IWA: "To be simple - not ashamed"

The IWA group is a trio from Belarus, which was settled in St. Petersburg in 2010. Here they were a meeting with Oleg Baranov, the ex-guitarist “Tonight” and the Gray Cardinal Rokapops-Seek,-the anthem of the early 2000s “Lear” and the Album “Merio” “Mumiy Troll” came out from under his hand. In St. Petersburg, the IWA group cut off all the excess, guitar hardcore, which the musicians had previously played, replaced with a simple yard sound, with which they turned into a new hope of Russian show business. The Internet chits of the group-“Simple Song”, “Mom” and “Smile”-are now won a large radio, and vocalist Katya Ivankikova, guitarist Leonid Tereshchenko and drummer Vasily Bulanov live on an endless tour. The other day, the group releases Export's debut album, which will most likely become a bestseller.

COLTA . RU talked with three IWA participants and their producer about how the hardcore group from Mogilev made a breakthrough in Russian pop music.

- You have six bright, successful singles over the past two years. Why is the album only now?

Lenya: At first, we had such a concept.

Katya: There are artists who managed to reach a wide audience only, for example, to the fourth album. And the entire previous material is unknown. We did not want to, we wanted to do something memorable on the move and step by step.

Oleg: Yes, it’s good to fill in, guys. On February 14, 2012, two weeks after the release of the song “Mom”, you were called to play the Big Love Show in Moscow, this is Love Radio : they said - the song is too radical, we won’t put it on the air, but let's come to the party. And from that very day the concerts simply sprinkled. By June 2012, there were already 12 per month. It is difficult for a group that has two songs and many concerts is ready to have everything. Therefore, first of all, it was decided to engage in concerts, which everyone was doing. When the song “Mom”, no matter how cynically it sounds, obsolete its own, a new song was required. In other words, the Great Belarusian group IWA has since catch up with its own tail. Now it is played about 16 concerts per month. And they say that we do not want even more (friendly laughter) !

The group did not come to me to meet. I think - here are goats. It turned out that they had no money in the token.

Lenya: Give our passports!

Oleg: To a large extent, the album consists of songs that are currently ready. You can no longer release the album. When did you arrive?

Katya: Tonight.

Oleg: This is the name of my old group. And when you fly away?

Lenya: Tomorrow.

Oleg: This is the problem of the album. We like to do all this, and it would be great if it had appeared earlier. There was simply no physical opportunity. And it all started with the fact that when we did not even really started working, the group did not come to me to meet. I think - here are goats. And you know, it turned out that they had no money in the token. Yes, a sad smiley. There was no money for a token, so they could not go down to the subway and get from commandant to Dobrolyubov! Therefore, when it was possible to play concerts, it never occurred to anyone to postpone it. This is a rack for musicians - play and earn money with your music! And do not work as a saleswoman in the store. And so everyone rushed into concerts with their heads, because the guys did not have money, there was no normal rented apartment.

At 70%, the Russian pop now is Evrodens without a face, without the beginning and end.

- Your album is called " Export " . As far as I understand, we still have a union state and laws of import-export, as it were, do not exist between us, we have a single economic space.

Oleg: But what about the Belarusian mussels and Parmesan? If we talk about the IWA group, in this name, of course, there is a subtext, I don’t know if it is necessary to explain it. The fact is that IWA is Belarus, it is not Russia, it is not local music. There are few groups on the radio. The song “Smile” for two and a half years, and only two weeks as it goes on “Russian Radio”.

Katya: Yes, this is generally incredible.

Oleg: Everyone has concerns, because, as far as I know the radio, 70% Russian pop now is an Eurode without a face, without the beginning and end. Everything is done very well, but in vain. We all know how to do Edm , but these are all beautiful stamps, and there are too many such music. I, in principle, have no complaints about the radio. Editors and director are at the head of giant commercial organizations that are more important than any artist. And no matter what the artist is good, he is not worth the listener to switch the wave and the station lost advertisers. Therefore, let's play what is win -win.

Katya: But now the Internet has appeared, and it is cool.

Oleg: He appeared, and we will do what we want.

- Let's get back to where it all started, - to the hashtag #ivi -amgilev. You are from Mogilev, and it is obvious that IWA is in honor of the Slipknot album, which is quite strange for the group with the Russian Radio. Tell us about your life in Mogilev.

