After a concert in Tbilisi, I was expelled from the Komsomol, from work and from home, says the famous artist, who is coming to Sofia for a concert on April 28 with his band BG+
– Hello, Boris Borisovich. Thank you for agreeing to give this interview to “24 Hours”. Have you come to Bulgaria before, have you sung in front of an audience? You know the saying that “a chicken is not a bird, Bulgaria is not a foreign country”…
– Yes, we came last year, we had a concert. And as for the expression, it is offensive, a legacy of Soviet times. I never liked him.
– How did it happen that a rock musician appeared in the family of a lawyer mother and an engineer father? When did you decide what you were going to become and did you think you were connected to music for life?
– You know, I’ve never defined myself as one. I’m just someone who does what he likes.
– I read that you studied mathematics. When did you know it wasn’t for you?
– I have never understood anything in this direction. After graduating from university, I relaxed
I started working in the specialty in a computing center
of the Research Institute for Complex Social Studies. I worked there for three years before they fired me after my participation in the Tbilisi Music Festival.
– But somehow you became a musician?
– No, I still don’t think I’ve become a musician. Neither a performer nor a member of a rock band. You see, the word rock is a ridiculous label that they stick on everything. Rock? Reggae? Original songs? Avant-garde music? What’s the difference, the important thing is that the music grabs you by the heart. I can play in a jazz band or perform the tarantella. When I say I’m not a musician, it’s because the combination of music and lyrics is important to me. And musicians are a different tribe – they sometimes don’t listen to the words, they don’t even know that these words exist. Notes and performance technique are important to them.
– But you don’t perform tarantella.
– Me and my friends were just playing music. That is all.
– Still, there was a moment when you chose that music would be your destiny.
– I haven’t chosen anything. And fate did not choose me. I just do music because I like it. So nobody chose anything.
– And yet, when you were doing math, what kind of music did you prefer?
– Maybe the one you call rock and roll. First Bill Haley, then The Beatles. And after the Beatles – everything else, a huge, huge musical universe. But at the same time I was listening to Bach, Ravel and everything else.
– Who came up with the name of your group “Aquarium”? Because there are several versions.
– We were walking with my friend, with whom we created the group, and we were thinking about different names. Everything we could think of. And this went on for days. While at some point we just chose “Aquarium”. We both enjoyed it.
– I am asking you because there is a dispute about the name of the street on which you saw the cafe with that name. One option is “Sofia”.
– One small “but”. It wasn’t a cafe, it was a beer hall. And I didn’t drink beer at all at that time. So a beer hall wouldn’t be interesting to me then under any circumstances. The street thing is a lot of nonsense. We came up with the name of the group while crossing the river on the bridge.
– You are a musician or you are involved in music or you started singing with your friends a long time ago, but…
– I have been singing since early childhood, and I learned to play the guitar in 1968 and since then I have not stopped.
– Are you offended if they call you rock dinosaurs or veterans?
– Let them call us what they want. I’m not insulted.
– What was your first guitar?
– I found it in a trash can. It was broken, but my father fixed it. It was on her that I started learning to play.
– You mentioned it, but I still have to ask you about one of your first concerts in Tbilisi.
– This was not one of our first concerts at all. It happened a whole eight years after the group was founded. But that doesn’t matter so much. everyone,
who writes about us creates his own mythology
But really then, after the scandal, I was expelled from work, from the Komsomol, even from home.
– Were you really friends with David Bowie?
– I wouldn’t even say friends, but we spoke on the phone, we wrote to each other. We were just acquaintances who saw each other sometimes.
– How was music made in the 70s and 80s? It was quite a romantic period. They say that you met Viktor Tsoi in the subway and even sang to each other there?
– Everything was done by circumventing the law. It was downright illegal. We had to look around all the time so as not to run into any trouble.
– Did you have any trouble?
– Yes. Always.
– How has music changed in the last 45 years? And the taste of the audience?
– Neither the music changes, nor the taste of the audience. At least for the last 3000 years. The musicians in the bars sing for the audience.
– And in the halls, when you have a concert, who comes?
– It is not an audience that comes there, but people who want to hear what I and my colleagues will sing for them. The choice is exclusively ours. A very small percentage of people listen to us because we play unpopular music. We like those who think. Or they feel.
– Are you religious?
– I don’t know what that means.
– Do you believe in god or some higher power?
– You can believe that they will give you a salary, for example. I have a counter question for you. Do you believe that two times two is four, or do you know? Do you believe in the multiplication table, or do you know it as a fact?
– I know.
– This is the difference between knowledge and belief.
– Then do you think that the music you create is based on some higher power?
– I don’t know what this “higher power” is. I’m interested in what people in different countries think and compare it to what I know. I translate various Chinese, Japanese and Indian things, they even print them. But I don’t believe, I know.
– In an interview, you say that you do not what you want, but what works. Isn’t this a paradox?
– That is why creativity exists. I don’t create what comes into my head because I want it, but what I feel. And it’s not always what I wanted. You, for example, sometimes don’t do what you want. So it is with creativity –
I want to make happy songs, and sometimes they turn out to be very sad
– Are you planning new songs, a new album?
– Yes. We’re releasing a new album literally this week.
– Where do you live now? As far as I understand, you are not in Russia.
– Because in Russia I would be in prison. I moved to London three years before the war started because it’s a better place to live.
– What do you think about the war in question?
– Every war is a crime. And the triumph of stupidity, because it is always better not to fight, but to negotiate. Always. But Russia in this case transgressed the laws of humanity.
– You certainly don’t remember Stalin, you were very young under Khrushchev, but you have impressions of the other general secretaries and presidents. When did the USSR and then lose the chance to become a democratic state? Because – sorry if you think I’m wrong, it’s not exactly a democracy there now.
– Remember Saltykov-Shchedrin, Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy and you will understand. They wrote everything. Nothing has ever changed in Russia.
– Do you define yourself as a dissident?
– I have never considered myself a dissident. I consider myself human.
Business card
Boris Borisovich Grebenshchikov is a Russian musician, composer, singer, poet, writer and photographer. Founder and vocalist of the group “Aquarium”. He is known under his creative pseudonym BG. He was called “the father of Russian rock” and “the first Soviet international rock star”. He has released dozens of albums as part of “Aquarium” and over 10 solo albums. He also composes film music. Condemns Russia’s policy regarding Ukraine and emigrates to London.
