Nike Borzov is the property of the Russian rock scene. Philosopher, experimenter and loving father, charged with amazing energy and filled with a subtle love of life. A musician whose work exists outside of time, but at the same time is ahead of it.
On the eve of the Roof Music Fest acoustic concert, he shared with us his vision of life, sometimes non-standard and paradoxical, but always honest and independent, and therefore infinitely captivating.
Your first live record and the first live DVD in 15 years are coming out very soon. What else interesting and important happened to you lately?
Yes, a lot of important and interesting things happened. In addition to the good, there are many more bad things. And all this sets me up, let's say, in a romantic way and writing new songs. Right now I'm in St. Petersburg and recording my new songs.
You spent the last two weekends in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where you performed at the Geek Picnic festival with a lecture on the music of the future. Tell us what, in your opinion, is the music of the future?
Of course, I am not imposing anything on anyone, this is just my perception of reality and the vision of the future that comes from it. It seems to me that we see two vectors, two directions: this is music without content, which is aimed at satisfying low needs, for entertainment. In a creative and meaningful sense, it will completely degrade. Roughly speaking, “freaks” will appear on the stage at some point - a person with five heads or, conversely, a cut off half of the body and replaced with the body of an octopus or the body of a robot. That is, artists will change themselves in order to surprise people, so that more people pay more money to look at this "freak". We see such a crazy, beautiful, meatball hell.
And what will be the second direction?
If we have the trend of the first direction - the development of intellectual-artificial, so to speak, diarrhea ... (laughs), then the other direction will be the underground: people who refuse to insert chips into the brain or identification chips into the hand. They will listen to vinyl records for the rest of their lives, buy albums, go to exhibitions all the time, read books, not magazines or "wisdom of Contact", will like to walk in nature, not in nightclubs, will fall in love, not f * **sitting with each other who will go to concerts of individualist live performers.
Does musical Russia have a future?
Yes, of course it is possible. Harmonious and correct. It means a future where everyone is satisfied. It will be necessary to give all directions, styles, types of art their own platform for advertising what they do. When all directions: both rock and psychedelic music, and hipsters are the same, and performers singing in English, and in Russian, and in all other languages, will be available everywhere or there will be a couple of corresponding channels, this will already be enough. People will then be able to choose, there will be an alternative. When they advertise and impose one thing on you, you start buying it without thinking why even you buy it. The same advertising and television is akin to what Joseph Goebbels and the Ministry of Propaganda of the Third Reich came up with. Television and television were invented in order to clear people's brains and put in there what the ruler needs, who is currently in charge of the media.
Is that why you don't watch TV?
I do not perceive it at all in principle. This is an object that I can sit on or put something on, I didn’t have any other association. Either it is a stool or a table - nothing more. By removing the lamp from the inside, you can decorate it very beautifully. We made such an altar there with all sorts of funny figures. On New Year's Eve, my TV was all stuffed with cotton wool inside: dad and mom made every kind of rain there, Santa Claus was sitting there and the Snow Maiden.
In a recent interview with the children's library, you voiced the top list from Nike Borzov, which included the Lord of the Rings, Three Comrades, The Journey of Baron Munchausen and Lovecraft stories - books, so to speak, for all generations. What modern Russian prose would you recommend?
Pelevin's first novels were not bad: "Generation P", for example, and beyond. Each of them has some chips. But it's more of a chip, you know? And everything is kind of repetitive, just told in different words. Sorokin has Oprichniki and Blue Salo. But this is more literature for adults, not for children. Nabokov is funny, but not "Lolita", but "Invitation to the Execution", for example. He was crazy, so he has a very interesting mindset. It is both confusing and captivating at the same time. I’m just reading this work of his and I can’t say yet whether I liked it or not, but it’s interesting to read.
This week you will please St. Petersburg again with your performance, giving its residents an acoustic concert as part of the rooftop festival Roof Music Fest. How was the idea to go live sounding born? What is the peculiarity of an acoustic concert and preparation for it?
