Matej Krajnc

Matej Krajnc is a Slovenian singer-songwriter, poet, novelist, translator and music writer, born on 14 November 1975 in Maribor. He went to primary school and grammar school in Celje, studied comparative literature at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, and in 2014 took his master's degree there with a thesis on poetry set to music in rock. He lives and works in Ljubljana and Celje.

He started writing early, published poems and short prose regularly from 1984 and brought out his first collection in 1988. Since 1992, when he was 17, he has worked as a singer-songwriter, joining poetry and music in the line of Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave and, at home, Jani Kovačič, Tomaž Pengov and Marko Brecelj. From 1999 to 2005 he worked with the music desk of Val 202, and from 2001 he hosted his own show on Radio Študent.

In 2003 he and bassist Jani Lah founded the band Sužnji sendvičev, which played all over Slovenia in 2004-2006, appeared on the radio show Izštekani in autumn 2004 and mixed his songs with old rock and roll, Dylan and Cohen. Their single "Vedel sem" came out in 2005, and "Črne strani" was on Val 202's Imamo dobro glasbo in 2008. Reunited in 2013, the band recorded Na meji, twelve of his songs from 1994 to 2012, and released Antropoid on Nika Records in 2015; in 2022 they returned to Izštekani with Oto Pestner as a guest.

Matej Krajnc is one of Slovenia's leading Dylan specialists and has translated Dylan's poetry for years. In April 2017 he released Pot skoz kamnolom, Dylan songs in Slovenian, including "Gospod s tamburinom", his version of "Mr. Tambourine Man". Later records include Tihi dogovor (2018), Celjske balade (2019), Spačene anekdote (2022), Vse kar sem objel je ušlo (2024), songs to poems by Tomaž Šalamun, and Sledi jezika (2025), to poems by Marij Čuk.

He has written books on Elvis, Johnny Cash, the Beatles, Tom Waits and Oto Pestner, and an authorised biography of Lado Leskovar. In June 2024 he received the velenjica award at Lirikonfest in Velenje for his poetry of the past decade, and since December 2024 he has been a vice-president of the Slovene Writers' Association.