Katya: We all lived on the same street.

Vasya: Katya outplayed with all the musicians, everyone wanted to help her somehow.

Lenya: And by the way, they began to call her Katya Aiova.

Vasya: Because Katya at first played heavy music. I invited Lenya, we played hardcore with him. I played on drums, Lenya on a bass guitar.

Katya: But still, I had from the very beginning the song “You are my good” and a lot of light things. Hardcore, I just started singing with you. You forced me to grumble and scream, I put my ligaments like that, trying to understand how to do it! By the end, I learned, and it is good that I did not plant a voice.

Once I was taken to an ambulance due to an overdose of smoke, I never smoked in my life, and the doctors told me to tie up with such a job.

Lenya: We had fans in Mogilev. The group was already called IWA .

Katya: Only this was not the music that we play here.

“And how did you end up in St. Petersburg?”

Katya: We had a song “Time to kill” (general laughter) . Well, not in the sense of killing someone, but to kill the time: "We’ll run to kill the time where there is not enough free hugs." That is a harmless thing. And the song "Spring", which everyone now knows and which I wrote then in tears. Still, there were few concerts, one in two months, and I wanted more.

Vasya: To live, of course, we all worked. I worked at the factory as a mechanic.

Katya: And Lenya recorded the album with one group that was published in America, and he had deductions from it.

Lenya: And I also worked part in the Palace of Pioneers, taught a guitar.

Vasya: And I helped Lena in this circle.

Katya: I was 21 years old. I worked in restaurants and bars by a singer, but I picked up the songs that were close to me-Marilyn Monroe, “Tu-Tu-Pi-Tu” and so on, they made me cool arrangements. But once they took me to an ambulance due to an overdose of smoke, I never smoked in my life, and the doctors told me to tie up with such work.

We participated in the Festival "Open the windows!" We met him with Garkush, for us it was at all!

Lenya: We recorded the song “Spring” at home, and I began to spam on her on the Internet. I even remember this text that hung everyone on the walls: “Hello! I share the mood ” - and below the song.

Vasya: Songs in the acoustics sounded good.

Katya: Oh, remember the song about Magadan? When we go there, we must do it.

Oleg: Dima, I have that demo, I will be happy to forward it to you-you will be surprised.

Katya: Yes, we were different (laughs) ! I remember we walked knee -deep in the snow from a rehearsal and think: I would have to leave for St. Petersburg!

Lenya: And here we were written by a man who invited us to Petersburg. He paid us tickets, we did not think about earnings-just to get into a rock dot, to another. It’s just that Mogilev in Belarus is also considered a rock deregist.

Katya: I wanted to get to St. Petersburg after I sang in the musical the Prophet Ilya Oleinikov, where there were many Belarusian performers.

IWA - " Spring "

- Did you get into the musical through the casting?

Katya: Yes, there were castings in all cities of Belarus. I came to one, and they told me to come to the casting in Minsk, but I decided that I had no time to ride the castings, because I worked a lot in Mogilev’s bars and restaurants! Six months later, I will find out that the casting takes place in Mogilev! It was necessary to come at 9 am ... I came at 15:30. Yanush Yuzefovich asked: "Are you TSO, Zevotovka?" He examined me from head to toe, the corpse of a fox dangled on me, asked to sing one note. And they took me. And then there were a lot of rehearsals, and almost every day people were cut off for various reasons. Good, in general, there was hardening.

Lenya: The Prophet was before our acquaintance, in 2008. In general, we have repaid a week in St. Petersburg, returned to Mogilev, and a month later-it was April 2010-we took and moved to Petersburg. At that time, we already had a keyboard player Vitalik Novitsky in St. Petersburg.

Katya: He helped us a lot.

Lenya: He also worked at the Palace of Pioneers in Mogilev, but he moved us much earlier and worked here in a music store. They sheltered us.

Katya: We have a rehearsal point free.

Lenya: Peter is an amazing city, people are ready to help.

Katya: We participated in the festival “Open the windows!”.

Lenya: We met him with Garkush, for us it was at all!

I failed them because it was complete nonsense. It was such a lard in chocolate.

-That is, you wanted to become rock heroes, and now, I see, before us is a pop prince and two states.

Vasya: We submitted applications for different competitions, including “Scarlet Sails”.

