She is the rebel and queen of Bulgaria's punk/rock music, whose teenage years were devoted to bringing her friends to secret places and basements to listen to their favourite music, forbidden during the communist times. Milena Slavova's first professional attempts were in 1985. In communist conceptions, however, her band was slammed as "enemy of the society" and Milena turned out under the constant surveillance of the police. The band's appearance on the radio and on concerts was restricted, they weren't allowed to make records. That's why the first album of Milena with the band of "Review" appeared in 1989. It fascinated the audience and conqured fans hearts. In the late 90-s, when Milena came back from Britain, where she lived and worked for a couple of years.
Q: Are still an angry young woman?
A: I do get angry at many things. I wake up bright and shiny early in the morning and it takes only ten minutes after I am out on the street when somebody brings out the worst in me.
Q: How do you wake up?
A: I have woken up to something that I suspected to be like the most important thing in man's life - the soul. My belief was strengthened while I lived abroad. Every person should wake up to the fact that if you soul suffers, you have absolutely no chance to be happy, no matter how much money you have, how many friends you have, most of whom fake ones, because the moment you lose your money they scatter away like cockroaches. I woke up when I went to live in the United Kingdom and had no friends to turn. I found my friends later and these were true friends, because there I was nobody. It is your soul that should be serene to see the energy in the sun and in yourself, to be strong and to believe in yourself.
Q: What are you waiting now?
A: Now I hope that my second attempt at living my life will endow me with more serenity, that I will compose songs for pleasure and will not be waiting on sales, struggling to make ends meet. I want to be peaceful, just waiting for my soul to open and contact the high powers above to inspire me with the lyrics and music for a new song. I want to live life in pink, few pets and may be a child at home...
Q: I am listening to you and can't help thinking that the rebel in you is slowly dying. Am I right?
A: No, no! May be I have rather split in two. The rebel is in me, but my leaves are growing in different directions.
Q: The next word that you drew is fantasize. Do you fantasize a lot?
A: Well, I do fantasize a lot. Unless I fantasized I would have been a very boring person even to myself. I even invent staff that nobody on this earth has invented so far. I came up with an idea about a vehicle, which will certainly come into use in 3000.
Q: Unfortunately we won't be alive to see whether your prophecy was right... We have time just for one more word and it is " the other side". What is the other side for you - this world or London?
A: Let me tell you first about my life in London. I have a nice apartment in downtown London, right at the center of the center, which is very convenient. I am the kind of person, who wants to have a house, a garden, a Mercedes....I live like an ordinary person.
Q: What about the other "other side" of life?
A: I do think a lot about it. Nobody has the answer yet, but I personally believe that this is the other world. When we die, we do not disappear, but just evolve into something else.
Q: Are you afraid of death?
A: I was scared to death by the thought of death, because I thought that was the end of everything. But after you have been thinking for years and put the pieces of the puzzle of your life together, you make the step that allows you to see that yes, there is something on the other side.
*This is the sixth in a series of interviews published in the book Dumite (The Words) that brings together 48 interviews aired during Darik Radio's program "Who is Talking?", hosted by Prolet Velkova and Vesselina Petrakieva. The guests were asked to draw a number of words out of a straw hat. The book "The Words" was released on the occasion of the media's 15th anniversary
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