Nike greyhounds interview. Nike Borzov: “I always felt like an outsider

Your new record comes out on December 12th “ Nike Borzov. Favorites”, which will include hits from seven albums. There is a lot of material, tell us on what principle you chose, which tracks will be included in new album?

My managers offered me the idea to release a collection best songs, considering that I have never had such a collection and have never thought seriously about this topic.

I always prefer to work on new material rather than rehash the old, but, nevertheless, there is interest in this, and when this proposal was voiced to me, I thought, why not make this collection something more original than just a collection of hits.

And so we announced a competition on the website, where everyone sent three versions of their favorite songs for this collection. And when the versions of these tracks started coming in, I thought it would be great to call the collection “Favorites”, given that it was chosen by the people, it is the favorites of the people who will listen to it. And I think that's great.

Is the release of this album connected with nostalgia for the past or is it a kind of result of your previous work?

I don’t perceive this as a trait, but there is something in it, something that will separate me from what happened before this collection and what will happen after. It’s just that now I’m already working on new material and can see the future.

In what format will the new album be released? Will it also be available on cassette and vinyl?

My directors want to do this - release the album on compact cassettes, given that I myself have been toying with this idea quite recently, but not in relation to this collection, but in relation to my new album, which is called “Everywhere and Nowhere”. But nevertheless, first, on December 9, the album will be released on iTunes, and by December 12, just in time for the concert in Moscow, a double CD will be ready. And, probably, somewhere after the New Year, a triple vinyl release of this album awaits us.

Where do you get new material from?

From the air, from the brain, from observations, from everything that fills me and that surrounds me. Basically, all of this becomes songs.

2014 is coming to an end, what was it like for you?

In general, the year was fruitful and active. We went on tour with the album “Everywhere and Nowhere”, it lasted about 2.5 months. Was big concert in Moscow, which we recorded and filmed. And now we are editing this concert, I think it will be ready before the New Year.

Tell us, what other projects are you working on?

In 2013, the group Killer Honda was formed, where I play the drums, sing, compose, in general, there are three of us, we have a collective creativity. This is a kind of garage rock, with elements of stoner. We recorded the album in 2013, released it online and on vinyl, played a bunch of concerts, went to Europe, filmed videos.

What are your plans for the future?

I also shoot my own videos. Right now we are working on a video for a song from the new album “Now and Here”, on which an international team is working: the artist is Italian, the director is Ukrainian and I am Russian. This is the friendship of peoples.

I’m also currently working on a new acoustic one, I won’t tell you anything yet - it will be a slightly different story, but I think many people will like it. The guys and I even came up with a new name for this theme - ethno-techno.

How do you feel about censorship and profanity?

It seems to me that we need to instill in people internal censorship, a sense of proportion, and not prohibit them from doing something. As for strong words, yes, I like to swear. But not always, now, for example, I don’t like it. I try not to use these words at all, I’m somehow fed up, and I’m now done with all the swearing projects. And so, it was always fun, especially when “XZ” started, people were just rolling under the table from the combination of music, lyrics, and performance. It was funny and it was exciting, of course, but given that this is not my main story, I still like to write songs that I always wrote even before “Infection” and “HZ” and I continue to do it. In general, any phrase that is presented in such words will sound ten times stronger than if said in ordinary words, and therefore, of course, it could not help but captivate. My mother is a Pushkin lover.

And Pushkin and his friends of that time were fond of shameful poetry.

And I always had these records, records, so in my family it was not forbidden to swear, and now it is not forbidden, everyone speaks as he wants. Well, of course, in front of children, and in front of those who find it unpleasant, I won’t swear.

And what kind of music do you listen to? Which band's concert would you like to go to?

I’m not listening to any right now because I’m writing my own. And when I write my own, I try not to think about other people’s music and receive less unnecessary information from outside. And so, I liked Robert Plant's new album. I really love the group Dead Can Dance, I love listening to Diamanda Galas. I went to the groups I wanted to go to. Perhaps I would like to attend concerts of those groups that no longer exist, with exactly the same lineup that was there when I was not yet in the world.

Don’t you consider it necessary to create a scandalous image for yourself, to attract attention with some non-standard, extraordinary image?

We have a lot of freaks, and among a bunch of freaks normal person already a freak.

Would you like to act in a movie?

Why not? I would like to. It would be interesting to play some non-human characters, like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings or something like that. So that it would be of a different form and content.

Nike Borzov is a cult musician of the Russian rock scene, widely known to listeners for his solo work. Author of the immortal hits “Horse”, “Riding on a Star” and “She’s Alone”.