Oleg: It was a chance to play on Palace Square at a general graduation evening. Not on the main stage, of course, but on the second, on the shooter of the Vasilievsky Island.

Lenya: Oleg sat in the jury.

Katya: He stood in the jury. I remember he stood on the balcony. And I felt that it was him! And I and Leni have superinth! Even in Mogilev, before Peter arose, we threw out work and did not arrange anywhere. We sat without money, and Lenya even refused to go to a tour with Belarusian stars. There was no visible prospect, but everyone silently felt that now something would be, that our whole life would change now. And here is the same topic. You see and understand that this person is important to you. I have not seen a face, nothing, only a silhouette. But everything became clear to me.

- Oleg, what did you feel at that moment?

Oleg: Yes, I failed them because it was complete nonsense. It was such a lard in chocolate. For me, it all started a little earlier, when Pasha Evlakhov, aka Chekhov, told me to listen to the song “Spring”. The song was beautiful. It was clear that it was interesting. I came to the concert, looked. But of course, they did not get to any “scarlet sails”.

Katya: Because a group called Erection of two people with a blonde and dancing, who performed under the phonogram, hit.

Vasya: And we, hairy-bearded, scared everyone.

Oleg: But your performance was simply not interesting! You were hiding in the dark, did not know where to put yourself on stage. And, of course, Katya with an absurd bang and an absurd little handbag could not leave anyone indifferent. After the concert, the musicians enthusiastically with their triumph gave me a compact disc, the same, with heavy music.

Vasya: You had a shirt on your belt that day, it was hot.

Lenya: After the show, the girl came up to us, said that we did not go away, but now he will come to us. We were upset. And Oleg comes up, shooks his hand ...

Vasya: You said you liked it.

Katya: And they gave a business card.

Lenya: And they said that you work only with professionals, and said: "Do not get lost!"

Vasya: And we began to jump and hug behind the scenes.

It surprises me when young groups speak to their audience in English. Go to the store and talk with the saleswoman in Chinese.

- Oleg, what achievements to the IWA group are you proud of?

Oleg: I am proud of everyone. To make a song, it needs to be listened to about 500 times, and it is impossible not to love it. Each time you believe that this thing is some kind of special song, you will make it-and it will turn the broadcast, life, peace. I am sure that this is a delusion, but this is my way to make music.

Katya: And it works.

Oleg: For me, it all started with the fact that I played “tonight” and part -time arranged everything there, produced with Lagutenko. Then “tonight” ended, and Ilya invited me to make a “bear”. “Mumiy Troll” was well known to his style and did not know what to do with this nightmare that Ilya brought, but then did and fell in love, and they still play BIS at concerts-that is, they managed to catch and preserve, probably, a feeling from our collective unconscious, that made us happy for some time and for what is now happy to return. Then there were the whole album “Fillation and Fucked”, a group of “Chekhov”. Then a demo IWA appeared. The disk was exactly the same as a performance on stage. This is all interesting, loud, energetic, but it is not clear what to do with it. Most likely, nothing needs to be done with this, because it is a typical story of young groups, who just have adrenaline from the fact that they are on stage, they are ready to yell anything, but do not understand why they went on stage. Katya sounded fantastically well on the disk, but everything in general could not stick together. And there was one song, "Nemea".

Katya: I wrote it just at the junction of two cities.

- Oleg, are you doing this from altruism?

Oleg: No, in principle, I am decently earn a living. On the other hand, not only that. There are such steps with which you can quickly go upstairs. But, no matter how pathetic it sounds, IWA for all of us is such a way to live this life. This is more than earnings and that's all. I would like to at least not spare, but better - proud (grave silence) .

IWA - "Simple Song"

- What work do you have to do?

Oleg: Lenya, as the most active in the group, sent me a "simple song." I, as a person professionally earning music, immediately heard - the song is excellent, I need to do it. Then doubt crept in: well, I need to feed the family, and make a song is a whole thing. And I somehow woke up with the thought that if I do not, I will regret it.

