Steelheart was a rising hard rock band in the early 1990s when tragedy struck. Vocalist Miljenko Matijevic rose from that tragedy to continue the band and now has released a very special track called “Trust In Love” as a message of peace to the world. Miljenko recently took some time to talk about this unique new song and the band’s career.
Please press the PLAY icon for the MisplacedStraws Conversation with Miljenko Matijevic –
On writing “Trust In Love” based on his time in Korea – Steelheart has been going to Korea, I’ve been going to Korea, since 1989, and “She’s Gone” is still the number one karaoke song in Korea today. It’s unbelievable. By the way, thank you, I’m honored. I’ve lived there for a little while and worked there, I have friends there, and I know that feeling, the energy, and the connection. One day I was watching the news and there was just so much, I just couldn’t put together why the country is separated. You got people from Korea, from South Korea with families in North Korea, they don’t see each other. Could you imagine being separate and you can’t go? It’s awful. Anyway, so also watching the news and it’s like, “We’re gonna bomb this and we’re gonna do this”, and all these threats, then the human trafficking and the kids trafficking, and I was like, “Oh God”. I don’t know, so I went by the piano and I just started writing the song and said, “Let me write a song for the unification of people”, and immediately “Trust in Love” just came through, “trust in love, trust in peace, I can’t live until I know I’m free”. It just wrote itself. So I followed basically whatever is guiding me through and I just followed the spirits and I wrote the song in English, of course, then we translated it into Korean. When I finished it in Korean and I was like, “Well, you know, this could be a nice unification for my country too”, we went through a horrible separation and I was like, “Well, let me sing it in Croatian”, so I translated in Croatian and sang in Croatian. I finished that, I was like, “Wow, the energy is pretty big here, so maybe I should sing it in Italian, it’s only across the Channel”. I don’t know, I felt like I was Pavarotti, it so easily came to me. So when I finished Italian, it was like, “Well, I gotta sing it in the second most biggest language in the world. I gotta sing Spanish”, so I sang it in Spanish, then Portuguese. Then I was like, “What other country can I sing in? I know, Chinese”, so I did Mandarin, Hindi, and Japanese. I also sang it in Russian. I look forward to releasing that because I think they could really use it, I think they can use it more than anyone, and it escalated into 10. I gotta finish working on the Swedish, I’m working on the German, working on the French, and then most definitely, I wanna do Arabic as well, and I’ll keep going. It doesn’t matter, I’ll keep doing as many languages as possible. It just grew and the song, it just has a soul of its own, it really does. The song wasn’t written. how would I say, in a way for me to have this big world hit and I’m the guy and saving the world, that’s not what it’s about. It’s done from the heart, it’s done with a peaceful love energy, and it’s just guided me through this journey that has just been unbelievable from creating the song during the pandemic, it’s been two years in the making, by the way, so everyone knows this is not something that I’m jumping on a bandwagon with love and respect for the horrible things that are happening in Ukraine. I kinda guess I foreseed or something, came to me early here before this all happened, and the way I started as I wanted, I needed to have a big chorus, and I had this chorus plan, I had a choir plan, we were gonna record it, we had kids, we had everything all set up here in Orange County, and it all fell through when the pandemic hit. So I was thinking, “Well, how was it supposed to happen?”, \raise my hand and say “Let it happen”. I was like, “Oh, here’s how we’re gonna do it”. So I sang the chorus, and I put the lyrics of the chorus on my website, and I put it to my fans on Instagram and Facebook and everything, I said, “Hey, please sing the course and send me in your vocal. We’re doing this world peace, beautiful song. don’t care how you sound, please just send me your energy and your love”. So I got about close to 350 people who sent in their vocal, they’re all in the chorus. They’re all in there, and some weren’t as good as others, but it didn’t matter, it was the passion and the way they sang it with love. You could just hear that they’re going for it, that’s what I wanted. It really reflected on the chorus and really showed the energy and the unification of bringing people together. That’s the purpose of the song, is putting people together and raising our vibration to a new level of thinking. So after that, then we did a 40-piece orchestra in Macedonia for the strings, then on to other things as well, video and all of that. 1:11
