Hellspin

Yeah, I have no idea where they even go. The attitude towards rock in society is clear: it is associated, alas, not with sexuality - male or female - but with something very marginal. That's why Pasha and I are in the background.

Rusakov: During performances, I stand sideways or with my back to the audience, I hardly look into the audience, all my attention is directed to the group. I enjoy our triangle, how we charge each other with energy.

Shilova: This is a paradox. The guys say that they are in the background, but it’s impossible to imagine Hellspin without them. If this were my a cappella singing, then it would not have a tenth of the energy and sexuality that their music gives. Even when we rehearse alone, our repto turns into a volcano, an incredible collective ejaculation.

Have you ever thought that the cumulative sexual energy that is released from you and the people in the audience helps you reach new heights during performances?

Shilova: Well, in general, Nietzsche wrote in “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music” that there is a Dionysian principle and an Apollonian one. The Apollonian is the cosmic principle, the purest and most spiritual, which men carry from space to earth. But it cannot exist without the Dionysian, earthly principle. This is how sexual energy allows me to awaken the human being through the animal in me. Of course, on a subconscious level I speak to the public in the language of sexual energy, but my heart sings, my mind sings. We never pretended to be some kind of academic, some kind of endless spirituality, we always appealed to animal energy, to crazy dances.

Actually, this is what brought you fame as a group at whose concerts all sorts of outrages occur. Teterev: As for the behavior of fans, I consider it normal to destroy the stage and nasal septum, but this cannot be the main goal! You shouldn't come to a concert with the desire to break something, except maybe within yourself. Yes, when you are overwhelmed with emotions and there are several other people around you who are also overwhelmed with emotions, something can break. But the main thing is to still enjoy the energy.

Rusakov: It’s important that no one grabs my guitar at this moment, because then I start to screw up, and I don’t want to play crap. Everything else is welcome. Let boards, spears, cannonballs fly around me and grenades explode, but my fingers must be intact.

Shilova: There was an amazing incident at a concert in Obninsk. An unsuccessfully fired fire whizzed literally two centimeters from Pasha’s head, who, without looking up from the game, ordered “Odessa” (a headbutt to the bridge of the nose. - Ed.) to the arrow and continued his work.

How does it feel to be super desirable? Shilova: I don’t feel that way. And I have never felt like myself in my life.

Even during performances? Shilova: It is during the moments of performances that I feel some incredible trepidation on the part of men. No one grabs me in some places or says obscenity. I think they are attracted to something else because I don’t feel anything negative sexually from men. My appearance says “take me here and now,” but I actually feel like an untouchable woman. People ask me all the time: “How have you not been torn apart at concerts?” But on the contrary, they always give me a corridor, as if I were the Pope.

Let spears and cannonballs fly around me, grenades explode, but my fingers must be intact . Has anything changed in your performances during the existence of Hellspin? Shilova: I have a man, and now I perceive everything a little differently. Previously, when he was not there, my performances had a different energy, but now I am a more harmonious person. Naturally, people notice this. We were talking recently with someone from a fashion club, and he said to me: “You've stopped bringing sexuality back into punk rock.” I don't think so. The energy of the concerts has indeed changed somewhat, but it has not become worse. She became different.

How does he react to what is happening? Shilova: Because he is my man, he respects this and supports me. He sees some positive trends in this, and it gives him pleasure. But not perverted pleasure, as if he likes it when something like that is done to his woman, but pleasure from art. He understands what I do and why.

By the way, why do you need all this at all? Teterev: The banal answer is “so that everyone ... [goes crazy] as much as we can.” But on the sa-

In fact, I want people to at least sometimes care and not give a damn. It's worth a lot.

Shilova: I have long felt the world around me as a theater of the absurd, in which we all, such cool, intelligent, mature and thoughtful people, for some reason allow so many strange things to happen to us. That's why I stopped doing theater. Internally, I came to understand that the most important task is, as Stanislavsky taught, to cultivate something good in a person. Every time I go on stage, I want people to relax in my presence for at least thirty minutes; to make them feel beautiful, brave, desirable, powerful and pathetic - in the good sense of the word; so that their anxiety disappears; so that they understand that they are not alone. And it doesn’t matter what needs to be done for this. “How” doesn’t matter. Whether you are dressed or undressed. (Cries from excess of feelings.)