Alen Islamović
Alen Islamović (born August 17 1957, in Sokolac, Bosnia and Herzegovina) is a well-known and popular singer in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Islamović is best known as the vocalist for the band Bijelo Dugme from 1985 to 1989. He is lefthanded.
Biography
Alen Islamović was born in Sokolac, a hamlet approximately 5 kilometres from the city of Bihać, in the northwestern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Until Islamović was two and a half years of age his family lived in Sokolac. However, when his father found work in Bihać the whole family moved to the city. Islamović first accessed music through his brother who brought a gramophone home in the late 1960s.
He learned to play guitar guided by his elder brother, and in 1974 he began playing bass guitar in group "Bag". He started singing becouse his brother had lots of LP records so he was able to learn the lyrics.
Soon the popularity of Islamović grew as did the activity and he performed at many concerts. The performances were not only limited to Bihać since he also performed in places like Prijedor, Drvar, Sanski Most, and Banja Luka. He was earning decent sums of money that way. He fancied music of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Bijelo Dugme.
When his band dissolved, he started playing football in "Jedinstvo" from Bihać, then a second league club. After he served the army Sead Lipovača invited him to Divlje jagode. Start with "Divlje jagode" was very hard, but it paid off because "Divlje jagode" became very successful Yugoslavian hard rock band. They were so promissing that in April of 1984 (when Željko Bebek left Bijelo Dugme) Alen turned down Goran Bregović's offer to sing in Bijelo Dugme (this was partly result of his fear that Bebek might return to Dugme), and "Divlje jagode" (now called Wild Strawberries) where one step apart from becoming world famous. But, everything failed, "Divlje jagode" fell apart and Alen returned to Bihać and decided get a job and forget about the music. But then came another offer from Goran Bregović (when Tifa left Dugme) and this time Alen accepted.
Vocal capabilities of the last singer of Bijelo Dugme were regarded inferior to former two singers of Bijelo Dugme at the time, and Goran Bregović invited Alen to the band mainly for Alan's healthy lifestyle and youth (he allegedly stated that he had enough of drunkards and drug addicts).
Goran was right, and Alan didn't let fame change him. After every tour he returned home to Bihać to run his bar, fish and play table tennis. In 1989 he even left the tour of Bijelo Dugme without noticing anybody from the band. He returned to Bihać to cure his kidney problems. This was effectively the end of Bijelo Dugme as the rest of the tour is canceled and soon the war starts and Bijelo Dugme hibernates for 15 years.
After breakup of Bijelo Dugme, in 1990 Alen records a solo album "Haj, nek se čuje, haj nek se zna". When war started in Bosina, he fleed Bihać for Zagreb. He is still active and performs often at concerts especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the neighbouring countries. However, Islamović performs also at concerts in Western Europe where he is popular as well, though mostly among the diaspora. His repertoire consists mainly of Bijelo Dugme songs, he is regarded as one-man tribute band to Bijelo Dugme.
In 2005 he took part in 3 large farewell concers of Bijelo Dugme.
He is currently playing rhythm guitar and singing in band 4 Asa with Vlado Kalember, Slavko Pintarić-Pišta, Rajko Dujmić and Jurica Pađen.