“Formerly we had to make revolution but now the high-quality evolution is needed”

Oleh Skrypka and the band Vopli Vidopliasova created back in 1986 are fairly considered to be the Ukrainian rock symbols. The concert of VV dedicated to their 25th anniversary that will take place on November 20 in the Kyiv Sports Palace nearly coincided with the 15th anniversary of The Day. By the way, our newspaper was the first to write about the musicians that had lived in France for several years before they came back to Ukraine in 1996. It was before VV’s 10th anniversary and the guys practically had to remind their Ukrainian fans about them again…

Over the last 15 years The Day has written dozens of pages about Oleh Skrypa and his team and supported all their cultural and public initiatives. Skrypka calls The Day “a newspaper that forms the state and the example to follow for the Ukrainian media.” Before the double anniversary we talked with VV’s leader about our country, art policy, revolutionists and classics, the style of “post-Soviet pamphlet” that Skrypka considers being the style of their creative work now and about what the audience will see and hear in the musicians’ anniversary program.

“ANY PHENOMENON HAS BOTH POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SIDES”

As we know, one of the points of VV’s anniversary concert is the performance of the Song and Dance Band of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Are you going to charge the military band with some of your songs?

“It is going to be the anniversary of our cooperation with the Song and Dance Band of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We played together for the first time during VV’s 10th anniversary party in 1996 when we just came back to Ukraine, later we had other concerts together. Finally, I even managed to entice several musicians to Le Grand Orchestra. During VV’s 25th anniversary concert we will play nearly two thirds of our old songs and a third of the new ones, the “golden mean,” so to say. Some of the songs will be played with the band, others without. The guest will also sing.”

So, will there be a ceremonial part, too?

“No, not a ceremonial one, but we will have greetings from Les Poderviansky, Sashko Harkusha and others, it will not be a ceremony, and everything has to be very spectacular and funny for the audience.”

Did you arrange the songs for the brass band? Is it difficult to arrange a rock song for a large number of musical instruments?

“The arrangement is a technical matter. It is difficult to compose a song. Once we were the first in Ukraine to play with an orchestra and today it has become a usual thing: all our colleagues play with symphony orchestras. However, this band is the best for us because of its spirit, power and courage. Our concert will be startling.”

You have once said in the interview that the Soviet music with its simple marching songs practically “mesmerized” the society and drove the art within the strict bounds. But you play with a brass band! Don’t you contradict yourself?

“The life is contradictory and paradoxical, any phenomenon has both positive and negative sides. Today some people feel nostalgic for USSR. However, for some reason certain substitutes that did not exist are being borrowed form that time: chanson, pops of 1980s, ugly fashion, etc, whereas a large and well-organized orchestra is not nostalgia for USSR but for order and statehood. If Ukraine were a powerful state it would have many military bands. But they do not exist that is why we collaborate with the post-Soviet band. Its managers change but people who write scores and play stay. Working with military musicians and organized people is very comfortable. I remember asking them in 1996: how much time do you need to go on stage and tune up? The conductor replied: 15 seconds. I thought it was impossible but they came and ‘switched on’ within 10 seconds!”

“THE STATE OF DISAPPOINTMENT IS NEEDED TO MOVE AHEAD”

How did you see Ukraine when you came back from France and how do you see it now?

“It is true that the history develops in a spiral. I think that 1996 was the precursor of 2004, the time of hope for positive changes. The Pre-sident Kuchma seemed to be a person who would carry out democratic reforms and overcome the communism. Though people had nothing in their pockets, they had a lot in their heads. We came from France to Ukraine believing that we could work and live here. That is why we came back... 2004 was a bright year! Maidan and people’s hopes for better… Today the mental state of the Ukrainians is absolutely opposite to the one of the time when we became independent, in 1996 or 2004. However, no matter what, Ukraine has really changed, we have received new opportunities, but people seem not to see them at all. Our lives have improved in all the aspects: financial, economical, cultural, technical and everyday. The demo-cratic changes have happened! However, the objective reality is disappointing since people see the surface, the shell of the situation. But the state of disappointment is needed to move ahead. Personally I do not have any disappointments; I am a ‘sick optimist.’ VV can rely on its achievements and has prospects. Today we have a much better position than previously: ‘pies in the sky’ than we did not have premises for rehearsals or money to film our videos.”

VV is changing, what should we expect form your band in the nearest future?

“Now we are in the classical period. Rock-n-roll is a classical style today. There is no sense in squeezing out protests or something ‘avant-garde,’ we just have to play high-quality rock, classical Ukrainian rock we have never had. We have created it and now we have to present it right: play well, record well, make a good presentation of it, etc. Formerly we had to make revolution and now the high-quality evolution is needed.”

“ONE CANNOT PRETEND TO BE A BOY IN ONE’S FORTIES”

Twenty-five years is a venerable age for a rock band. Does it influence the music you write now?

“Of course, one cannot pretend to be a boy in one’s forties. Rock is not a young music stream either. How can we write something revolutionary when everything has already been played and composed? Of course, we can sing hip-hop or urban rap and find something in it. However, I believe that we should just evolve now.”

The downpours have accompanied your ethnic festival Kraina Mrii over the last years. Doesn’t it give you the idea that you should probably make another format?