Somehow it happened by chance, a little over a year ago. I think it started with a radio station. Before that, I got acquainted with a percussion instrument that has recently appeared in the world, called "cajon" - such a small rectangular box, 40 centimeters. My sound engineer and I spent some time to understand how to sound it, and found a certain scheme when it became sound very close in character to drum machines. I invited the percussionist-drummer Anya Shlenskaya, who plays acoustics on this cajon for me, plus she has all sorts of bongos and other things. My two guitarists are Korney and Ilya at the edges. Well, I'm also there on small drums, percussion, tambourine, all kinds of shakers - we rehearsed several songs with this line-up. I immediately began to change the arrangements, and it began to fascinate everyone so much that, after about six months, I decided to record it all - as a result, I got 22 compositions collected from my records, plus a couple of new ones - these are the songs "Molecule" and "Eva ".
How do the audience react?
We recently performed at events where there were 15-20 thousand spectators, and the reaction was such that I already had tears flowing! The people jumped and jumped. Moreover, this rave was made on ordinary acoustic instruments, which people have been playing for a thousand years. Bypassing all this electronics, bypassing all this technological progress. We just bypassed the electronics, moved all this technical garbage, and she stands on the sidelines and nervously smokes. And now, in St. Petersburg, just this program with these tools will be presented.
I even gave birth to the name of this direction - "ethno-techno". That is, both "ethno" and "techno". We have combined the modern and the past.
Have you invented a new direction in music?
In general, yes.
And what do you think, nowadays a high-level musician should certainly be the author of his songs? Gone are the days when it was considered the norm to perform songs by other authors?
There are performers who feel the music in such a way that it won't seem enough, who perform other people's songs that you can't get to the bottom of. Like Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode. That is, he did not write a single song in Depeche Mode, Martin Gore composed all the songs, and no one will say that the vocalist did not write the song, he lives and feels it so much. See what the task is. If a person wants to earn money, then you can buy a song, it's okay. And, if the task is to change yourself and change this world, at least a little, then you need to at least choose which author to work with.
For you, music is clearly not an opportunity to make money.
Yes, because I'm not doing music, but she's doing me. I'm just a conductor. I just feel like a participant in a very serious and global process. And this is very important for a person - to feel his involvement in something great and beautiful.
Is there a reason in the world that can make you stop playing music?
Well... death.
Does your long-term experience provoke you to do business?
I'm being asked to do something similar. In general, I generate all sorts of ideas, but, as a rule, they are mostly incomprehensible to the layman and businessman. The latter, in fact, are tuned in to these ordinary people, setting up their business in such a way as to earn more. Now the situation is changing and many of my projects that I came up with 10-15 years ago are starting to crawl into the mainstream and are gaining trend. In the future, they will be wildly fashionable.
So your ideas are ahead of their time?
In this matter, yes. Because when I offer some ideas, they seem radical to many. Not that offensive, but touching some not the most pleasant strings, but nevertheless, it works. And after 10-15 years, people say: “dude, what a pity that we didn’t use your idea then (laughs). Now we would be the first in this business, because it is gaining momentum, not only here, but all over the world.”
Judging by your songs and interviews, you find many answers for yourself in the Cosmos. Is this the only religion for you?
In general, we are the Cosmos. Part of space. Everything we see is cosmic material. Therefore, our inner space is as huge as the space around our planet, outside our galaxy. Strictly speaking, the Cosmos is not only about uniting with it externally. He, first of all, is to find it within himself, this divine spark. Probably, for me it has always been one and inseparable. In general, I always felt it, but I realized with time, with age it came as an answer to all questions.
What future would you like for your daughter? Do you wish her the fate of a public, famous person?
Public, famous? I don't want any of that. She sees it herself and how I react to it. But always, when she had some creative flows, she found these potentials in herself, I explained to her that this is the main thing, and not what is around. On the other hand, I promote education in every possible way so that she develops in a variety of ways, read a lot, watch less TV, walk a lot, get new sensations, impressions, see various interesting things that would fascinate her. Accordingly, we give her a choice so that she can decide for herself.
Alexandra BorovayaOn October 9, Nike Borzov became a guest of the morning show "Lifts". If you are too lazy to read, you can listen to the audio version of the interview below.
On October 14, the album "Puzzle" turns 20 years old and there will be a concert on this occasion. Nike, tell me what will happen there?
There will be a concert. I will play and you will listen. I will play the entire Puzzle album. Well, a few tracks from my other albums will be added. Including a couple of tracks that I've never played live. For example, from the album "Closed" in 1994, a song will be played that has never been performed due to the fact that in the original it lasts 11-12 minutes and, in principle, not everyone can stand it. But this time I decided that it doesn't matter - let it be.
