Last summer Esthetic Education, the most popular among non-format and most non-format among the country’s popular music bands, announced that it was taking a break in its activity for an unspecified period of time and that the members of the band were going to work on their solo projects. In September 2009, at the Moloko Music Fest (which was, by the way, also organized by Esthetic Education), we had an opportunity to see two such projects: Pianoboy by the keyboard player Dmytro Shurov and piss&laugh (an homophone of the hippy formula “peace and love”), created by the three musicians from Esthetic Education: bassist Yurii Khustochka, bass guitarist Illia Halushko, and drummer Andrii Nadolsky.
Khustochka took part in the recording of two albums, Supersymetria by Okean Elzy and Werewolf by Esthetic Education, which I personally regard as the best ones in Ukrainian mainstream of the 2000s. He has also become actively engaged as a producer – he was a co-organizer of both Moloko music fests and took part in the recording of some 10 disks released under the aegis of Esthetic Music.
I recently had a conversation with Yurii, and we covered the range of topics from the mythical dissolution of the band Esthetic Education to his solo project piss&laugh to the specific features of organizing festivals in Ukraine.
In August 2009, Esthetic Education announced that it was taking an“artistic vacation.” At what stage is this vacation now?
“Yes, I remember, there was this phrasing. We are indeed on a vacation, which is more artistic for some of us and less so for others. Making no agreements, we still agreed to live our own lives for a while and get together when we want to. At the moment, we are at a stage when this desire starts to emerge. But, anyway, this won’t happen until spring.”
I have heard that when the band members left for solo projects, Esthetic Education had enough songs for another album. What happened to this material?
“Indeed, we had composed many songs, but none of them was recorded, as it would basically take much time to record them in our own studio. Another thing is that probably we won’t return to the larger part of this material. If we felt certain about it, we would release an album, no doubt. For example, ‘Space Song,’ was one of the songs we felt certain about and have recently publicized a video with it. It is very likely to be included in our new album.”
It is the first time that you playing the role of the frontman in the group piss&laugh, at least formally. How do you feel in this role?
“Honestly, I don’t feel as being the leader of the band. I am more interested in the connections between the members of the band, such as pairs, triangles, and squares. The bands I listen to also don’t have a strong leader or depend on one performer. And, by the way, in Esthetic Education we, too, have parity relations – a thing we did not have in Okean Elzy. And we are making the project piss&laugh absolutely for pleasure. You must understand that this kind of music is not so popular in our country. Besides, the project has not yet developed into a full-fledged band; we don’t even know how to play this music in concerts.”
Don’t you intend to release an album based in this project or give concerts?
“Actually, we do plan to give some. Moreover, the album’s production process is underway. We have posted five of our compositions on MySpace (though, I have remade two of them), and we also have nearly a dozen preliminary recordings. But there is no need for haste whatsoever with our music.
“Perhaps, we will play for six months more and then see who will join us and how we will change. We have an idea to invite many vocalists, but we have been too busy to do this, so we confined ourselves only to Kasha Saltsova. In the group I play whatever gets in my hands, because we have not yet divided the parts: I play the bass guitar, keyboard instruments, and I also take up the computer arrangement.”
In the summer we had an unpleasant incident when the festival Svirzh was nearly spoiled. What problems did you face while organizing the Moloko Music Fest?
“It was much simpler to organize than Svirzh: first, we did not have such a big scale; second, we acted jointly with Gogol Fest. The mistake with Svirzh was that venturing into such a large-scale project, they did not take into account the need for having enough money to cover potential failures. For it should be kept in mind that we live in Ukraine, a country that is poorly developed in terms of show business.
“I think that the main problem of the festival movement in Ukraine and the organization of concerts is that the Ukrainian audience is simply not eager to buy tickets. Perhaps they don’t think that it’s very bad to spend money on a ticket, but they will more eagerly spend it on a night club and drinks. And one can get into a concert through some connections. There is a mistaken opinion that music should be free of charge. Unless people stop thinking this way, we will not have any music or any serious movement.
“This problem does not pertain to the music market only. When I was organizing the first photo biennial, we also faced with the fact that people mostly don’t regard photography as a kind of art; they think that if everyone has a photo camera, everyone can go to Khreshchatyk, take a picture of some pigeons as if to say: Why are my photos worse than those exhibited?”
Is the program of the Moloko Music Fest formed according to the preferences of the band members?
“Yes, nobody is imposing anything on us. We used to receive some proposals of a barter kind: let some band play at your festival, and we will do something in exchange. But we did not even consider them. I think that the third Moloko Music Fest will take place before autumn. I won’t tell you today who we are going to invite, but in my opinion this festival will be more interesting than the previous ones.”
Esthetic Education once realized an interesting project, Artefact, which was dedicated to the fan art genre. This genre is marginal in our country, and hardly anyone works with it. Will it be continued?
“Yes, I guess it will acquire a certain shape. After Artefact we were going to publish a book with the pictures we had gathered; perhaps, we will succeed in doing so. In general, we are planning to make a DVD featuring the activity of our band at various stages. And the video recording of the concert we gave within the framework of Artefact will surely be included there, together with all the pictures drawn by our admirers.”
Is the opinion of the music critic of any relevance to you? Do you read reviews of your albums?
“I read some. Previously they used to mean something to me; now they don’t. I understand that all of us like different music, and if, for example, a person listens to hard rock, s/he will hardly like Esthetic Education. By the way, nobody can claim to be objective. Of course, there are people whose authoritative opinion I respect, and I would not like to hear some bad response from them about our work. But in general we are woven of different things, which makes the world colorful. Without bad music there wouldn’t be any good music.”
