Armen Grigoryan: "I am for resistance"

On September 16, in the St. Petersburg Club “Cosmonaut” and on September 17, in Moscow “Izvestia Hall”, the Honored Rock band “Krematoria” will present a new conceptual album “invisible people”, in which, as usual, there are a lot of black humor and ironic observations of reality. Denis Boyarinov talked with the leader of the group Armen Grigoryan about what was happening on the invisible people album, about what is happening around, and received a recipe for how to arrange a normal life.

-The new album "Crematorium" is called "invisible people." Who are these people? Who did you mean?

-Invisible people are a musical hologram. Look: everything that is now connected with Moscow is one continuous columbarium for me. All school friends, friends of the hippism period suddenly disappeared somewhere. Some are physically, and some disappeared from sight. These people were intellectually filled and developed, but gradually began to disappear, and the feeling that they were not at all except me, no one remembers them. These personalities left behind something on paper-poems, stories, drawings, sometimes something in music, and some left nothing at all but bright memories.

The second layer is, perhaps, the result of my misanthropy. It seems to me that in general there are not so many people around. In the human sense. We have long realized that the world has been rolling to absolute zero. In 2006, I wrote the song “Marazm is inevitable” and I believe that then I was right. Endless wars, endless murders, religion as a means of contention of people. And no way out of the situation is visible. It seems to me that the world is on the verge of disaster.

The third layer is a look in its own environment. We managed to incredible - to unite people around us who fit into my ideas about decency, morality, friendship and professional duty. These are invisible people. They are unknown to the public, but we have created such a mini-state. Despite the fact that inside the group there are different views on the world - there are liberals, there are patriots. However, everyone gets along with each other. This is something like a commercial from the Krematorium group-it turns out that you can arrange an absolutely normal life yourself.

Well, for dessert - egocentrism. In almost every song I am - well, or part of me (laughs) !

- The Crematorium had albums and more vague. This one seemed optimistic to me, despite the fact that it has a song “Rope and soap” on it.

-Balm on the soul that you heard optimistic notes in the album, because I remained in my soul a romantic, who nevertheless believes that through a person (but not through the crowd) you can change the world. But this personality must be found somewhere. Therefore, the introductory song in the album is “Ave, Caesar”, but Caesar himself is not on the plate. Caesar is a listener: women, men, children, in each song an appeal to a specific individual, a conversation with him.

When we recorded this album, we wanted both music and in the sound to take a step forward. “Invisible people” are, first of all, the “crematorium” adjusted for the sound, according to the taste of our current musicians. I, as always, first wrote music, then from associations - text. In addition to three songs: this is “Benito (Huares)”, written a very long time, “Rope and soap” and “supermarket”, which were recorded for the second part of the “third angel” and languished ten years before escaping out. But the arrangement is already a group product.

"Invisible people"-of course, a conceptual album. This format today is not as relevant as 20 years ago, because now people are listening to individual songs, shortened versions, and even those sometimes not to the end. Our task is to somehow make the album as an audiobook, from beginning to end, and only then, I am sure, the complete picture and heroes of songs, taken from different times, eras and continents,-Brunhild, Benito, Richard III, Tekila Boom and others will be connected in the general picture of the modern world.

It seems to me that the world is on the verge of disaster.

- By the way, about the characters. In the songs of the “Crematorium”, the characters who had real prototypes used to have - Kondraty, Khabibulin and others, on this album - historical figures. Why did you get Benito Huarez?

- Benito Huarez is the president of Mexico of the 19th century, the smallest president in the history of mankind, but I have it - nothing more than a symbol. I just shared in this song unobtrusive mockery of pacifism. Huarez was a pacifist, but at the same time tortured a bunch of people, and as a result, he, according to one version, poisoned his own. Nowadays, pacifism, which many sincerely professed in the 70s, seems ridiculous. Pacifism in our cannibal time borders on idiocy.

“Are you good with fists?”

- I am for resistance. And also for people to unite not around parties and empty ideas, but around common sense. Then the world would become better over time. After all, almost everything that happens around is contrary to common sense: incomprehensible laws are issued, double morality and strange, if not criminal, vital priorities are imposed. All this leads to an aggressive state of a huge part of the population. In addition, modern information technologies reached the highest level of manipulation of public consciousness. In order to avoid decay, you have to spend a lot of mental and physical strengths in order to stay from this pool with shit and take a soul regularly, because spray still flows!