Interviewer: Ruslan Batykov

— “Nike, hello, on July 7 you performed very successfully at the “Invasion” festival, your performance was very interesting even despite long rains, which caused a lot of trouble for the guests of the rock festival. Can you now say what you remember or liked most about the festival “Invasion 2017”, and how much the music rock industry in Russia has changed over the years? last years»?

Nike -“Despite the cold and rainy weather, I enjoyed my performance at Invasion 17.” A lot of people had gathered and it was hot. During execution new song"Acid God" fireworks began. Enchanting and completely special. Thanks to everyone who was with me this evening... my band, fans and festival organizers who made this day unforgettable.

About the changes music industry Hard to say. Most likely they are. The world is changing and so is the climate. We live in a time of global change and music is changing accordingly.

“Most people use very similar methods to write songs. Both those who write music and those who write only poetry use their instrument in this process and improvise until they come across something suitable. How is your process of writing music? And how did you get the idea to create a cover version of the song “Not Love” by the Kino group?

Nike -“Mostly music fills me up and I write most of the songs without the help of an instrument. I only take it to record a finished song. This has always been the case with me since childhood, I composed and sang some non-existent melodies, probably even before I learned to speak. It was an ongoing process. Eventually, my grandfather bought a tape recorder and followed me around with a microphone. Somewhere at home these notes are still lying around. Therefore, I am never in silence; music is always playing in my head. Often during rehearsals, I take the guitar and listen to it, plucking the strings to accurately convey what is playing inside me.

Almost the same thing happened with the song “This is not love” by Viktor Tsoi. My girlfriend drew my attention to this song. And I heard a completely different, more cheerful story in the track than in the original. “Kino” “Not Love” is autumnal, but I heard in it spring, vitamin deficiency, falling in love, recklessness, the first rays of the sun that relationships bring, everyone understands that they will soon fall apart, but no one cares, because that’s all very happy.

The way we played it the first time at rehearsal is how it sounds now. We really like the song, we included it in the track list of concerts and play it with pleasure, come to the Big Summer Concerts on July 20 in Moscow and July 27 in St. Petersburg and check it out for yourself.”

— “Are you now writing music on a wave of nostalgia or are you inspired by something else?”

Nike - " Let me answer this... when my new songs start coming out, you will hear everything for yourself.”

— “What projects does Nike Borzov have going on in his life now?”

Nike - " Basically, this is the recording of a new album, which will be released next year.”

— “Nike, what do you think a musician cares about now: making music that he likes or that everyone will like? And is it profitable for a musician today to be scandalous?

Nike Borzov - " I think you can't please everyone. It is important to find a balance here. Scandal still sells well."

— “Can you analyze now and say whether there was some kind of golden period in the history of Russian rock music? When was Russian rock at the peak of its glory?

Nike - " Probably this is the first half of the 2000s.”

— “Today music is constantly evolving, and the “raw material” for this evolution is ordinary noise and set computer programs. This “noise” creates the musical taste of the modern listener. Once great rock bands such as Pink Floyd, Nazareth, Accept have now become a bit complicated for the younger generation and the mass listener has switched to simpler electronic music. Nike, do you think emotional rock music will return to the mainstream? And how relevant will live rock music be in the future?

Nike - " Of course I would like to believe that live music will live forever, but it seems that the “Red Book” is waiting for us; living musicians will be included in it.

“Today the Internet has erased all barriers between the musician and the listener. Previously, everything was decided music critics, promoters, and now I recorded a song at home, posted it on YouTube and if you are talented, tomorrow you will receive recognition and fame. This way, you can regularly write hack tracks, post them online, and someone will definitely like this hack. Does this mean that music in Russia is deteriorating in this way or, on the contrary, developing?”

Nike - " There has always been hack work and, strangely enough, it always sold and bought better.”

- “Nike, what do you think, is a person the creator and driving force of his life or is life a random set of events, phenomena and incidents?”

Nike - " Now most people choose the second option, but only because the first has become too difficult.”

- “Looking back, if you were allowed to change only one thing in the world, what would it be?”

Nike - " Stupidity".

— “What would you definitely like to do in 2017?”

Nike - " Reconcile all warring parties."

Name Nike Borzova thundered in the mid-90s. His hits “Horse”, “Three Words”, “Riding a Star” sounded everywhere. But the musician himself does not want to remember those times. For several years he completely abandoned the stage and devoted himself entirely to raising his daughter Victoria. Now Borzov is recording new records, but he no longer strives to reach the top lines of the charts. “I am an unformatted performer who is out of time,” the singer smiles

Photo: Vanya Berezkin

Rock star Nike Borzov was a quiet and calm boy as a child. He still cherishes many of his naive dreams from a tender age.