Tell Nike about timing. Do you have any standard? When you record a song, do you try to fit into some kind of timing or is it not important for you?
Now humanity has come to 30 seconds. Literally recently, 10 years ago, it was still 2 minutes with a penny of attention and perception of something new in a person. Now it's 30 seconds. Therefore, we live in such a time of preview, that is, in the first 30 seconds you need to put something that will hook a person, and he will continue to watch the video or listen to music. And to be honest, I really like long spatial things. Preferably with some kind of introduction, with dramaturgy, with all the pies. Well, how to say - not that I don't bother. Of course, I don’t do it on purpose to stretch the song or make it longer, or vice versa to throw out some verses. But with many things, after recording, I can act very cruelly. Cut and trim them completely.
I have social networks - I write on my personal ones myself, and on official ones I write a press attaché. And as for criticism in social networks, I understand people. People have nothing to do and, in fact, self-affirmation, some other complexes - I am completely calm. If it is constructive, if a person really explains his point of view, somehow motivates, then this is normal. Even interesting to read. And when it is “you went there” or “idiot”, then this, as they say, “whoever calls names, he himself is called that.”
Many questions came to OUR mobile portal - for example: "Nike, if you were a door, where would you lead?".
To a bright future!
How do you feel about such questions in general? Are they from the field of philosophy for you or is the person just being smart? Would you like to avoid such questions?
It happens differently. Not often, but it happens when I collect questions from people on my social networks that they would like to ask me. I answer them and make such transfers conditionally. In video format. And they are very interesting. One question even helped me write a new song. That is, a question was asked, and the resulting answer prompted me to two phrases that I used in the song, which I missed for a very long time. That is, I had a song written, and there were two empty spaces. These phrases were missing.
There was a very similar story in one of the House M.D. episodes. By the way, do you watch serials or do you think it's a waste of time?
No, why? Happens! Series are even more convenient - because it happens when you come home or to a hotel from a concert - and you have 15 minutes before you pass out. And these little episodes, you don't freeze for 2.5 hours like some movie. And it does not fascinate you very much and you can fall asleep in 20-25 minutes. I like it.
What did you watch last?
I really enjoyed the American Gods series. Funny. And it's made right from the book. Here comes the new Star Trek: Discovery. There are a couple of episodes - very good. The beginning of the war with the Klingons. My daughter and I, well, not exactly a conflict, but she is for Star Wars, and I am for Star Trek.
And how old is your daughter? Do you understand each other?
No no. We are completely on the same wavelength. There are no tensions (pah-pah-pah) with a transitional age, although it is present.
What kind of music does she listen to?
She is passionate about music. Therefore, she does not have such a foolish thing to do and so on. She loves to sing and sings really well. She happens mostly girls - Whitney Houston, Ariana Grande. Those who have a very wide range and who have a lot of melismatics, let's say. She likes to sing those kind of songs. And recently, I even fell for a couple of my things. She walks and sings all the time. And I even want to make more modern arrangements for her to sing. For her birthday, which was September 27, I gave her a cool microphone. Now she is like a real professional vocalist with her microphone.
Today we talked about the past weekend - the weather was good, outside the window is real autumn. Tell me, how does this season affect you?
Wonderful! I'm in the studio right now writing a new album. I write many songs. I even came in a fan sweater today. I have almost all the autumn colors here. I really like this time of year. Well, it's like totalitarianism, roughly speaking, a very powerful underground art appears, it develops somewhere in the underground. And autumn is the same - inside a person even provokes some kind of upsurge. Because we are still alive and so on. There is something beautiful about it, and I love autumn very much.
Do you like books and what was the last thing you read?
Yes, I like reading books more than watching TV series. Now I am reading a three-volume book - the author's name is Nikolai Gubenkov. In principle, he is a completely unknown author. The author himself gave me these books. Well, he's a stuntman. The genre of the book is a combination of reality and fiction. Some kind of surrealism and psychedelia. Plus more kneading on all sorts of mythical and mystical troubles. Funny batch, I really liked it, and now I'm reading excitedly. I had a time here when there was nothing to do. I went on vacation, and my love for reading reappeared. It’s not that there’s time, usually you get on a plane, you manage to read three or four pages and the plane has already landed, or knocked you out. And here it is with pleasure and a good book. It's called the Annunaki.
Where did you rest?
