Milić Vukašinović

Milić Vukašinović (Милић Вукашиновић; born 9 March 1950) is a Yugoslav musician, the founder of the hard rock band Vatreni Poljubac as well as one-time drummer of the famous Yugoslav rock bands Bijelo Dugme and Indexi.

A rock'n'roll pioneer in the city of Sarajevo where he spent his formative years, Vukašinović is also known for his composing and songwriting work with some of the biggest Yugoslav commercial folk music stars such as Hanka Paldum, Toma Zdravković, and Ceca.

Early life
Born in Belgrade to a father from Andrijevica who held a rank of major in UDBA, infant Vukašinović was brought to Peć in 1953 when his father got reassigned there. After spending five years in Peć, the family moved to Sarajevo.

Early musical activity
Vukašinović started drumming simultaneously to his primary schooling in Sarajevo, joining his first band Plavi Dijamanti in 1963 at the age of thirteen. Formed by guitarist Edo Bogeljić, Plavi Dijamanti were an instrumental rock cover group—somewhat of an outdated setup since the city and the rest of Yugoslavia had already been experiencing the surging popularity of vocalist bands. Mostly playing local high school dance parties, their shining moment came in 1964 at the city's very first gitarijada (battle of the bands) held at the Second Sarajevo Gymnasium—a competition they won largely thanks to Vukašinović's memorable drum solo cover of The Shadows' "See You in My Drums".

Vukašinović then switched to Čičak, a band featuring Zoran Redžić on bass, Mahmut "Paša" Ferović on rhythm guitar, and Dragan Danilović on lead guitar. Čičak folded in 1969.

Kodeksi
During spring 1970, since they immediately needed a new bass player, Kodeksi vocalist Željko Bebek invited Redžić to join the cover band already on a club & bar tour of southern Italy. Redžić, in turn, in addition to showing up in Italy himself, brought along his friend and old Čičak bandmate—twenty-year-old Vukašinović—since the struggling Kodeksi, that also featured twenty-year-old guitarist Goran Bregović, needed a replacement drummer as well.

Arriving to a cover band primarily catering to tourists in the Naples area by playing a mixed commercial repertoire of Eastern European upbeat folk sounds (čoček, kozachok, kolo, etc.) and Top 40 Western English-language hits, Vukašinović began to encourage and eventually managed to convince his new bandmates to turn towards hard rock along the lines of the pioneering music coming out of England epitomized by acts like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. In terms of their finances, the cover band's new musical shift backfired immediately as it resulted in Kodeksi being fired from most of the bars and nightclubs in and around Naples they had regularly been playing prior. Continuing to move away from commercial songs, the band expanded their repertoire with the Canned Heat-inspired boogie rock sound favoured by Vukašinović and Bregović, all of which—due to the songs lacking vocals—led to their vocalist Bebek feeling disregarded and soon deciding to leave. The band then reconstituted as a trio, Mića, Goran i Zoran, with only Vukašinović, Bregović and Redžić remaining. Following a few more Italian bar gigs, the musicians returned to Sarajevo by early 1971.

Back in Sarajevo, the cover band played at the Želimir Altarac Čičak-run Kaktus night club within Dom mladih. They even made an appearance on TV Sarajevo, the band's television debut, for which they had to compose an original number on short notice due to the station's policy of only allowing original music to be performed. Covering other band's music generally began making 21-year-old Vukašinović feel stuck creatively and he soon made a decision to leave Yugoslavia in search of "inspiration for becoming a hard rock musical author".

Move to London
In late summer 1971, twenty-one-year-old Vukašinović relocated to London where he would end up spending the following three years. Finding any modicum of musical success in England proved elusive as he was quickly reduced to earning a living through menial jobs such as washing dishes in restaurants, unloading lorries, and bussing tables at the recently-opened Hard Rock Cafe near Hyde Park Corner.

Not forgotten by his peers back home in Sarajevo, not long after arriving in London, during late fall 1971, Vukašinović received a telegram offer of taking over the drummer spot in Indexi, an already established band throughout Yugoslavia. However, he decided to decline it, reasoning he wanted to continue trying to make it in London.

By 1973, his girlfriend Vera joined him in London. The pair returned abruptly to Yugoslavia in late 1974 due to the news of the death of Vera's father.

Return to Sarajevo, joining Indexi
Immediately after returning home in late 1974, Vukašinović joined Indexi, recording several singles with them. He notably played drums on the "Bacila je sve niz rijeku" single that was initially met with lukewarm reception, but would eventually, fifteen-to-twenty years later, become an evergreen hit—first, when Crvena Jabuka covered it in 1991 and then when director Srđan Dragojević incorporated it in his 1996 hit movie Lepa sela lepo gore.

During late February 1975, Vukašinović played with the band at their triumphant Skenderija Hall concert in front of 14,000 people. The accomplishment led to a Yugoslavia-wide tour sponsored by the state-owned Zagreb-based Generalturist travel agency. The tour ended up not as successful as the Sarajevo concert since the band struggled to replicate the crowd draw outside of their hometown.

Vukašinović parted ways with Indexi in early fall 1976, dissatisfied over revenue sharing within the band—specifically his own cut of the financial compensation for the upcoming tour of the Soviet Union.

Bijelo Dugme
In October 1976, Goran Bregović offered Vukašinović the drummer spot in Bijelo Dugme on a contract basis due to their regular drummer Ipe Ivandić being suddenly called up for his mandatory military service. Vukašinović immediately accepted, reportedly receiving YUD20 million to play on the upcoming studio record and the subsequent tour. He thus appeared on their 1976 album Eto! Baš hoću!, but left in 1977 right after the album tour that, in addition to Yugoslavia, also included Poland.