On if he learned the languages or sang phonetically – No, no. It’s gotta be both. I can’t sing something, I don’t know what I’m talking about, that is just out of the question. I would go through the lyrics with them and so, let’s say I did with Liang in China, Beijing. She was in Beijing, so I said, “Hey, okay. So why don’t you translate it?” And she translates it. “Okay, now let’s talk about it. Tell me what exactly this means, ooh, okay, well, let’s change that. Can you say this? Oh yeah, that would sound better. Okay, can we say this, it would sing better?” So it takes time to really put the dots in place. Then once we got that I would have them sing a rough form, even if they wouldn’t sing the melody, right, at least they would sing the words correctly. Then I would listen very carefully and I would sing the words phonetically, so to speak. Exactly. And then we would go deep into the details, and that’s where it’s really important, and it was really important for me. So this message that I’m trying to give about, that’s why all these languages. Because I wanted to show respect to each country. If you didn’t understand it in English, let me say it to you in your language, that kind of thing. But the nuances that are so important. There’s little subtleties in every language, so you don’t sound like an American trying to sing Hindi, we don’t want that. And I really, really put the time and the energy and the focus to do it to its utmost top level where people cannot tell that it’s an American trying to sing a different language. 7:34
On the video – Okay, so the whole video, I had a vision, what I wanted to do, it came scattered in different parts, but what I did know is that I wanted an opening with a dialogue. I was trying to find a perfect place to do that, and then I found the Korean Friendship Bell. So when I started back in the song, I said, “Well, let me go back to the original thought of putting the peninsula together with love”. So I said, “Let me bring the heritage in of Korean people, let me bring back their past where they started, where the love was, what they wore back in the day”, That’s when I found the Bell. So I called the Korean culture here in LA, and we had dinner, and also the director of the Park. I told him, “Hey, I wanna shoot this video at the park there, I’d like to do an opening dialogue with me and the director coming and striking this bell, ring through the world for peace”. We did that, and we had this amazing meal, and after the meal, we’re all hugging and kissing, we’re gonna make this video then they opened their hearts and said, “Whatever you need, whatever you need”. I also wanted some dancers, and I picked them out, there’s different styles of clothes and different styles of dancing, and these girls did an absolutely phenomenal job. There’s one mistake I made. There’s so many things on, and I really regret that I didn’t film them alone, just with the music, doing that dance. Because everything was so rushed, there was so much going on, the production was huge, it’s like every minute is really accounted for, we barely got all the shots we got. So I think maybe that’s why it didn’t happen, but anyway, and I just have this vision. I also had the vision of the little girl, I wanted a little girl holding a flower, singing the chorus, showing the innocence of what we’re doing when we’re hurting our younger generation. If we all die tomorrow, a lot of us already have lived quite a bit, but they haven’t, so I wanted to show the innocence and it just escalated. I wanted the choir, we had to show the choir, and that’s why we brought it all into the Warner Grand Theater and we have everyone there singing, all the people that came together, just the orchestra, the choir, the dancers, all the crew, Bobby. I got Bobby, I connected with Bobby Altman. As soon we met, we were like, “Okay, we’re done, get over here and give me a hug”. Yes, Robert is also a director, and he’s done so many amazing movies and TV shows including film some of his own dad’s movies. So it was over 700 people that came together on this video, that’s a lot of people to make a video and a song. I don’t know what all to say. So it took me, I’m only hanging on to keep going and do what I’m supposed to do. I’m the messenger now. 10:09
On how he delt with Steelheart’s success with the debut record – It wasn’t sudden steel, Steelheart was painstaking. I’ll tell you this, it really was. We were rehearsing for years in Norwalk, Connecticut, and rehearsing and rehearsing. It was like, “Oh my God if I rehearse one more day, I don’t know what’s gonna happen”, and then finally we got signed, and then when we got signed, we made a record, and then when we made a record we sat for nine months. They just shelved it. Didn’t do anything with it. Not sure what to do with it, I guess, kind of thing. I don’t know what they were thinking. But then in Japan, “She’s Gone” exploded. Masa Itoh was a very influential DJ at the time, he played the song once on the radio on his show, and he got over 2500 phone calls, literally insanity. So my manager said, “We’re going to Japan to do some press, some stuff”. He didn’t tell me exactly what was going on, and when we landed, I got off the plane, it was 300-400 people waiting for me. Fans at the airport, it was like, this is crazy, coming from rehearsing into that, it was just like, “Whoa”. It was really intense. Anyway, so I did some amazing interviews and we went there, we performed three shows, really big shows in Japan, and when that happened, Universal kind of woke up and it’s like, “We better do something. We need to jump on this. This is not good. They’re doing really well in a different country, but not in their own country”, so they start jumping in a little bit. But it didn’t happen until a DJ in Salt Lake City, play the song “I’ll Never Let You Go” late night, like midnight hour, late-night hours, and he started getting a lot of calls in for the song. So then they moved it into a morning, and when they moved into the morning and afternoon the song just exploded and it went to number one on that station. When it went to number one on that station, it just spread like wildfire. I’ll never forget, we were on tour and we were in a hotel room, I remember all the guys. We were in Florida, I believe. I remember the door being open, it was nice and sunny, and we were watching MTV and we’re all on pins and needles, and we’re watching what video, and it says, “The number two most requested video, Steelheart “Angel Eyes”.” Every artist wants that recognition, and it felt really good. That was a lot of fun. There’s a beauty of it when you’re an artist and when you’re accepted, when people accept your art and respect that, it’s really a feeling that I can’t explain. 14:57