I rested on the Black Sea coast, let's say so. I don't swim much. For some reason, lately I don’t really like swimming in the sea. I like the ocean, but I don’t even want to go into the sea. Plus, there are many more rumors that everything is very bad with people after swimming. And somehow I decided that I'd rather read a book than I'll be attached to this general resort frenzy.
Nike, how do you feel about brands? Phones, clothes, etc.?
Basically, exactly. I like, of course, the iPhone, unlike Android, because viruses do not get into it, it is simple and convenient. No need to bother with this software. That is, from a purely convenience point of view. That's why I buy myself such a phone. But now I'm generally in the original - I now go with an old push-button Nokia. When I travel around the world, I constantly need to buy local phones with local SIM cards. I just have a box with these phones at home, and I just take a phone for myself by color. Based on shoes or a coat, and now I select a phone for myself according to the color of my clothes and insert a SIM card into it.
There are songs in your repertoire thanks to which you became massively popular - I'm talking about "Three Words" and "Horse" now. Are you tired of doing them?
In principle, I have a lot of well-known and popular songs - so sometimes I remove something, insert something. Sometimes I forget to insert something, and they remind me. "Horse" and "Three Words" are present in almost all concerts. Somewhere I don’t even perform “Three Words” and no one pays attention to it.
Has it ever been that you are invited to the "reserve" and asked to sing the same "Horse" three times in a row and that's all?
I didn't have that. But, probably, this often happens with other performers. I even saw it was the beginning or the middle of the 2000s, and I don't remember the name of the band - a song about a battery. There was a concert - a combined hodgepodge and the whole hall chanted: “Battery! Battery!". And they decided that they would sing this song throughout their set, and they performed it seven or eight times. Even I remember her.
How do you feel about cover bands?
Nike, you played Kurt Cobain in the play. Would you like to repeat this experience and who would you play now?
Yes, it was the case, he played in the play. In principle, I liked the experience, but I don’t plan to continue this story, at least now. Now I like to write music, record it, play concerts. But really - I liked playing in the theater more than acting in films. Because it's all happening here and now, you don't have the opportunity to reshoot your emotion ten times. This is how you go on stage... It's like a concert - you go out and forget about everything. Immerse yourself in this state, in this role or something else. And you emerge only at the end - after one and a half to two hours. And it's great! And these are the bows when you walk from the edge of the stage to the beginning. And the show itself was interesting. Yura (editor's note: Yuri Grymov) built it this way. So interesting, constructive, avant-garde. That is, the entire second act, we played in general in the foam that filled the entire stage and interacted with this foam. We even played the role of foam child. It was not clear where everything was happening - that is, from one state to another, from another to a third. I liked the performance very much - I watched it. It is filmed on video and somehow there was a moment, something we mounted there. In 2010, along with the album “From Within”, I released a small auto-movie called “Observer” and so I inserted a small piece from this “Nirvana” into it and watched the whole performance. And really inserted very cool and interesting.
How did you prepare for the role?
Well, of course. I was supplied with literature and given a bunch of CDs and cassettes with his documentaries. I got acquainted, of course, but even before that I knew something about the group itself, or rather about the music of this group. I really liked the In Utero album. In my opinion 1993 and in my opinion the last of the album.
Thank you very much for coming, Nike. And see you at the concert in "tons".
rock cult: After recording the Zanoza album, you did not release solo works for 8 years. Did you experience new sensations when creating the album From the Inside?
Nike Borzov: Not really. But I decided to try a new studio for myself, and I liked it. I recorded three records there: From within 2010 Everywhere And Nowhere 2014 and Molecule 2016. And the break was really big, because I had to understand what I want to do next and how I want to do it. Plus, I had many other things to do: my daughter was born, I played in the theater, voiced audio books.
In a word, it was an underground period. I created projects that did not fit into the mainstream space of the zero years with endless Star Factories and other trash. But as soon as I realized that nothing good is happening and no one makes good music, I decided to record an album From within, which, by and large, also became a cult.
rock cult: You were one of the few rock musicians in Russia who were shown on MTV. But then MTV became narrow-profile and began to show, as you put it earlier, thrash, then it ceased to be a music television at all and became a Friday channel. No nostalgia for the old days?
