Dejan Vunjak

Dejan Vunjak is a Slovenian singer of pop and narodnozabavna music, born on 25 April 1993 in Ptuj. He is the son of the well-known musician Branko Jovanović Vunjak, better known as Brendi, and he plays drums, percussion and guitar as well as singing.

He was on screen long before he was on the festival stage: as a boy he acted in the series Pepi vse ve (2000-2005) and in the RTV Slovenija productions Lepo je biti Mozart and Temna stran lune (both 2006) and Tolažnik (2009), and in 2008 he appeared in the stage musical Briljantina. He went on to finish the Conservatory for Music and Ballet in Ljubljana and continued at the Ljubljana Academy of Music, studying percussion and drums. For a short time he drummed with the bands Balkan boys and Atomik Harmonik.

His solo career began at the suggestion of Domen Kumer. His first step was a duet with Kumer, a new version of "Ona sanja Pariz", first recorded by Don Juan, which the makers of the TV show Na zdravje had asked for and which the two presented there in the choice of the song of winter 2011-2012. On 1 April 2012 he played his first concert with his own band, Brendijeve barabe: keyboardist Dušan Zore and bassist Jaka Okorn, both from Brendi's old backing band Za hec in veselje, accordionist Nejc Kastelic and drummer Tilen Zakrajšek, a childhood friend.

In November 2012 he released Dejan Vunjak in Brendijeve nepozabne, an album of his father's songs, and less than a year later his first song of his own, "Želim, želim", which also gave its name to his 2016 album. Both came out on Mandarina, the label he runs with his mother Danica Žibrat and his brother-in-law Anže Zavrl. Songs such as "Če te poljubim", "Le za tebe", "Nocoj bo luštno", "Limonada", "Brez problema" and "Spet smo skupaj" followed. In 2017 he and his partner Tadeja Pavlič won the first season of the dance show Zvezde plešejo on POP TV.

In February 2023, after a concert tour on which Brendijeve barabe filled large venues, he released "Nikol' še nismo šli", a party song built on a well-known drinking phrase: he wrote the melody, the lyrics with Aleksander Jež, and Dušan Zore arranged it. The band has changed since: violinist and backing singer Ajda Pušaver joined in 2023, Andraž Tkavc took over the drums, and in 2026 Boris Vučkič came in on keyboards and Tinej Reberšek on accordion.