Vatreni Poljubac, collaboration with commercial folk artists, and solo career
The same year, 1977, Vukašinović formed the enthusiastic power trio Vatreni Poljubac. The band's debut album Oh, što te volim, joj! was released in 1978 by Sarajevo Disk, a newly-launched record label established by the socialist self-management technomanager turned entrepreneur Ishak "Braco" Džirlo and talent agent Muradif "Mufta" Brkić who had mostly been managing the career of his commercial folk singer wife Hanka Paldum. In parallel, working with Paldum, Vukašinović composed the song "Voljela sam, voljela" that became a huge Yugoslavia-wide hit for the young performer.

In 1982, Vukašinović returned to working with Hanka Paldum, composing music, writing lyrics, and arranging each of the eight tracks on her album Sanjam. He furthermore produced the album from which the track "Ja te volim" went on to become a big hit in Yugoslavia.

After recording nine studio albums between 1977 and 1986, Vukašinović disbanded Vatreni Poljubac choosing to pursue a solo career, recording five albums.

In 1990, Vukašinović wrote and composed the song "Sećaš li se, Sanja" on Toma Zdravković's album Kafana je moja istina; the song would go on to become an evergreen hit.

Vukašinović remained in Sarajevo for most of the Bosnian War, living through the city's siege. In the mid 1990s, emerging folk music star Ceca released covers of two of Vukašinović's song that he had composed for Hanka Paldum—"Volela sam volela" and "Tražio si sve".

In 1997, he entered the Eurovision song contest for Bosnia and Herzegovina with Alma Čardžić with her song "Goodbye".

Relocation to Belgrade
During fall 1997, Vukašinović began a collaboration with Ceca, Serbia's and Yugoslavia's biggest commercial folk and turbo folk star at the time. Ceca's husband Arkan brought Vukašinović from Sarajevo to Belgrade with a view of having him write and produce Ceca's upcoming studio album. Provided with paid accommodation at Hotel Jugoslavija, Vukašinović ended up staying in Belgrade for almost six months, and eventually remained living there permanently thus returning to the city of his birth. Right away upon arriving to Belgrade, his colourful public persona got him a lot of media attention, including memorable guest appearances on Minimaks' talk show, Minimaksovizija.

The collaboration with Ceca did not result in Vukašinović doing the entire album as Ceca eventually decided to go with her previous songwriters Marina Tucaković and Ljiljana Jorgovanović for song lyrics while Aleksandar "Mili" Milić produced it. The album, named Ceca 2000, ended up being released in late December 1999 in time for New Year's with its promotion focused around millennium celebrations. In the end, Vukašinović's only contribution to the album became composing music and doing arrangements for two lesser-known tracks, "Sviće dan" and "Ako te ona odbije".

Simultaneously, Vukašinović re-launched Vatreni Poljubac, this time with different bandmates, releasing the studio album Sve će jednom proć` samo neće nikad Rock`n`Roll in 1999.

In 2000, shortly after Arkan's death, Vukašinović reached out to Ceca again, offering her the song "Sanjam da si opet tu". Ceca refused the song, which then ended up being recorded by Jovana Tipšin.

Vukašinović took part in Bijelo Dugme's 2005 three-concert reunion tour

In late 2006, he took part in a brief Vatreni Poljubac reunion, the focus of which was a concert on 29 December at Belgrade's SKC.

After expressing interest in appearing among the opening acts at the Rolling Stones concert in Belgrade on 14 July 2007, Vukašinović was booked until a few days before the show. However, at that time a row between him, Stones' management and local concert organizers came to a head and he ended up not playing.

In March 2014, Vukašinović released his ninth solo album entitled Nemoj pjevat'...Ma nemoj. The album was released through City Records.

Personal life
Born in Belgrade, he moved with his family to Peć when he was six years old. In 1963, they moved again, this time to Sarajevo where he spent most of his time until the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992. He identifies as Yugoslav.

On 1 March 2008 he entered the Veliki brat house as part of the show's second season in celebrity format. He appeared in the same show one year later, and entered again in 2013.

In 2012, the first part of his autobiography, titled Seksualno nemoralan tip, filozofsko-psihološki triler: Seks, droga, alkohol i rokenrol, was published and released by Beoknjiga.

On 24 July 2018 his daughter, Maja Avdibegović, committed suicide by overdosing on illegal drugs. She was 35.

Solo albums

 * Potraži me (1984)
 * Hej jaro, jarane (1986)
 * Kao nekad (1992)
 * Sad ga lomi (1992)
 * Seksualno nemoralan tip (2002)
 * Ima Boga (2003)
 * Gleda a ne da (2005)
 * Disco Mix 50 hitova Gorana Bregovića (2006)
 * Nemoj pjevat'...Ma nemoj (2014)

studio albums

 * Oh, što te volim, joj! (1978)
 * Recept za Rock`n`Roll (1979)
 * Bez dlake na jeziku (1980)
 * To je ono pravo (1980)
 * Živio Rock`n`Roll (1982)
 * Iz inata (1985)
 * 100% Rock`n`Roll (1986)
 * Sve će jednom proć` samo neće nikad Rock`n`Roll (1999)
 * Kad svira Rock`n`Roll (2011)

singles

 * "Doktor za Rock 'n' Roll" (1978)
 * "Na vrat na nos i na svoju ruku" (1979)

singles

 * "Goodbye America" (1976)
 * "Tako ti je mala moja kad ljubi Bosanac" (1976)
 * "Dosao sam da ti kažem da odlazim" (1976)
 * "Himna lista Zdravo" (1976)

studio albums

 * Eto! Baš hoću! (1976)

singles

 * "Samo su ruže znale" (1974)
 * "Pogrešan broj" (1974)
 * "Didn-da-da" (1974)
 * "Volim te" (1975)
 * "Obala pusta, obala vrela" (1975)