Nike: We are now using the example of the MTV channel to trace the history of our country: how over these 16 years we have come to eternal Friday. Everyone does not care about everything, if only to get tired and not think about anything. In our country, the people are shaken up so that seventy percent are ready to rush into battle at a run. Well, after they finish their beer, of course. And there is no nostalgia for MTV, however, there is a lack of music channels that would play normal music. But I don't watch TV and didn't watch it then. I remember once in the 80s and 90s I watched foreign MTV. There they put something beautiful. The whole night they played underground - Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and the next time they played black metal for the whole evening. There was a place for different music on the air. And now we get either silicone tits or sugary boys with some kind of meatball baubles. And that's it. Turn on any music channel - there are only n[homosexuals] sy.
rock cult: Maybe it's because now everything has turned into low-grade pop?
Nike: Well, I say - f[homosexual] sy.
rock cult: Some people like to remember that rock is protest music. Do you think that all rock musicians are destined to lead an adventurous lifestyle and shove anything into themselves - from pills to moonshine?
Nike: This is conditionally the same as that the child must unwind the karmic knots of his parents. That is, parents hang on their children everything that they could not realize in their lives, and the child does not live his own life. I think this is wrong. And rock today is absolutely toothless. Listening to this all the time, I came up with the idea to record a social rock album that I released this year with the band Infection. A disc about what is happening now in society and what we have come to due to our frivolity. Sharp, beautiful and musical - here you are, not toothless rock.
rock cult: If you perceive Infection as your first group, judging by your solo work, can we say that you have become much calmer?
Nike: Infection is not my first group. This is Wikipedia celebrating 30 years of my creative activity. You can trust her, I don't care. Before the Infection, I had one romantic-necrophilic story that lasted for God knows how many years. In '84 I made an acoustic album Dialogue with the wall. I even have recordings of my concerts before the Infection, but I have not posted them anywhere yet. However, the entries are very funny. It is possible that there are even hits among them.
rock cult: In some review it was also said that the same notorious Horse was composed in the Infection format, then rewritten and re-recorded for a solo project.
Nike: I just inserted it into the Infection album, and before that it had been in drafts for three years, and I didn’t even pay attention to it. This song was written somewhere in 1993, the first time it was released on the anniversary album in honor of the 10th anniversary of the Infection group. I recorded it alone, played all the instruments myself. The album is called Pick Up Your Bitch. And when Horse began to play in St. Petersburg on the radio, I realized that the song is cool. Many friends said that it was necessary to insert it into a solo album, and I was just recording an album Puzzle and decided to make a more acoustic version, which started playing on all the radio stations. And in 2000, I re-recorded it in the form in which the country knows it.
rock cult: And what provoked such creativity, which is presented in the Infection? Is this an attempt to be like your badass idols, or did you mean something?
Nike: I didn't want to say anything at all. It was always a joke. My mother loves literature very much, Pushkin is her favorite poet. And all his shameful lyrics were very well known to me since childhood. In my family, no one limited himself to such vocabulary, and at one point my friends and I were very carried away by this shameful lyrics. Sanya Laertsky with his Hairy Glass cursed, Letov and Civil Defense too. I thought it was cool. So we were on crooked guitars and wrote Infection albums on a tape recorder. Just like that, for nothing. We recorded an album, listened to it a couple of times, gave it to a couple of friends to listen to, and recorded the next one right on the same reel.
rock cult: Recently, the Russian underground scene has been gaining momentum. Do you associate yourself with them?
Nike: Yes, I do not associate myself with anyone. I don't like subcultures, and I don't take part in them. But I like to watch it. It's cool that a neo-psychedelic wave is emerging and that these guys are into modern music, which I also like. There, of course, while everything is ripped off from other artists and there is nothing of their own, but I am sure that even from those groups that we called hipsters, something interesting and original will appear. For example, Blur's first album is recorded in a typical Manchester wave style. But their next work changed history. Album 13 I consider the culmination of Blur, for example. In the West, this is a common occurrence, but in our country this is a rarity. But I am sure that sooner or later something original and unique will grow out of our underground, standing on its own planet.
rock cult: Philosophical question: our solar system moves in an infinite universe, but what will happen if it reaches the edge of reality at full speed? Will the solar system ricochet, or be destroyed?
Nike: Yes, in a collision, everything will end, so it's pointless to think about it at all. It, of course, can bounce like a ball according to some laws of physics, but the laws of physics that we know only work within our planet. As soon as we fly into the atmosphere, immediately time slows down. It loses all meaning and ceases to be linear. We perceive only a tiny part of reality, and it is more multidimensional than what our ten percent of the brain allows us to realize.
rock cult: If you follow this logic, then in order to know the whole of reality, you should not judge by your own standards and consider yourself the center of the universe?
