Goran Bare

Goran Bare was born on 16 August 1965 in Vinkovci, in eastern Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia. He was the second child of a poor working-class family and, by his own account, grew up mostly on the street, which shaped his outlook for the rest of his life. As a boy he played football seriously. At 12 he started his first bands with classmates, playing at school.

In 1980, aged 15, he and his friend Marin Pokrovac, later Majke's guitarist, formed Duo debili and played their first big show to around 1,000 people at the Dom omladine (youth centre) in Vinkovci. Between 1980 and 1984 he sang with various local groups and developed his stage persona. In that period he also began using hard drugs, which would mark the next 15 years of his life.

At the end of 1984 he founded Majke in Vinkovci with bassist Nedjeljko Ivković Kilmister, drummer Željko Mikulić Korozija and guitarists Marin Pokrovac and Ivica Duspara. The band drew on MC5, the Stooges, the Flamin' Groovies, the New York Dolls and Motörhead. In 1986 they played key shows at Lapidarij in Zagreb and the Akademija club in Belgrade, where Zdenko Franjić of the independent label Slušaj najglasnije noticed them. Their first promo tape, Majke zauvijek, came out in 1987.

In February 1989 Pokrovac and two friends of the band, Goran Matošević Bratanac and Pavo Pap, died when their car crashed into the Bosut river on the way home from rehearsal. Bare tried to escape the grief by going deeper into heroin and moved to Zagreb.

The debut album Razum i bezumlje (1990) was proclaimed rock album of the year, but the Croatian War of Independence split the original line-up. Bare rebuilt the band in Zagreb and released Razdor (1993), with Budi ponosan, and Milost (1994), with the hit Ja sam budućnost. Vrijeme je da se krene (1996), recorded in the months after his wife's death, became Majke's most successful album, with Mene ne zanima, Odvedi me and A ti još plačeš. The live album Život uživo (1997) and Put do srca sunca (1998) followed. After getting clean in 1999 he disbanded Majke.

In 1991, under the alias Hali Gali Halid, he recorded a solo mini album mixing garage rock, psychedelia and folk music. In 2000 he began recording his first proper solo album with the backing band Plaćenici. Izgubljen i nađen won the Porin award for rock album of the year in 2001 and included Put ka sreći, one of his best known songs. The band toured until the end of 2002 and released a second album, 7, in 2003. Later solo releases included Srce (2006) and Povrijedili smo jedno drugo (2014).

In 2007, after an eight-year pause, he brought Majke back together with Kilmister, Zoki, Kruno Domaćinović and drummer Alen Tibljaš for a large comeback concert. An Unplugged live album followed in 2008, and the band toured across Croatia again. The 2011 album Teške boje is widely seen as one of the strongest Croatian rock records of its era. In 2012 Goran Bare and Majke received 11 Porin nominations and won six awards.

An album planned for 2015 was scrapped because he felt it was a weak copy of Teške boje. The single Osvijesti me arrived at the end of 2016, and the album Nuspojave in 2018, inspired by krautrock, David Bowie and Iggy Pop's The Idiot. It won the Porin for rock album of the year. In 2020 he released the singles Rođen za suze and Noćas prelazimo rijeku zauvijek. In 2019 he appeared as a guest on HRT's A strana and gave a long interview on Nedjeljom u 2. In 2022 he and Majke played a major concert at the Dom sportova in Zagreb.

In 1993 he married his longtime girlfriend Mirjana. Their son, Miran, was born in November 1994, and that year Bare entered treatment for heroin addiction for the second time. On 2 December 1995 Mirjana died of an overdose, aged 27, when their son was just over a year old. Bare fell into depression and relapsed.

In June 1997 he met his second wife, Tamara. With her support and the help of doctors at the hospital in Vinogradska Street in Zagreb, he began treatment for a third time and finally freed himself from alcohol and heroin. They divorced in 2009. He also spoke publicly about living with bipolar disorder.

He described himself as a leftist but not a nostalgic. In the first multi-party elections in 1990 he voted for the Coalition of People's Accord, and he was a frequent critic of the HDZ governments of the 1990s. In the 2009 presidential election he was among the musicians who backed Ivo Josipović, whose campaign used Put ka sreći as its anthem. He was outspoken on television about politicians, but argued against banning concerts by Marko Perković Thompson, saying every ban was counterproductive.

Porin for rock album of the year for Izgubljen i nađen with Plaćenici (2001). Six Porin awards from 11 nominations for Goran Bare and Majke and the album Teške boje (2012). Porin for rock album of the year for Nuspojave. Razum i bezumlje was proclaimed Croatian rock album of the year in 1990, and the video for Mene ne zanima also won a Porin.

Croatian public broadcaster HRT called him one of the greatest musicians of the Croatian rock scene and a symbol of its rebellion, remembered for his distinctive voice, powerful live shows, uncompromising songwriting and honest lyrics. BBC News in Serbian described him as the Balkan Iggy Pop and a rock poet. Fans and musicians across Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia paid tribute on the day of his death. HTV2 scheduled a broadcast of his 2022 Dom sportova concert with Majke for Sunday 11 October 2026 in his memory.

In late September 2026 he became unwell on stage at the Modro i zeleno festival in Makarska, and the concert was stopped during the first song. Majke drummer and manager Alen Tibljaš said afterwards that he was fine, and the band announced a two-month break so he could rest and recover.

On Friday 9 October 2026, at about 1pm, his bandmates Mario Rašić and Alen Tibljaš found him lifeless in his flat in Zagreb. He was 61. They told Večernji list that for the past five years they had tried, without success, to persuade him to get treatment and face his health problems. The cause of death was not made public.