Having disappeared for quite a while, it required the re-release of their first unknown 1992 album for their name to begin circulating once again. Most of the fans of Ecstasy of St Theresa didn't even know that “Free-D”, the stratospheric ambient album released in 1994 wasn't actually their debut work; some years earlier the Czech band had released “Sussurate”, a CD of somewhat raw music, strongly influenced by MBV, and now out again on Clairecords. Listening to it today produces a certain effect. Eight years after the first album, six years after the second, and following a period of reflection, EOST, with a different singer in their line-up, have returned with the new “In Dust 3”, still linked to electronic music, but certainly more orientated towards the pop form (more a la Bjork).

LT: Clairecords has just reprinted your debut CD "Susurrate". It's great! It came out in 1992 when the shoegazing scene was nearing the end and many bands such as Slowdive, Ride, Lush, Boo Radleys were changing their style.do you feel when you listen to that CD nowadays? It's an amazing noisepop CD, isn't it?

JAN: To be honest I didn't listen to this album for ages, until Daniel (the Clairecords owner) didn't ask us to do the re-release of "Susurrate". I had to listen it while doing the remastering and it was fun. You know, I think this is the worst sound quality recording ever made in the music history. Really!! We were the second time in the studio and nobody - the producer, sound engineers or us, knew how to record and mix all the noise we were making. I like the songs, but even me now, can't hear and understand the singing; it's just a really noisy experimental piece of innocence.

LT: Why did you choose the name "Ecstasy of St. Theresa"?

JAN: That's not easy to explain. But when I saw it written down for the first time, I thought it's the best name for a band I could come up with. And it still moves me.

LT: Although Ecstasy of St. Theresa were not known much, John Peel invited you to play on his program. A little later, you recorded a Peel Session; can you tell us more about that experience?

JAN: When I've heard for the first time, that we've been played by John Peel on BBC, I was the luckiest person in the Solar System. John Peel was for us "the God of music", all the bands we liked started their way to our discographies in his program. He broadcasted our first e.p. "Pigment" and then the album "Susurrate" and lately invited us to do a "John Peel Session". We were extremely nervous about it. You know, the studio looked like sci-fi laboratory to us. The sound engineer did everything we wanted. That was the biggest shock. Until then in every studio we have been to, everybody kept saying to us: "...no, no, you can't do it this way... ....that's weird...,...is not normal...", and all this rubbish. Only problem was, that they wanted us to record all in one go-no overdubs. I wanted do more guitars and more tracks of the voice. At the end we could do singing separate from the drums, bass and guitar live take. Also I could have one more go with second guitar for the choruses (or the parts we called so...). The result is the e.p. called "Fluidtrance Centauri". We didn't wanted it to be called "John Peel Session"-we thought people would listen to it different way. We wanted them to take it seriously, like proper release, not some live rarity.

LT: In the past did you consciously take a decision to change something in your sound so that it would appeal to a wider audience?

JAN: Not at all. I guess bands that sound different on each recording, can't be blamed for this. Every record company wants you to keep the same sound, if you doing well. Our every release was doing "well". With our English releases, we made it everytime to the top ten of English-indie chart (and toped American import chart in 1993), and still: every our next release was sounding different. That's not what makes you appeal to wider audience.

LT: Was it hard to find a label for your music? While you were looking for production, did you have any bad experiences with record companies?

JAN: Not at the start. Our first e.p. we released our selfs (on Ecstasy release); we hoped to get a deal if it'll be any good. We signed a deal one month after "Pigment" came to the shops. "Susurrate" came out on Reflex rec. and after J. Peel played it and we came to London for a couple of gigs we signed a deal with Go!Discs (home of Portishead, Paul Weller, Beautifull South, David Holmes and others). It all came so easy, that I still can't believe it. All the bad and sad started after Go! Discs signed deal with Polygram. Soon started people in the label to change, even the founder and boss Andy McDonald (now founder and boss of Independiente) had to sell the rest of shares to Polygram and leave. The label doesn't exist anymore.... We started to look for a new deal. Few times it seemed to be close to sign, but at the end most of the labels said: "you music is too weird, we don't know what to do with it..." (We talking interesting Indie labels !). I was really surprised, as a "indie-chart success band" I thought it would be easier.

LT: Your 2nd CD "Free-D" was a complete departure from your debut album. It was a wonderfully experimental andambient CD, and Ecstasy of St. Teresa started to become popular, meet audience with consent. How do you remember those days?

JAN: My memory is not as good as I wish it to be (and that's way I use for writing music often a sequencer - somebody has to remember it...), so there is not everything from these days. Only some bits, for example:
-being bored by making noise and enjoy the lovely little quiet experiments with old analogs or playing guitar the way, that guitar is "sitting" in my chair and I'm lieing down next to the effects pedals and moving with every knob possible
-having so called "Terry's sandwiches". That means sitting in the park next to the studio, have brown bread with cream cheese and banana on top, talking to Terry Bickers (ex-House of Love or Levitation, who worked in the studio next door) and watch the clouds
-playing Sega every night till the morning
-have Paul King (the former signer and then MTV presenter) coming to the studio with a bottle of champagne (he liked us, I guess...)
-wanting to buy a sampler as soon as I'll have the money for it
-having no idea about the fact that people will call as an ambient or even a dance band (and play the record on house partys in chill out rooms)

LT: Can you tell us more about your collaboration with Guy Fixsen?