The singer secretly admits this to the correspondent of 1 TV no. For example, he dreams of flying into space, preferably to another planet. As a boy, Nike kicked a ball in the yard, rode a bicycle and even then composed songs. This was closer to the guy than, for example, sports, although he was in life future star a period when he was seriously involved in football for three whole years. But when at the age of 16-17 the dilemma arose: sports or music, of course, the latter won. In this regard, Borzov often recalls a quote from the film “Above the Rainbow” - “Sports and music are incompatible.”

“I remember how I stole a cigarette from my father (then these huge Java 100s appeared), lit a cigarette for the first time in three years and thought: “Yeah, music is cool!”

So professional sports left the singer’s life, but he admits that he still likes to kick a ball or swim, in a word, actively move and do things that “stimulate the body for further actions.” For example, for new songs. Nike admits that he is unfamiliar with the pains of creativity. He just sits down and does something. Naturally, he does not equate himself with Nietzsche or Wagner, who simply drew inspiration from energy flow coming from space. Borzov is also sometimes illuminated from above, but more often he is aware of where everything comes from.

“There are a lot of infernal flows around and I wouldn’t want to be present in them,” explains Nike.

During the 8 years of his temporary oblivion, Nike gained a lot and discarded a lot as unnecessary. He believes that a person is completely psychologically renewed every seven years, which means that he has become completely new. Those last years when he was away from big stage According to the singer, he endured it quite calmly and in the end decided to help the dying world at least a little.

“Popularity is sometimes a harmful thing. And at that moment I wanted anything, but not the pop mainstream. Therefore, for the last 8 years I have been involved in trance and punk, and played in the theater. And now, it seems to me that the planet is mentally moving out of its orbit towards the negative, and that’s why a year ago I released the album “From the Inside,” which really changed the situation a little from the inside. Now I’m preparing a new record, which, I think, will be no less interesting, cool and unusual.”

Talking about the future Russian rock, Nike is quite optimistic. This direction of music, in his opinion, is the most honest and open. This applies not only to domestic musicians, but also Western performers. The only thing that saddens the experienced rocker is that many young bands prefer to sing in English language. Nike doesn’t even know what to call this unpleasant phenomenon.

“It seems to me that this is akin to masturbation, because no one needs them there and no one accepts them there. Writing in Russian is difficult. But I can do it and I’m fine!” Borzov declares without false modesty with a smile.

On July 25, Nike Borzov will rise to main stage"Afisha Picnic" to play from beginning to end the album "Splinter", released in 2002 and called a cult album by Afisha magazine. On the eve of the festival, the artist answered questions from a Gazeta.Ru correspondent.

— Did you easily agree to the offer to play the “Splinter” album in its entirety after so many years?

- Yes, easy, I found this idea very interesting. About three years ago I already had a similar experience: I gave a series of concerts dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the album “Immersion” and the 10th anniversary of “Splinter”. He played three parts: the first - “Immersion”, the second - “Splinter”, and the third - hits from different albums. It was great, people loved it. I thought it would be cool to play such an atmospheric album at an open air.

— How does it feel to return to these songs now? Don't you want to change something about them?

- Well, this is part of me, and I remained, in general, the same as I was at that time, although everything changes, everything passes... As it is sung in the song that I am now recording. (Laughs.) From my records you can see how I and my interests are changing. “Thorn” was, of course, a different stage than the one I’m going through now. But, recently listening to this record on occasion, I realized that I only want to change about ten percent of it. This is a very good indicator: usually within a week of finishing an album I want to rewrite everything. On the other hand, over the years I realized that going back and redoing what was done is akin to creative death.

These may be unrelated things, but Yegor Letov died six months after he said he wanted to re-record his 1980s albums.

You need to do what suits you today, that’s the point creative path, it seems to me.

— At Picnic, will the songs from the album sound the way they were recorded? Or will you change something?

— Tell us, what were you like when you recorded “Splinter”?

- What was I like then... I had black dyed hair, I wore torn pants... Although, in principle, I still wear them. (Laughs.) In general, it remains the same as it was, although a lot has changed. The feeling of my life as some kind of my own flow has always been there, I never resisted it.

— In your interviews, I read harsh statements about hipsters. Now you are performing at the main hipster festival, how did this happen?

— Well, actually, I was a hipster before there were hipsters. Yes, and I was emo before emo arose in Russia. So everything is fine, logical. Especially since hipsters now consider my music cult, why shouldn’t I play for them?

— Why do you think “Splinter” is considered a cult classic?

— Probably, at that time there was nothing so original around. The fictitious 1990s ended, and everyone rushed to make money. A bunch of radio stations appeared, where program directors began to invent some formats. Each of them considered it their duty to point out what was wrong with your song, for example, that the drums sound dull.

