't want to go there too often. With The Walkabouts, we'd now rather wait for the proper moment and only then do something. We live apart, but when we get into a room, we get down to music very quickly - there's no warm up time, we know each other so well. How do the studio equipment and technical expertise of Slovenian recording studios compare to the high-tech studios abroad? I came here because of the recording studios. In 1999, I was looking for a studio for a Norwegian group I was producing. I found Studio Metro in Ljubljana, with 25 years of experience, a very reasonable price and amazing equipment. I have my own portable studio now, but I still work there, they are a world-class facility. Of course they can't compare to the best studios in London, New York or Los Angeles, but no projects I do have the budget to record there anyway. With expensive studios, you pay for the size of the room and the staff making you tea, all those things that really don't have much to do with recording the signal path. You come to the studio for the quality of sound. The guy I work with at Metro is perfect for what I do, and they haven't given up analogue sound yet, which I love. I want to record with this sort of retro anal ogue equipment because I search for quality. If you're willing to sacrifice some of the editing flexibility of modern machines, you get better sound quality with the analogue ones. Also, it basically comes down to whether you want to play in a room with a band or sit behind a screen and put pieces together with your mouse. I don't think anything is wrong with that, there's no right way of recording or playing music. The end result tells you what's good and what's not, but the history of rock music shows that putting a band in the studio and recording is a more powerful and convincing way to work. I want my recordings to sound like real life; this is what rock music is all about. You need to be in the dirt a little bit for it, because if you take all the rough edges and guitar noises away, it's not real anymore. I listen to a lot of electronic music as well, and love its artificiality; it takes you out of the real world and leads you somewhere else. But generally speaking, I don't like the polishing of modern recordings, taking all these small, natural things away. I think you have to look for perfection in other places and to me, perfection in music lies in its emotional content. That's why we listen to music, at least I do. If the technician straightens and smoothes out every single beat and nuance, the emotional content gets lost. What do you miss most living here? I come from Seattle, which has a very vibrant music scene. Here, I find it a little slow. There is a lot of musical creativity here, but you have some problems. You don't have those 5-600 people venues with consistent programmes that all of the other towns of this size in Europe have. There's absolutely no support or commitment to music in this town from the Municipality. I identified this problem very quickly upon my arrival and the longer I'm here, the more it pisses me off. I think it's really ridiculous. Ljubljana is becoming one giant shopping centre, killing its club culture and the life of the town centre. Yes, and I think this is absurd. I got a feeling that the Municipality wants to change Ljubljana into a pensioner's town, taking all the vibrant life out of the town centre, and killing the club culture. Ljubljana's town centre is becoming a quiet museum - that seems to be their vision. And this is really contradictory, because on the one hand they want to sell themselves as a lively tourist capital, and on the other, all you have to experience are the shopping centres, and no clubs, no concerts. I miss a lot of music that I'd like to hear. If I try to put myself into the shoes of the local Slovenian musicians, it is a complete disaster from their perspective. Your career path here is the Orto bar, and if you're lucky enough to be Siddharta, you play the Bezigrad stadium. And that's it. In other Slovenian towns it's even worse. I mean, what the hell is this?! It makes no bloody sense. It destroys any opportunity for a strong, non-commercial and creative music scene here. Musicians struggle for a few years, get nowhere and then give up. This is why the quality of music here is much lower than what it could be. Musicians cannot grow in their work, they get exhausted once they are out of their twenties, it's really hard to push it forward into your thirties, forties... and the music scene here really misses that. There are a vast number of talented people that just give up their creativity because of that.