JAN: Guy Fixsen is the best producer and sound engeneer I've met in my life. It all started that Go! Discs offered both sides (him and us) collaboration on the album (before we were talking about John Fryer-the producer of Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil and others...). We've met in a bar in London, had few pints of something, later Guy came to our gig and we where amazed, that he did the album of The Telescopes we liked so much and that he said that his favorite band is Talk Talk. Mine too... In the studio he is very creative and inspiring. At the time, there was no Laika yet, so it was hard to know what he thinks about our music while we where just writing it in the studio. Once he asked me: "Are all bands in Czech Republic like you???” I guess he was bit surprised by the way we worked and what music we were recording, cause the Peel Session and the demos we gave him sounded really different. I explained to him that the fact that we there, in London, with him, is because we completely different from what was going on in Czech music scene. I think the weeks we spent together in the studio affected both sides for later work. I definitely still feel him in my mind.

LT: You have just released a new full-length album, "In dust 3", on Emi, can you tell us how did you develop your musical ideas this time?

JAN: After few years of being the only member of the band I'm used to write all music by my self (even the vocal lines). So most of the stuff on the album is my bedroom studio experiments. Later when I met Katka (the new singer) we reworked most of the stuff. She is not what you'll call a musician, but her comments to the music are really out of space and inspiring. Than she ads her voice to the tracks. On some of the songs we also used few guests, you know, for flutes, live drums and this kind of stuff. Easy said, I developed my musical ideas to an easy basic rule: every single note of music or any noise must have a real reason to sound there. If its not necessary or you even don't really hear it much, it has to go out of the track. Other way said, if you'd take out one of the important notes, the song would not be complete.

LT: How do you think your sound has evolved since the time you released "Susurrate", to the present? Why has so much time passed between the release of your second album and this present one?

JAN: I guess the evolution of our sound has a three reasons:
A) We always wanted to make a weird sounds out of the instruments and combine them with nice sounds of the voice (or some other pure sounding instrument like piano, flute, strings and so on…). And the only instrument we had money for at the start was a guitar with few effects pedals (on the last "old Ecstasy" gigs I often had about twenty or more pedals in front of me and spend all the gig jumping on the pedals and twiddle the knobs on them. That's why, I guess, people thought we are shoegazers. But I didn't watch my shoes or felt shy; I had to operate my guitar effects pedals who were on the floor....)
B) After the other members of the first line up left the band and I became the only lonely cowboy, I had to start to work with sequencers, samplers, sound modules and other not human friends. And that affects the sound too.
C) We are bored by sounding the same....

LT: Is this new CD having a good distribution? Are you satisfied with how it is being distributed?

JAN: Unfortunately this album has not an international distribution. So I'm not satisfied. Even the distribution in Czech and Slovak Republics is not good. In these countries our kind of music is still underground and alternative and there is not some really big indie distribution net. So we are distributed by EMI and for them it's not an attractive title. We work on to get somebody to distribute it (or license) in other territories. If somebody reading this would be interested, we are open to it...

LT: Currently, what kind of music do you listen to? Do you think that what you listen to inspires you musically?

JAN: We listen to big range of stuff. From classical music (my favorite radio station is: Clasic FM), jazz, bosanova, rock, dance to real pop shit. From last few years releases I like most: Air, Red Snapper, Lamb, Moloko, Archive, Black Box Recorder, Koop, I can't remember it all.... I guess biggest influence on my music are my dreams. That's why I have some recording stuff in my bedroom. I often wake up with some music inside my head, so I try to put it out as soon after I wake up as possible.

LT: What are you doing, now that you've got the album finished?

JAN: As a band we playing live gigs to support the release. And if we are free: Katka is an actress-she is member of the National Theatre Assembly (so sometimes she is very busy). And I write music for films, theatre plays, Tv spots or I work as a remixer or producer for other artists and bands.

LT: How did the public react to your live gigs? Is a new tour planned for the future? Could this kind of sound be lost at a live concert?

JAN: The reactions on our 'In Dust 3' tour are really good. We play in six people on the stage: drums, percussions, double bass, keybs+samples, me on guitar (and electric bass sometimes) and Katka is singing and plays few instruments. We try to play live all the stuff people know from the record. So its this interesting moment, that you play live music written with sequencers and samplers. So it feels different from playing something written on guitar or piano or some natural live instrument. We are just now planning the spring dates, so I can't tell where and when we'll play. We'd like to go to play in Europe, so I hope we can make it. About the lost of this kind of sound on the gigs...: We think this way: We hope people would like the difference between the album and live sound, cause they see the music is coming live from the stage. I don't like the bands that jump around the mixing desk (in the better case) or even the acts who use half playback and the only live element on the gig is singing. The way we do it, we get some lost of the unique atmosphere of the album sound. For example, using sample of hitting the radiator instead of drum break ('Hunted By Demons') is great, but the kick people get by watching the musician on the stage and hear what they see is, I guess, bigger.

LT: What do you think of the current INDIE scene in the Czech Republic? Do you think today in the Czech Republic that there is total freedom expression?

JAN: Yeah, definitely, there is total freedom of expression. And the current Czech Indie music scene is interesting. Its not big, not releasing much records (here as, I said, are not indie shops, no indie distribution and just few indie labels).But if we count also indie acts who just play gigs or releasing only demos or self made records, the scene is really interesting. In all kind of music there is an interesting band or act. To name but a few: Ohm Square (drum'n'bass), Here (post rock), Iva Bittova (alternative folk/rock), WWW (alternative hip-hop) and so on...

LT: What can we expect from Ecstasy of St.Theresa in the future?

JAN: At the moment we write new songs for a new movie (called "Samotari" - "Loners" in English), I'm also writing the whole soundtrack. Also we'd like to record the live versions of the album. But only for inner use. I hate live records. And hope to get our music to people around the world!!!