Nike: And everyone is satisfied with this model of behavior.
rock cult: How do you feel in a society where such a model of behavior is considered the norm and everyone judges themselves by their own worldview?
Nike: Critical attacks in my direction are very funny. But lately they haven’t accused me of anything, because I chewed everything for everyone a long time ago and put it in my mouth. I can say that I went against myself and began to explain my texts, which I have never done and will not do in the future. Explaining the meaning of the lyrics of the song is stupid - anyway, everyone perceives it to the extent of their depravity. Everyone perceives this world as it is. But in principle, there is no peace, but there is chaos. And the main task of man is to organize chaos in his own galaxy. If you look at it, then each person is his own universe, god and devil, and no one is to blame for anything. It is impossible to achieve order in chaos, you can only dissolve in it. Becoming a part of chaos, you subjugate it to yourself, and that's it. Although, it's hard to even comprehend.
rock cult: Do you remember the moment when you first started writing songs?
Nike: I've been doing art since I couldn't speak yet. I just sang, because I love music very much, and it has always been. As a child, I was very fond of The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Velvet Underground - by the way, one of my favorite bands so far. When I began to speak, I gave out some phrases in verse. And when he learned to write, he began to write texts. So I don't remember exactly when I started making music. But Infection is already youthful madness and maximalism, given that all our songs were about sex, boobs, violence, women in a drunken state. I took any fantasy, brought it to the point of absurdity, and it became the song of the group Infection. This is still happening, by the way. In solo work, everything is different, there is a different concept, texts are built differently and experienced differently.
rock cult: Infection is not a particularly deep and spiritually meaningful material?
Nike: It's as if I came to visit, and everyone is dying there, and I fit into the team. But I know that this will end, I will go home, where my solo work is already. Infection is a hell of a party where people get burned to death. This is such a breather. As soon as the material accumulates, we record an album. This may happen once every ten years, or maybe once every two years.
rock cult: Is it some kind of psychotherapy?
Nike: There are songs that cannot be reflected in my solo work. But in order not to kill them, but to give them life, I do all sorts of projects.
rock cult: And what inspired your solo work?
Nike: Definitely not by society and not by social upheavals. Rather, it is about my experiences and things less real than what Infection sings about. I don't like life writing.
rock cult: Looking back, do you feel a change in yourself?
Nike: Yes and no. In some ways I have remained the same, and nothing has changed at all, but in some ways I have really changed my views. But I don't want to go into details. It is important to keep what was with you from the very beginning and not to lose, but to transform the accumulated experience into practical knowledge for yourself modern. When you forget your roots, you have no future.
Name Nike Borzov exploded in the mid 90s. His hits "Horse", "Three Words", "Riding a Star" sounded everywhere. But the musician himself does not want to remember those times. For several years, he completely abandoned the stage and devoted himself entirely to raising his daughter Victoria. Now Borzov is recording new records, but he no longer strives for the top lines of the charts. “I am an unformatted performer who is out of time,” the singer smiles
Photo: Vanya Berezkin
ETo be honest, I've always wondered if Nike is your real name or is it a pseudonym?
This is the real name. His story is this: even before I was born, my mom and dad were predicted that they would have a girl. They bought a bunch of girly little things in yellow and pink shades. By the way, the first few years of my life I was forced to wear them. ( smiling.) When I was born, my parents could not come up with a name for me for a very long time, for two or three years they simply called me “baby”. And then my hippan parents got carried away by India and gave me an Indian name - Nike, which means "star".
Thus, your parents determined your fate. When did you get interested in music?
The whole story of writing music was before I even started talking. Having spoken, I began to compose texts. While he hummed them under his breath, grandfather secretly recorded them on audio cassettes. Mom says that from the very beginning, everything I did was very original, unlike anything else. From childhood, my parents instilled in me a love for music, so they sent me to a music school. I worked there for a year and quit - tired. I liked getting to the bottom of everything myself.
I understand that since childhood you wanted to be a rocker. Didn't that scare the parents?
When I got the Infection group, I was thirteen years old. My friends and I sat in my room around the clock and yelled obscene songs to the whole house - and all this in an ordinary three-room apartment in Vidnoye near Moscow. We had a very friendly house, and the neighbors were sincerely happy that some kind of crazy mover was going on. Nobody complained. What is most interesting, at that time, my parents were also at home, my mother was minding her own business and did not even look at us. I was allowed to smoke very early, from the age of thirteen I smoked officially.