This didn’t concern me: if they had told me that my drums didn’t sound like that, the person would have immediately been hit with a pumpkin.

But I know young bands of the time who spent years re-recording songs to get into radio rotation. As a result, now we have this toothless rock space. I don’t mean, of course, politically toothless—in our country, on the contrary, everyone is involved in politics. Yelling at the barricades is not writing songs. It's like taking off your pants live, [member] show - you will immediately become famous. It is much more difficult to write a beautiful song so that a person feels good, so that he moves in the right direction in the morning, and does not go back to killing and eating animals. After the radio, the “Star Factory” began, which killed all creative energy... And only now we have begun to wake up - thanks to the hipsters for that. They are obsessed with their favorite music, and they don’t care about public opinion. Perhaps they are writing now stupid songs, but over time they will become cool, I am absolutely sure of that.

— You talk about how the format killed music, but at the same time you and the album “Superman” were just the star of “Our Radio”.

“I just recorded a record that tore everyone’s head off; no one here wrote such songs then.” At the same time, I never went and offered my music; Oleg Nesterov and the Snegiri label did this. By the way, everything was not as smooth as it seems today. I remember there was some program director at Russian Radio, it seems, who said that the song “Three Words” would only get into rotation through his corpse. Three months later he was fired, and my song became one of the main hits at the station.

— Did you like your neighbors on air, with whom you led the wave of Russian pop-rock, like Mumiy Troll and Zemfira?

- Honestly? I [don’t care] what row I was in. I know my worth and I know what I'm doing. What others do sometimes makes me happy, but more often it makes me sad. (Laughs.) There were some talented guys back then, but I don’t know where they are now, I don’t follow the domestic music industry.

- Let's now return to "Splinter." Your stellar period, which began with “Superman,” ended with the next album. Was this a deliberate step?

- No, I wouldn’t say that I wanted to finish something. I'm just not interested in doing what I've already done. The album “Splinter” was already conceived the way it came out, even when we were finishing “Superman”, which, by the way, I don’t like in many respects. I would have mixed everything a little differently, I would not have invited several musicians who were invited by Oleg Nesterov, who produced the recording. But “Splinter” suits me.

— Nevertheless, after “Splinter” you ceased to be a star of the first row. Don't you miss big halls?

- No. And then I have large venues: at open airs people are rocking out from my acoustics, like at a rave. And as for solo concerts, then... It's like sex. In general, one person is enough for me, but let there be twenty, thirty, or two or three thousand, as is happening now. I can do this with a stadium, but my music is quite intimate, so I want a more intimate setting.

— So you don’t have stadium ambitions?

— If I had sung and spoken English since birth, I would now have The Rolling Stones acted as the opening act! Well maybe not The Rolling Stones, but Arcade Fire or what's their name, Radiohead - for sure (Laughs.)

- The past is clear. What's going on with you now?

- A lot of everything! Right now I'm preparing a double acoustic album that I plan to release in the fall. Twenty old songs and two new ones. One, “Molecule,” was written on the shores of the Red Sea.

This gloomy chanson, as I characterize it, is dedicated to a drunken sleeping woman and is based on real events.

The second, “Eve,” was written back in the late 1980s; before that, it existed only in drafts for my lost first solo album. She always seemed simple-minded to me, but now I realized that there is a certain sacred meaning in her: you can perceive her heroine as the first lady on this planet.

- No. The idea for this album came to me last year when I came across an instrument called a cajon. I found a percussionist and we started playing gigs with our guitarists. As a result, the idea arose to record the songs in this form. Last winter I rented an old 1950s cultural center in Vidnoye, where I myself once performed. There is an amazing space there: columns, stucco, painted dancing men and joyful children on the ceilings, haymakers, tractor drivers on the walls. Now I'm adding additional tools there.

In addition, editing of the DVD filmed at the presentation of the album “Everywhere and Nowhere” at Glavklub is now being completed. We are also currently writing lyrics for the new album of the group Killer Honda (a group in which Borzov plays drums - Gazeta.Ru), the music for it has already been recorded. And finally, I'm slowly working on my new solo album, most of the instruments have already been recorded in a cool St. Petersburg underground studio. There will be such a fat garage sound.

— Musicians like to complain that in Russia it’s hard to feed yourself with music, do you still manage to do this? You play corporate events.

- Yes, somehow it works. And I love corporate parties, by the way. When they call me there, people want to listen to my music, they even send me lists of songs they want to hear, and there are things there that I myself have already forgotten about. Well, then I still enjoy playing “The Horse” or some other hits - these are very good songs.