- You said that there are people of different political views in the “crematorium”. What side are you on?

- I already said: on the side of sanity, honor, morality. For example, my wife loves Putin, she is Putinoid. Although its roots are from Ukraine, she speaks very truthfully about her former homeland, and this is also the power of a true patriot. If we analyze what is happening there in some areas of the country, this is almost fascism. And our bass player is sure that the majority there are Bandera and Nazis. He is a smart guy who graduated from Moscow State University and graduate school. Do they both are influenced by the media or have they come to this? But we must look at the world with real eyes, the fascists are enough here! Our group with Ukraine is connected by many years of history. There was more than one tour there. We have a lot of friends there who are not Bandera, but the most severe people.

I am trying to explain to everyone that it makes sense to go to speak to Sevastopol (which we did), and then go to Ukraine. To show people that we are not playing for the state, not for politicians, but for people who grew up and went through life. We cannot betray them due to the fact that someone changed the scenery and painted the country in disgusting color.

Pacifism in our cannibal time borders on idiocy.

- So the "crematorium" will go to speak to Ukraine?

- It is possible. We now have several offers in the spring. But I will not be shy of my soul and I will say that some members of our team refuse to go there. At the same time, our permanent and full-time web master Yura Veres lives in Kyiv and plays in the Stone Guest group. And in general, many people live in Ukraine, which at different times helped the "crematorium". We have not yet come to consensus, but we will certainly meet with our friends, we remember them.

-We talked about invisible people with whom you once communicated, but they fell out of your circle of communication, and I remembered that the “crematorium” was once closely connected with the bike-part-country “Night Wolves”. Does your communication continue?

- I continue to be friends with Yegor Zaitsev. We grew up together and collaborated a lot. By the way, Yegor took part in the design of our new album and coped brilliantly. Not only worked on the costumes of musicians, but also pressed all the female images of songs, which no less brilliantly realized the beautiful models of the House of Fashion of Glory Zaitsev. It was a serious work with casting, make-up artists, a photo shoot, for which all Grand Mersi participants. Well, the result of joint creativity can be found in the printing part of the album.

As for the "night wolves." Once it was a chaotic organization of young and courageous men who believed in a romantic knightly idea. And everything was so until stall and politics appeared. And I still naively believe that bikers should be outside of any policy.

- Do not communicate with the surgeon?

- We haven't seen each other for a long time.

Almost everything that happens around is contrary to common sense.

-They say that the “invisible people” you favorably sold the Navigator company, and not like many musicians, “gave it to the implementation.” How did you bargain?

- We were offered to arrange crowdfunding for the release of the album. But I, risking the old -fashioned one, refused - it reminds me of the standing on the porch. For young and so far unprofessional groups, the collection of money for a debut album is quite acceptable, at least as a startup. And we earn music and work for a long time, we have the opportunity to finance the record ourselves, including abroad.

But experience suggests that our technique is approximately the same there, the problem is not this, but in the sound producers! It’s not easy with this, but still our searches were not in vain. We worked with the excellent sound engineer Igor Korolev, who was found by the same heroic bassist Nikolai Korshunov, by joint efforts we got the desired result and sent him to companies that showed preliminary interest. Then, among others, Alexei Kozin called us, the leader of the “navigator”, and said: “I have not listened to the album for a long time seven times in a row, therefore, no matter how many colleagues give, I give twice as much.” The Golden Taurus, you understand, played his attractive role (laughs) .

-This year we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the August events of 1991. How did you spend these days?

- I was in Moscow. He did not go to the White House, but they called me on this day and asked to support the Yeltsin government. I went to television-with us were Garik Sukachev and some singer. We performed on TV and called for compliance with the constitution and the like so that bloodshed would not allow! Garik Sukachev even wept, he was an honest guy and sincere, and we were all extremely excited about what was happening.

This was the only political action in which I participated. But then there was such a time. Time of change. We then believed that positive changes in our country are possible and would bring the best future. Therefore, everyone at once opposed an attempt to return the old system, alas, already rotten through and through. I do not regret that we went and supported.

- And in the 1996 campaign in support of Boris Yeltsin, “vote or lose” the “crematorium” was not called?

- They called, but we categorically refused. We no longer wanted to participate in this story. Then everything became clear.