Cursing, cigarettes... Did your mother really encourage it?
She once looked at us and said: “Everything is cool, your music is excellent. Is it possible to swear less? - "Mom, you don't understand anything. Bye!" Mom never forced us not to swear at all, she just said: "A little less." Such support, of course, is worth a lot.
Your daughter is now eleven. Just imagine that in a couple of years she will begin to behave in the same way as you did in childhood. Do you approve of this?
Vika grows in other conditions. If I try not to smoke at all with my daughter, then during my childhood people smoked at home so that because of the smoke I could not open my eyes. I don't remember being surrounded by tobacco smoke at all. Apparently, I absorbed it with my mother's milk. Now smoking is my biggest problem, which I really want to get rid of.
In one interview, you said that nothing should be forbidden to children, since the ban is just a method of propaganda. You were brought up that way. Is Vika also allowed to do everything?
With a daughter, it's different, of course. She is a girl. With age, I began to understand what mistakes were made by my parents in my childhood. Still, you can not let the upbringing of the child take its course, as it was in my case.
Perhaps you just have not heard parental prohibitions?
The thing is, I didn't get banned. I could do whatever I wanted. Now I understand that I could be protected from some things.
Nike, you divorced your wife when your daughter was very young. Don't you feel now that Vika lacks your attention and support?
I try to visit my daughter at least a few times a week. I am very interested in her. Actually, she's a real daddy's girl. I take her to my concerts, and she honestly says which songs she likes, and which ones are better to delete from the repertoire altogether.
Would you like her to become a musician?
If she develops her talent, if she succeeds, then why not. I will support her and help her in every possible way. The main thing is that she likes it. But for now, of course, it's too early to think about it. Today she should go to school, develop as a person, and not ruin her life. Look at those who started singing at an early age. Most of them are unfortunate people. I don't want that kind of future for my daughter. She is now at an age when there is a reassessment of values, I try to protect her from the world of show business with its filming and parties.
At some point, you decided to protect yourself from this world. And they did it, being at the peak of popularity. What was it about?
I wanted to get rid of the image attached to me, I didn’t want to be a performer of two or three popular songs. Therefore, he became interested in theater, began to play Kurt Cobain in Yuri Grymov's Nirvana. Played in some crazy anti-commercial bands. Then he took up all sorts of psychedelic projects: he produced, wrote soundtracks for an audiobook. He revived his group "Infection".
But it was work, as they say, behind the scenes. After all, it is considered as: there is no artist on TV, which means that he does not exist at all.
I understood this, and therefore, probably, I did everything to ensure that I was neither seen nor heard. Plus then I had a nasty story connected with the record company, which fraudulently obtained the rights to my music. I did not see the point in working with these people, but they did not want to let me go, they tried in every possible way to force me to perform duties that were no longer there. And when in 2008 my contractual relationship with them ended, I immediately sat down to record a new record called “From the Inside”.
I do not understand what prevented you from writing it before?
I just didn't want to. Apparently, these throwings of mine were a defensive reaction.
There were rumors back then...
Yes, at first it was unpleasant to read that you died of an overdose. But then it started to amuse me. When I began to slowly return to the stage in 2010, I liked the reaction of people. Looking at my posters, they were surprised: “Is he alive?” I love silly jokes. For example, the song "Three Words" - This is also black humor. He's just in a major.
There was some truth in those rumors. You yourself have repeatedly said that at one time there were drugs in your life.
Yes they were. But life itself is so interesting, every day brings so many adventures that no drug can simply give you that. I got over it all very quickly. Drugs made me understand that all these emotions are inside me and I can just get and use them without resorting to stimulants. I have learned to do it. I have not drunk alcohol since 2008. We just realized that we were tired of each other. I don't use anything banned. But I still have idiotic cigarettes, that's all.
Tell me honestly, are you nostalgic for those times when your songs sounded literally from every iron?
To be honest, I don't even want to think about it. I am a strange person, and nostalgia is not inherent in me at all. If this happens again, I will not break off at all, but I will perceive it a little differently. I'm fine where I am now. This phrase "It's good where we are not" - last century. It needs to be crossed out, forgotten, cut out. It's really good where we are. I don’t feel that now I am in oblivion: they recognize me in the subway, they take autographs, they sing songs ...