And the text itself pushed to the fact that the song needs to be made simply. It should sound like a virtual-water song: that is, we have a guitarist-one thing, the singer-one thing and a dram-machine-one thing. The song was made based on the idea that two boys and kid gathered in the yard and played as they could. Of course, this is a game. What else can you do about it? This is not rock, and this is not a pop. From this, the IWA group turned out, before that there were only a loud voice and porridge of tools. And then the idea came to remove all unnecessary, there should be simplicity. We wrote down, then one fine day in the Peter and Paul Fortress, eating one pizza at all, we/they shot a clip for a “simple song”. In the first month there were about 40,000 views. And here, of course, the hope was frozen that all this is not in vain, all this needs. Then they sent the song “Mom” recorded to the recorder.

Katya: They came up with her in ten minutes.

Oleg: I was looking for a long time to open this file. It was a separate Belarusian format, probably. There were no more doubts. Everything that is in the final version was on a demo, and it, in turn, did not leave any options to do it.

IWA - "Mom"

- It turns out that nothing superfluous is the principle of the group and we see it as it can be said to have nature? Clothing from H&M , homemade video ...

Oleg: It is clear that all this is to a certain extent game. But according to Huan Sombrero. Often the audience ceases to perceive the artist due to an expensive clip. They immediately say: the singer is sleeping with the producer, we do not believe her. From the very beginning, it was clear that the group should either die or learn how to earn on itself. In the musical environment we are simply very often fond of music that is interesting for us alone. No need to do richly, it is necessary that their own audience remains their own so that the same boys and girls listen to and believe in what is happening.

- It turns out that even children who sing “smile” at the castings in the “voice” believe. The song is not the simplest in terms of vocals. Where did you learn to sing?

Katya: I did not know how to sing, probably up to 21 years old. I sing disgusting on our demo, although there was an opportunity to learn from different teachers, in the same musical, in television projects in Belarus. Unlike prolonged training, when there are five years to really master something, you have a month or even better-several classes. And you are so straining your brain and voice that you comprehend very complex things in a short time. But still I did not have integrity, and she came only with a "simple song." And now my teacher is a scene. There you can really learn a lot, the main thing is to give, not being afraid not to get it back. The scene collects all the skills together when you are aware of your message. In addition, I listen to the comments on the network if people write about what they felt. They often send me photos of rings or people hug you in a dressing room, because they met at your concert. This moment touches very much-when your music becomes part of someone else's life. And the songs begin to carry the memory of the time when people heard them. They are not touched by “Katya in my heart”, but what happened to them. And this helped me believe me - a reaction that comes from people.

Iowa - "Smile"

Oleg: This is a special Belarusian magic. There are many girls who sing better than Katya. I'm talking about the technical component. The voice is taught as a craft, and you can be well trained. Katya is not like that. And this is good and bad at the same time. When a person is trained, there is no heart. When not trained, each time you have to invent a bicycle. Иногда, после шестисотого прослушивания записи, мы решаем перепеть вещь в третий раз. Мы что-то ищем. Но тут нечего выбирать, потому что я говорю про Катю — она поет прямо в сердце. И в этом случае справка из училища — глубоко вторичный вопрос.

— Ваша музыка, кажется, находится ровно посередине между российской эстрадой и модной западнической музыкой. От второй у вас аудиолоск, от первой — задушевность, точность месседжа.

Олег: Это, видимо, суть происходящего. Меня удивляет, когда молодые группы говорят со своей аудиторией на английском языке. Пойдите в магазин и поговорите с продавщицей на китайском. В принципе, это понятно, хочется быть услышанным всем миром. Ну езжайте, пробуйте. В наших внутренних разговорах я называю песни IOWA «частушками». Они достаточно просты, и это очень круто. И при этом весь наш материал — антитеза тому, чтобы делать «как у всех». Быть простыми — не стыдно. Быть такими, как твои соседи, — это хорошо. Вопрос не в том, как мы можем выделываться друг перед другом, а насколько вообще все люди способны говорить на одном языке.

— Какие у вас планы на будущее, ведь все-таки не на альбомах держится карьера российских артистов?

Олег: Пока что надо закрывать какие-то горячие вопросы. Катя вызывает бесконечный интерес у всех. Когда ко мне подходят со сценариями и просят отдать Кате — я, конечно, ничего не отдаю. Это что, мы полгода будем ждать, пока она снимется в каком-то сериале?

Катя: Что? Спасибо, вы испортили мою карьеру (общий смех) !

Олег: Да, такой у меня план. Так что мы и дальше будем догонять свой хвост.