The Hellcats rock out groundbreaking success
Ten years ago two girls living in Slovenia had a dream: create music. Sisters Saša and Sonja Zagorc created the first and only all-female band in their home country. Last year they have not only survived for a decade, but have been creating solid music and getting respect along the way. Not bad for a girl band? They live on heavy metal music and take their name from a World War II fighter plane named the Hellcat with influences that include Pantera, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, AC/DC, Sepultura, Warlock, Iron Maiden, Metallica.
The band includes Sasha on bass, Sonja on drums, Katja Mavec on guitar and Ana Šinkovec on vocals.
A couple of months ago, the all-female group Hellcats was at the turning point of their careers: the quartet was invited to tour Russia and play five concerts there. In one week they played and travelled from Moscow to Tambov City, which is almost 1500 km away from Moscow. As main performers they played the biggest female bands rock festival in Kaluga titled "Zheleznye devy" or "Iron Girls".
Sasha and me were true metal heads and into metal music from our teenage years. Since we were the two girls already playing bass guitar and drums, it seemed best to find a female guitar player. Then one thing led to another. We knew exactly what we wanted right from the start: an all-female heavy metal band!
“Sasha and me were true metal heads and into metal music from our teenage years. Since we were the two girls already playing bass guitar and drums, it seemed best to find a female guitar player. Then one thing led to another. We knew exactly what we wanted right from the start: an all-female heavy metal band!”
There are no misunderstandings from our point of view. We are always saying: “We are Hellcats from Slovenia- all female heavy metal band, who writes, records and performs the music by ourselves!” We believe we are always taken serious, because we are serious about what we do.!
After a successful summer abroad, we filmed a video for the song Steelrider, which will also serve as an announcement of our new album. So now we are promoting a video, having concerts here in Slovenia and recording an album. That’s the work for the rest of the year.
We have just started with recording our new album and we planned to release it by the next summer. We’re recording in the Conti studio with the producer Davor Kontić. The album will be in English and in Slovenian language, so we’ll make two CDs. We are putting a lot of effort in it, so when we’ll finish it, we will spread it all over the world.
Our live shows are always filled with positive energy and good old heavy metal. We love to perform on big stages, in clubs and at festivals. One of the great moments was when we toured Russia. We didn’t know if there any one knows who we are, but were really surprised when we had our first show there, where people sang with us our songs in Slovenian language. They learned them through youtube. And so many fans wanted to take a picture with us or just to stand next to us. The feeling was amazing! That is a thing that keeps us going!
After numerous resounding concerts on big stages we twice performed at Metal Camp, which is one the best metal festivals in Europe, in front of a full auditorium. This year, we achieved incredible success in Bosnia and Herzegovina as we became the first Slovenian music group that managed to get into the finals of their biggest music festival Jelen Demofest, based on the grades given by the jury presided by Vladko Stefanovski. We were chosen among more than 400 groups! On the competition we achieved 4th place and thus became the highest placed foreign band on the festival.
