When you hit the stage, you take total command of the audience. I was terrified I was going to die! It’s funny because even today when I’m singing, I’m chewing gum! But yeah, I’ve had this feeling since I was really, really young and I knew this is what I was meant to do. I was worried about having swallowed the gum, so I guzzled the coffee. In those days, our cereal was basically bread and coffee with milk. What was really funny is that I was chewing gum at the time and I swallowed the gum. I was just a little kid but I was standing there like I was on stage. I was around 4 or 5 years old and I still remember it like it was yesterday! I was in the kitchen in my grandmother’s house in Croatia. What are your earliest memories of music? Music has played a major role in your life. Icon recently caught up with Miljenko Matijevic to discuss the process of finding his creative voice, breathing life into Steelheart’s ’Through The Worlds of Stardust,’ the lessons he learned along the way and the challenges faced by artists in today’s tumultuous music industry.
With this record, Matijevic has created an indisputably powerful rock album which is destined to stand the test of time. Jason Price of Icon Vs. ‘Through Worlds Of Stardust’ is the culmination of his past, present and future together. His creative exploration would ultimately lead him back to the studio where he would pen the next chapter in the story of Steelheart. In 2017, Miljenko Matijevic continues to push himself as both a songwriter and vocalist.
STEELHEART ROCK BAND MOVIE
The movie soundtrack was performed by Matijevic (and Jeff Scott Soto) on vocals along with Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne’s then guitarist and frontman of Black Label Society), Jeff Pilson (Dokken, Foreigner), and Jason Bonham. The album was very different musically from the previous two albums, but featured the song “We All Die Young” (millions of streams and counting on Spotify) which was later included as a re-recorded version in the movie ‘Rock Star’, which saw Matijevic providing the singing voice for Mark Wahlberg’s character. Four years later, Matijevic formed a new version of Steelheart with Kenny Kanowski (guitars), Vincent Mele (bass), and Alex Makarovich (drums) to record and release his third album, “Wait”.
“Steelheart” as it was known ended that night. Almost impossibly, Matijevic managed to walk off the stage of his own strength before being rushed to a hospital.
In the midst of promotion of the album, a serious accident happened on Halloween night in 1992, when an improperly secured lighting truss hit Matijevic on the back of the head, breaking his nose, cheekbone, jaw, and twisting his spine. (by early 90s standards) due to the well documented rise of grunge music however, East Asia was a different story, where the band was widely embraced yet again. Steelheart’s sophomore album, “Tangled In Reins” was released in 1992 to critical acclaim and rave reviews, but moderate success in terms of sales in the U.S. The band released their self-titled debut album in 1990 and based on the buzz around the hit single “I’ll Never Let You Go,” was a smashing success (for example, 33,000 albums were sold in one day in Japan) and quickly reached platinum sales. Although Steelheart was lumped in with the glut of long-haired hard rock bands emerging in the early 90s, the band was always more forward thinking than their peers. As the driving force behind Steelheart, his unrelenting drive, multi-octave range and captivating songwriting has dazzled audiences around the globe for 3 decades. Miljenko Matijevic possesses one of those voices that only come along so often in rock ’n’ roll.
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