Darko Jelčić

Darko "Cunja" Jelčić (born 1 January 1965 in Zenica, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFR Yugoslavia) is a Bosnian musician best known for having been Crvena Jabuka's drummer from their initial inception in 1985, to the present day. Next to Dražen Žerić, he is the only standing member to exist in every line-up change that the band has gone through.

Jelčić was born in Zenica on New Year's Day, 1965. As a child, he loved to listen to records (notably folk artists such as Safet Isović, Kemal Monteno, and Halid Bešlić) as well as bands such as Indexi. At only 13 or 14 years of age, his uncle bought him a drum kit as a Christmas present, and Jelčić quickly learned to play drums without anyone showing him anything.

In 1974, Jelčić relocated to Sarajevo with his family, and formed the band Flott. While the band was mostly progressive pop, and a great influence on the Yugoslav musical scene, they were not too successful, and disbanded after having been together for less than ten years.

In the 1980s as the New Primitives movement was taking over, and Flott coming apart, Jelčić began to hang around various bars in hopes of getting attracted. In the meantime, he released two solo albums: Cunja in 1983, and Isti Život (The Same Life) in 1984.

In April 1985, Jelčić was invited to audition for a band who was looking for a drummer. This would eventually form what is known today as Crvena Jabuka. The band released their debut album in the spring of the following year, and it proved to be a great success. Following the release of the album, Crvena Jabuka headed off for their first show in Mostar. However, disaster struck, the band took two cars, and a car accident occurred killing both bassist Aljoša Buha, and singer/guitarist Dražen Ričl.

In memory of the two late members, Crvena Jabuka (as did many other bands) held a tribute concert at Skenderija in Sarajevo on 10 October 1986. While the band meant to go on a one-year hiatus of silence, they decided to go back into the studio and finish up what would be their second studio album Za sve ove godine as a tribute to Buha and Ričl. The band worked as a three-piece band for this album and the rest of the '80s.

Jelčić took most of the time in the war off, but released another studio album Ploce u Prozoru (Records in the Window) in 1990.

In 1994, Dražen Žerić rejoined forces with Jelčić and decided it was time to reconstruct Crvena Jabuka. After the reconstruction, they had major success once again with a more adult-oriented sound as opposed to their 1980s style of music.[1][2]

Jelčić released two more albums: Cunja 2 in 1997, and Sve Najbolje (All The Best) in 1999.