Fragment (Croatia)
Croatian prog metal group.
The official website address is:
www.fragment.altpro.net
Tell me about your history? How did you get where you are now?
The story began in 2001, in Zagreb Croatia, when Slaven Nikolic (guitar), Davor Vlahov (vocal/guitar) and Darko Demsic-Rudi (bass), together with Vedran Hadziselimovic (drums) formed heavy/progressive band R2 (named after famous Star Wars character R2-D2). They recorded a 5track demo named "Given Away", (review of that demo can be found on web page: www.cmar-net.org ). Soon after that they stopped playing together.
In autumn of year 2002, together with their new drummer Neven Nikolic they formed band Fragment. They continued to work on their new material (some songs from R2 stage were also included in their repertoire), but because of lack of keyboardist, were unable for playing live. That changed in the very end of same year when Vedran Hrgetic joined them as keyboardist and completed Fragments line-up. At that point, they were searching for their own music style and combined various music elements and influences. They had several concerts during 2003. in and around Zagreb.
In 2004. They finished material for their very first album called "The Masquerade". During this period they developed their own style that can be described as heavy metal empowered with rhythmical riffs and periodic progressive influence. Main influences on the band were made by: Masterplan, Helloween, Iron Maiden, Dark Tranquillity and progressive bands like Dream Theater, Symphony X, Ark
Fragment entered the Monitor Audio Studio; Zagreb, in August of 2004. The work on album lengthened out to more than 8 months, mostly because of the lack of money. It is important to say that the whole project was self-financed and self-produced. The album was finaly finished and Fragment started searching for the metal label to release it.
After some unsucessful contacting metal labels, primarily in Europe, the band found a record publisher in it's home city, Zagreb, Croatia, by the name of Euroton records (Capitol festival). In the meanwhile, Fragment had a couple of concerts in nearby towns and recorded their first video for the song "A World Inside" (recorded and produced by Ljubo Zdjelarevic) found on the album, which ended up being nominated in category "music video of the year" on croatian film festival "Dani hrvatskog filma"!
Currently, the band is engaged in promoting their newly released album and for that reason and also for a chance to play new material which they eagerly want to present to broader audience is
searching for live performance opportunities.
Slaven Nikoliæ is no longer a member of the band. There is a new lead singer along with Davor Vlahov, and her name is Kristina Jagiæ.
Have you performed live in front of an audience? Any special memories?
We do play live, but in this four years of playing together, Fragment only had about ten concerts.
Your musical influences
Mostly progressive rock and metal bands.
