Melanholiki

Melanholiki are a Slovenian rock band from Ljubljana whose story begins in 1981. The six members are Marko Stabej on keyboards and vocals, Miha Muck on guitar, Matjaž Zorko on bass, Jaka Vadnjal on drums, Žiga Arh on clarinet and Nejc Bolka on saxophone. Their best-known song is "Anja", also known as "Anja (o tebi se mi sanja)".

Stabej and Vadnjal had already played together in a primary-school free jazz band, and the present group came together in their grammar-school years: in 1981 they found a rehearsal room and Miha Muck bought the first amplifier. Punk bands ruled at the time, and they first meant to call themselves Svinje egoistične, but at the suggestion of Stabej's sister they chose Melanholiki, as they were a gentler lot than the punks. They played their first gig at Gimnazija Poljane in 1983, with ska, reggae and new wave in their own songs, and their first club concert in Kranj in 1986. The line-up has barely changed: only Matjaž Čuk, who moved abroad, was replaced by Matjaž Zorko.

"Anja" dates from 1986. The band presented it on the show Demo top, won the expert jury's award and with it a recording session at Studio Tivoli. The members say Anja was real: a girl who came to their table at the Rio inn to ask for a cigarette. The song became a hit and was covered by MI2 and others. An acoustic cassette, Še kr prfektn, had been recorded at home in 1981, and in 1996 they released the cassette O Anja, rožo imaš v laseh with eight songs, among them "Luna", "Tri likerčke", "Samo tebe" and "Pa da bi znal", set to a poem by Srečko Kosovel.

Their first CD, Končno, followed in 2012 with twelve songs, five recorded in 2007 and the rest in 2012, including "Kralj in kraljica", "Lanski sneg", "Koračnica" and "Še so gradovi" with the a cappella quartet Male malice. Marko Stabej writes the lyrics, which treat love and everyday life in Slovenia with humour.

The band calls its mix of blues, swing, jazz and rock "melanhol rock"; journalists have compared them to Madness and called them a second Lačni Franz. Next to their own songs they play their own versions of Elvis Presley, Adriano Celentano, Frank Zappa, Psihomodo Pop and Zabranjeno pušenje.