On the future of the band if not for the accident – We could only speculate, but the one thing I’ll be very honest about is that, let me explain…All my life, I’ve always felt like they need to do something more in music, something, something great. How can I explain this? Here I am on the bus, we’re doing the 49 show on a tour, and we’re doing this first leg or second leg, we’re at the 49 show manager goes, “Hey, you wanna do a show Halloween night, and it’ll be 50, we’ll take a break at 50 in Denver Arena?” I’m like, “Absolutely let’s do it. We’ll take a break then, it’ll be great”. I’m on the bus and I’ll never forget it. Everybody just hammered, wasted, burnt. I’m sitting there going, “This is it? Is this the big time? This is it?” I need more. It’s gotta be something more to this. Something bigger, better. Just more. I don’t know how to explain it. Anyway, so that’s when the accident happened. When that accident happened, I don’t know how I got up, but I walked off stage. By the way, it hit me in the back of the head, the lighting truss. I fell this way, and I was trying to walk away and it cracked my head open, broke my nose, my cheekbone, jaw, twisted my back, my knee. It was a serious accident. I should not be here now. But anyway, sitting in the back in a fold-out chair in the middle of the backstage, not even in the medical room, and I had a conversation with life, God, whatever we wanna call it. And literally, I saw my whole life like a movie come to me, I’m gonna close my eyes, by the way, close my eyes and became silent. It was really bizarre, can remember it as it was right now. Just film of just all these visuals, past this, where you are, you’re an asshole, really quick, like “boom, what do you want to do?” I was like, “What do I wanna do?” Well, you can live your life out normal, forget the music, just live like a normal person or you can keep going, door number two. It wasn’t even a thought, I knew I had to keep going and just move forward. I woke up in the ambulance with an oxygen mask on my face. What I mean to say, is I feel like there had to be a change. We were together for so long, we were in the trenches for so long, it was time. I think it was time. I would have not have to have gone through an accident because I’ve lost years of time. I’ve lost memory, I’ve lost a lot. I lost everything during that accident, just so everyone knows. I ended up literally on the floor in the futon, my friend’s house in an attic. I’m not on drugs, and I’m not an alcoholic. It was nothing to do with that, it was just life just went (boom), and maybe that was meant to be for me to build the man that I am today, I don’t know. But it definitely had a part of building that person. So I guess the answer to your question, I think it was inevitable that we had to have change. I just wish it didn’t happen that way. 19:11
On if he wished he had a bigger role in the Rock Star movie – Well, absolutely. I was supposed to be in there. I was supposed to be in the movie with some cameo stuff, but they pulled me out because it became a different energy, a different vibe, and the vibe was that I was not allowed to say a word to the role that I was singing So could you imagine going to the Forum when you have 18,000 people losing their mind, Mark (Wahlberg) singing, and I’m sitting there going, “Oh shit”, and no one knows, no one knows, So for years, for years, that’s what it is. It’s just a movie business, but now everybody (knows). It’s all over the internet that it’s me singing, and so now it’s the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak. But yeah, it was a hell of a ride to keep the mouth shut, so to speak. 24:00
On ever playing with the original lineup and any new music – Life works in crazy ways, you just don’t know. My heart and ears are always open to anything because you just don’t know what lights my brain. Some people say, “This is never gonna happen”, and then it happens. I’ll just say to that, I’m open. As far as a new record, the 30th (anniversary) album is coming out this year, for sure. I re-recorded “She’s Gone” with just piano, vocal, and a 40-piece orchestra. Also, “Mama, Don’t You Cry” is also piano, vocal, and a 40-piece orchestra. There’s another song called “In Love”, which is four cellos, and vocal, and a piano. Then we got “Everybody Loves Eileen”, we re-recorded it as a full band rocking. “We All Die Young” has been remixed and remastered and we’re gonna re-release that as a single as well. “We All Die Young”, when it was out for the movie, for those of you who don’t know, that movie was number two at the box office when it came out that first weekend, and “We All Die Young” was going to radio that week as well, and they did a video, they put a ton of promotion behind it, Warner Brothers did a great job. Sure enough, we had 9/11. When that happened, President Bush said, ” No songs on radio with the words “die”, “blood” or “kill” or anything like that, so immediately, it just destroyed the release of that song and the movie, everything collapsed. The song still became a very popular song. It never got the chance in the sun, so we’re gonna re-release it and see if it gets its day in his sun. 25:33
