Translated material
Tesla Boy
The Tesla Boy group is the frontman Anton Sevidov, the bassist Dima Midborn and the drummer Borya Lifshitz - they sound indistinguishable from all that is produced, say, on the French Valerie or Australian Modular. And this is perhaps one of the few cases when a domestic group can be listened to without discounts on Russian production.
In anticipation of their speeches on the stage of the N97 By Idle Conversation , the Idle Conversation Picnic Afisha spoke with the group about their new label, about the Tesla Boy position in the context of the Russian Music scene and the preparation for the picnic of the Afisha picnic
First of all, I want to congratulate you on the third place in the listener hit parade of the Maximum radio! You even overtook MGMT, Just Jack and Empire of the Sun.
Borya: Are we maximum in the hit parade?
Dima: He did not even know!
Anton: Damn, we ourselves do not really understand how this happened, the only thing we can say is nice.
Borya: Maybe the people still miss normal music?
Anton: Golden words! So write! I think this, first of all, proves that we still have a good high-quality pop music-expressive, with a melody that you can sing, and, on the other hand, that our whole story with a synthetic eighty dance music is quite possible to drag large radio stations on the air of large radio stations-and even a chaptered song with a single, but a more lyrical and more calm song fell into a hit. Fire.
The player is inaccessible Well, how do you feel in this context? Here you, Borya, are already playing in one pop-rock group (Bi-2 -approx. ), And Tesla Boy began, as it seems to me, like a certain niche story. You had a very successful beginning - a sin to complain. Do you have a feeling that in six months you have grown up and reached a new level?
Anton: I don’t know how the guys are, I see the situation like this: we really started like a niche story, and I will not tire of repeating, let no one consider it for flattery, that this niche took shape thanks to you-Idle Conversation, and our main goal has already been achieved. First of all, we wanted to play for these people, and these people heard our group, many managed to love our music. This music was made and done, first of all, for them. And we are not in a hurry to go to some other level in Russia. I can say this with a certain knowledge of the matter, in order to rise to the next step-radio, festivals, team concerts, you need to go to a certain, and quite serious, compromise-a compromise that may well ruin a good idea. At least this is the situation at the moment. If it is itself, as in the case of the maximum, this is good, but specially we will not do anything like that, of course, we will not. It’s a fool that the layer of the audience of interest to us, for example, in England, is corny more, and there such actions are justified.
So you, Anton, and Bori has a certain experience of interacting with our showstablischman-do you have a certain bar that you are not ready to cross-for example, you can still perform at the B1 warmer, but you should not go to the invasion?
Anton: Everything is situationally - as long as the situation is such that there is such a border, and we just don’t want to do many things - for example, to perform in places where people do not understand the story that we represent, what kind of music it is, why it looks like that and so sounds - we just do not need there .. The main principle is to play for its public if it is overgrown with new people, the better. In no case do we want to repeat the widespread story of recent years, when for some “breakthrough” it was necessary to beat the thresholds of program directors and promoters. If in a couple of years it happens that the audience will grow up on the “invasion” and for us, perhaps, we will play at the invasion.
Look at how the maximum playlist has changed in a couple of years - now, in addition to Lyapis Trubetskiy, there are Killers, La Ru, and Lilly Allen, and Mgmt, and White Lies - no one knows which generation will grow in this music.
Borya, is the interest for you to play Tesla the battle exclusively with music, or also with the opportunity to communicate with a completely different audience?
Borya: The matter is not at all in the public. I am only interested in music and, in general, cooperation with guys in this warm company.
You seemed to be going to write an album ...
Anton: Moreover, I want to make an official statement - after a concert on a picnic on the Idle Conversation site, we will disappear from sight for a couple of months, we will not play any concerts, because we will actively write the album. Everyone who wants to see us before this exhausting creative shimony - you have the last chance to do this on August 8th!
You, in general, have already experienced the effect of "overstated expectation." Does this pressure do not interfere with the recording and composition of new songs?
Anton: I, in fact, at first led to this thing and soared much about this. But then I began to analyze the situation and realized that this is a purely post -Soviet effect - for example, anywhere in the world, journalists who write about the group will accuse it of borrowing from the 80s - because a million songs and a million groups are built on such borrowings - all modern culture is built on the recycled heritage of previous years, it is not necessary to even talk about it, it’s just the same place. Who accuses Cut Copy of borrowing from the 80s?
Our position is such - we make a simple, dance, relevant music that could still be listened to at home or in the car. Not purely dance - minimized technology or diphouse - but melodic and understandable, which can be hummed or even singled. We were not going to open a new genre. In general, I think that the result that we have achieved in Russia-it is already very good, I am very pleased with them and I do not expect that some further explosion will happen-rather a gradual growth. We try to realize ourselves not to a group from Moscow, as it is by a group that, along with groups from London, Paris or Belgrade, is doing something, releases some kind of music. Now our single in England will be released in the fall, there are already offers to make a small tour of England in the same fall, I hope that there will be some festival performances, people are interested not only in Russia ..
The player is inaccessible The album comes out on an English label named after a terrible hairstyle ...
Anton (laughs): yeah, on Mullet Records.
For you, this label is a bridge for concerts abroad?
Anton: You know, working with a foreign label, it is much easier to build communication there. Local labels have little to now offer interesting, and since a proposal from Mallet received, we decided to cooperate with them.
Dima: We initially decided that it was better to subscribe to a small but good foreign label than large - this is too much responsibility.
So you were going to go to concerts to London in June. I understand that something has not grown up there?
Anton: In general, everything turned out banally-a vocalist and a bassist flew with visas due to a delay.
Borya: I just had to take your computer and act alone ..
Anton: But what is strange, but very pleasant - I got a lot of messages on the Internet that are generally fantastic for the Russian ear - from the series “I went for several hours from Birmingham specifically at Tesla’s concert, and they told me that they wouldn’t be !!”
It's nice. That is, it is nice not that a person was angry (the ominous laughter of Dima and Bori), and that a person was deliberately riding from Birmingham.
We ’ll talk about the picnic now. How do you prepare for the performance that you will play, will we hear something new?
Atonon: prepare as usual, rehearse, drinking a large amount of red bull and Coca-Cola. We are going to play part of our EP, including a song about the porn industry Electric Lady and Fire. From the new we will play several new songs that will be included in our first album and several new tracks that will be released as B-Sides.
What do you think about Russian summer festivals? You have already managed to play on the "stereol", how are the sensations?
Anton: About the deceased either good or nothing. The story of the stereolet. Better I will not say anything. “Russian summer festivals”-it sounds funny, I want to add something more about the “crunch of French rolls” and “delightful evenings”. I would like to see more and more at festivals of European youth. And the flow of foreign artists would have increased who are so rarely visited by. None of festivals in Russia could, in certain layouts, become as well -known and desirable as European or American ones.
The player is inaccessible You were on the last picnic as a spectator, and now - the decoration of the Russian scene, and even the main competitor of These New Puritans. What are your expectations from the concert?
Anton: Yes, a lot has changed in a year. I liked the last festival wildly. I often recall the incendiary set of Late of the Pier and go , who did not let me go to backstage. Interestingly, this year he also will not let any of the friends, but only to us? (Laughs). I recall Electric Lady, which Dima Ustinov ( Taras 3000 - approx. ) Played in his set when no one knew that I was singing and no one believed, and I ran up to everyone with burning eyes and asked - “Do you know who sings it? I!" And everyone silently looked at me as they were looking at a person having a bad sense of humor. And we are waiting for the only one - meetings with the public, because when you go on stage and play for people who need it, the circle closes and life looks harmonious as never before! Amen!