You once said that you always felt like an outsider.
Yes, I still feel like an outsider. Nothing changed.
Why?
Do my songs top the charts? No, I'm in the underground. I am an unformatted performer who is out of time, space and style. I look strange, I don't say what they want to hear. I cannot live otherwise.
Nike, now you are talking about strange things... In one of your old interviews, I read that in your youth you were thinking about changing sex.
Yes, there were different thoughts. In general, I am a lover of everything provocative, and not only in art. I wanted to have a sex change operation, I even saved up some money, but I went to the army in time and understood a lot of things there.
Did you join the army because you wanted to serve or simply couldn't shirk?
That's how it happened, let's just say. But I went there without any mental anguish and torment. Then for me it was also a kind of provocation. A provocation in relation to their inner world and physical condition. And yes, it was fun, I liked it. I can talk for a long time about hazing and how I behaved there, how I broke all the rules that could only be broken. I wore an earring in my ear and, in order not to take it off every day, sealed my lobe with a band-aid and said that my ear had been torn. ( smiling.) There are more interesting and funny things in the memories than sad ones. But if there was sadness, now it is perceived in a positive way. I try to enjoy every situation. I even liked being bald: for the first six months after the army, I specially shaved my head. ( smiling.)
Now you are actively promoting your acoustic program, with which you will perform next Saturday at the Beatnik site.
More like an acoustic rave than just a concert, I came up with the style of music that you will hear, the definition of "ethno-techno". The name is incomprehensible, but when everyone comes to the performance, its meaning becomes clear. Usually when people gather for acoustics, they wait for “It's great that we are all here today” and other tedious stuff. And here is another story, why the public's attitude to acoustic music is changing in principle. We're taking it to the next level. The term unplugged is also suitable here - without being connected to electricity. Although we have two guitarists playing with modern high-tech devices. Thus, primitiveness, shamanism, is combined with modernity. We can say that we close the past and the future in a cycle. And if rock'n'roll had been invented in the Middle Ages, it would probably have sounded like my new acoustic record, which will be released in November-December.
Techno style is now popular among the masses. Why do you think?
Techno is something primitive, primitive, built purely on the beat and percussion. There is little going on in it. This is such a constant movement that draws you in, and you begin to change your claims and move to the beat. This is exactly what happens to me at concerts.
You said you don't use electronics in this program.
We avoid it in every possible way, we use classical acoustic instruments - the piano, the jew's harp. I'm lying, there is a synthesizer and an organ, which still remains more acoustic, airy instrument, despite the fact that it was shoved into a small box. About a year ago I got acquainted with the cajon percussion instrument - its sound changes from lower in the middle to higher along the edge of the box. When I first heard it, I immediately thought that it looked like an analog drum machine from a number of the first Hammond organs. It all started with this cajon: I called a percussionist who played this instrument, I began to invent different beats for her, began to perform with two acoustic guitars, I play percussion myself, you will see a lot of junk around me. Seeing the reaction of people, and based on my own feelings, I wanted to write it all down. In December last year, we rented an abandoned house of culture of the 1950s, which was not restored, the stucco molding remained there. On the walls were pictures of beefy men and women dancing with headscarves, half-naked children with grandparents, all content and happy. And in this room, we sat down with the musicians and recorded more than twenty songs from old albums and two new ones: one called "Eve" I wrote in the late 1980s, the second - "Molecule" - in the mid-2000s. We made familiar songs in such a way that you will not hear in electric albums.
Old songs in a new way - a hot topic.
It always seemed to me that in order to be in the subject, one must not be in the subject at all. I am always in the underground of the current situation and thus ahead of the times. As soon as fashion ends, everything that was connected with it dies with it. Here the wave of hipsters will finally pass, all Pompeii, On-the-Go, Tesla fights will die, in ten years no one will remember them. Except for those who listen to a direct kick and do not perceive anything new. I have already heard format fashion stories many times, done many times. About twenty years ago I played with straight kicks - addictive music, not carrying anything in itself, working as a soundtrack for a party. I had a group called "Mutant Beavers" - a free stream of consciousness project, a noisy avant-garde psychedelic, we finished with a straight barrel, an original trance. And as soon as a year and a half later, the straight barrel spread, I got fed up with it, and I wanted to return to something more humane.