“The festival Kraina Mrii will stay outside and people just have to gradually get accustomed to the climate change. What can we do if we live in a nearly tropical country! For you to compare: in the Baltic or Scandinavian countries there are very many high-quality festivals and the audience are used to the bad weather and they even do not pay attention to this. The Ukrainians have to get used to it and, firstly, visit the concerts of domestic artists, and, secondly, invest in them. Yes, foreign musicians are good, trips abroad are good, too, but we will not be able to become a real nation unless we respect our culure. In any circumstances everything Ukrainian has to be a priority for us.”

Will Kraina Mrii remain a festival focused on the world music?

The world music is not a focus but the subject of the festival. However, even world music festivals can be very different. For some reason folk music is primarily considered to be meditative, the music ‘for reflection.’ I have my own vision of it: villages, festivals and dances. That is why the music at Kraina Mrii is mainly cheerful, the one for dances and not meditative at all. Since when 10,000 people listen to some ‘mantras’ it looks very strange. It would look irrelevant in the open air, on the Dnipro hills where we have always celebrated Midsummer.”

You mainly communicate with the bands playing the authentic Ukrainian folk music. What is your attitude to the strong folk bands as Virsky Ensemble and Veriovka Choir?

“I call them ‘the Soviet post-modern.’ If we consider their work as pop-art, it is very cool. If the USSR had not had such bands, we could have forgotten about the folk music that they have preserved. Let’s hope that in future these bands (there are many talented, hard-working and attentive people in them) will significantly change since they already have very serious competitors. Today the festival Kraina Mrii gives the tone to the folk and ethnic Ukrainian culture. When looking through the programs of other domestic forums I can see that they have changed for better. Our musicians trend to pre-sent our country abroad, show the Ukrainian baroque or the country dance music.”

“WE WILL HAVE NOTHING UNTIL WE START RESPECTING OURSELVES”

In your opinion, what is more important for Ukraine today: inviting foreign musicians to Ukraine or promoting our bands abroad more actively?

“Today Ukraine lacks cultural education that starts with the fact that people have to love, respect and know their culture. It has to be the priority. Then we can discuss the rest: invite somebody or go abroad. It is a naive idea: ‘We will go and show them our fantastic folk music and a miracle will happen and everybody will respect us.’ Or, for example: ‘Elton John will come and we will become cultured.’ We will have nothing until we start respecting ourselves. When we fell good at home we can bring Elton John for fun or not bring him or we can go to Switzerland or not go there.”

You have told that you work on the songs of Bohdan Vesolovsky who was one of the founders of the Ukrainian jazz. What stage is this work at now?

“A couple of years ago producer Oleksandr Lysokobylka approached me with this idea. He had been asked by a guy from Canada who wanted to record a CD with Vesolovsky’s songs. That guy went back to Canada and disappeared when the songs were partially arranged. This music was a great surprise for me. Of course, in Paris I sang the songs of the 1930s-1940s with the French but I did not know that the Ukrainian jazz existed at that time. When I heard it I realized that it was high-quality music. I decided to finish the project on my own and record a CD. I gathered a jazz-band and sang.”

How many bands do you have now?

“VV, Zabava jazz-band and Le Grand Orchestra. I also play as a DJ and have solo button accordion concerts.”

Vladyslav Troitsky said that you had shared a room in the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute hostel. Probably, it is no coincidence that both of you became kulturtragers?

“When I was entering KPI I passed the mathematics exam that was the first and the most complicated with the excellent grade. I was told that only two people at the course had this grade. But only a couple of years later when we already shared the room I accidentally found out that Troitsky was the second person to have the excellent grade in math! I chose that department and the major because the highest fair grade was needed there. I was so ambitious! Troitsky was the same so we resemble in this. Besides, we both came to Kyiv from the North. We always searched the aesthetic aspect of life, watched aesthetic movies, read good books and dressed accordingly. Later we attended a drama school and created a student theater called Vymia [Udder. – Ed.]. There were four founders and the creative ‘milk’ flowed through us. By the way, the then Komsomol leader corrected the name of our theater from Vymia to Vremia [Time. – Ed.] on the playbills…”

“WE NEED VECTORS”

If you suddenly became the Ukrainian minister of culture what would you do to change the situation of the art for better and achieve some results?

“I will never be a minister of culture. However, I can give some advice: they should first of all concern themselves with the governmental information policy. Today the Ukrainian media serve several people or other countries but not Ukraine. We have to create an ideal and head towards it with the whole information resources we have. And now we have the anarchy! The information space is contaminated with various viruses and harms the Ukrainian culture. There are countries that have a lot of information garbage and those with the information order. At least, the Austrian FM-stations mainly broadcast classical and folk music, the radio space is of high quality there. They say that in Japan the Japanese music sold in Japan makes 90 percent of the market. In Ukraine we have to fight for our cultural and information ecology and remember about our origins and history. People cannot live in the utter chaos and the atmosphere of hopelessness. That is why we need the guideline since we are moving somewhere. We need vectors and those vectors are able to unite the people. Owing to their guideline people understand their origin, who they are, who their friends are and what their inner world is. The Day is a very serious, interesting and useful guideline. This is a newspaper that really enriches our inner world.”