Over the past few years Tanok na Maidani Kongo has been ranking among Ukraine’s top ten rock bands. The team works a lot and does some experimenting. After all, Fahot and Fozzey (Oleh Mykhailiuta and Oleksandr Sydorenko in life) have grown mature, which could not but influence their music and texts. (Fahot is mostly responsible for the music, and Fozzey – for the lyrics.) When asked who the leader is, Fahot keeps silent, and Fozzey nods in his direction. Of course, they are different. That is why they complete each other. And each one’s projects (be it Fahot’s giving voice to Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribean or taking part in commercial videos for famous brands, or Fozzey’s solo MetaMoreFozzey, and his books They Ate the Water from the Tap and WinterSport) sparkle even more interest.
Fahot and Fozzey have recently been guests of Den/The Day.
Fahot: “Tanok na Maidani Kongo to some extent reflects what is going on with us. Maybe it would have been strange if at the age of thirty something we played the same music as we played at the age of 25. So, it is natural that as the band matured, its audience has become more diversified. By the way, it includes a lot of youth, like before.”
Fozzey: “Paul McCartney was once asked, ‘Is your audience also about 60 years old now?’ And he replied: ‘My audience does not change. Those are the same girls of 15. It’s just they look more adult today.’”
Incidentally, your cooperation with the Georgian band Mgzavrebi is very interesting. How did it start?
Fozzey: “We have sung in duo a record number of times: Nina Matviienko, Sofia Rotaru, Mikhei, VIA Gra. This is the 21st one. We are going to release a CD. It is called Double Trouble. It will be released soon.”
Fahot: “A friend of us was the first to get acquainted with Mgzavrebi. She insisted that we recorded a song jointly with them. She persuaded us for almost all last year. After all, the Georgians sent several of their compositions. As a result, on New Year’s Day I went to Georgia. The guys met me in the airport and brought me to a restaurant. This is traditional Georgian hospitality. Chacha, shashlick, khinkali, khachapuri… We decided everything. (Laughing.) In a while Gigi [the band’s front man. – Ed.] sent us ‘Qari Qris.’”
Fozzey: “Late in March the Georgians had a concert in Kyiv, and the song premiered there. Later we shot a video. Then they came here to sing it in Ukrainian. The next day we all went to Tbilisi to Mgzavrebi’s performance. In a word, I see Gigi more often than many other friends of mine. Our cooperation was supplemented with his passionate love story with a Ukrainian girl, so he is a frequent guest in Ukraine.”
Was it hard to work with legendary Nani Bregvadze, featured in your video?
Fozzey: “Incidentally, we shot the video at her place. I was afraid. I said that I would not go and stay outside.
“Nani Bregvadze… She has many things in her genes. It is hard to explain my feelings during our communication. Maybe I understood: this is nobility.
“We were sitting, and the singer showed us her rarities. For example, a carpet that belonged once to the Romanovs. And I was sitting nearby, a guy from the Moscow market, Kharkiv.
“And when Vakhtang Kikabidze, after reading my first book, wanted to get acquainted with me, I did not believe it. I thought it was someone’s joke. When we met, I presented him with my second book and told him about our Ukrainian-Georgian project. Then he invited me to unveiling of the monument to the heroes of the film Mimino, but the situation turned out so that I had to come to Tbilisi a week before the event and then again – a week after that.”
Everyone is talking about changes that took place in Georgia. What do your Georgian colleagues tell you about the reforms?
Fahot: “Apparently, people there have to live for quite a while in order to feel the changes. However, even now it is clear that Saakashvili has managed to destroy the corruption in everyday life. Today, for example, to get a foreign passport, you don’t have, after gathering all needed and not necessary certificates, to stand in lines or pay bribes not to stand in those. When the time expires, you send it to a corresponding department, and a week later you receive a new one. The driver’s license, like in other civilized countries, is received when you leave the registration office. If you don’t have the money for the number you like, you simply reserve it. You communicate with the notary public on Skype. So everything is created for the people. I envy Georgians for being capable of implementing the reforms, and nobody is even trying to do so in our country.
“The reason is that in the Soviet time the Georgians were trying to remain themselves, not to become a Soviet people.”
Fozzey: “When I am asked to wish something at the end of an interview, I say: Eradicate the Soviet Ukraine from your minds.”
They say that the Georgian show business, compared to ours, is in the stage of an embryo, so to say. With folklore prevailing, it hardly includes rock bands. Is this why you promote Mgzavrebi here?
Fahot: “In Georgia, the state organizes 80 percent of concerts. So, it selects the artists to work with. Mgzavrebi is among these artists. Apparently, it is interesting for us to perform there. But this will hardly be a commercial activity. Rather it will be more profitable for Georgian colleagues to perform in Ukraine.”
This year is marked by anniversaries: Vopli Vidopliasova is 25, Tartak is 15, S.K.A.I. is 10. TNMK came to greet both VV and S.K.A.I. Was it out of the feeling of unity or a polite gesture?
Fozzey: “I have decided to write an article that we should have a Ukrainian music trade union, which would protect our interests. It has been clear to everyone for a long time that situation in our show business is one of the worst in the world, as we have a neighbor which considers our music market as its own.”
Fahot: “We would not congratulate a band that is not close to us by spirit. Besides, whatever you put it, VV is a legend.”
Fozzey: “I can say that the VV song ‘Spring’ broke through the format of Ukrainian mass media. Previously this format included only variety performance, and some pop music only started to appear.”
Fahot: “We attended the anniversary concert of Vopli Vidpoliasova to honor them, and S.K.A.I.’s – to support.”
Fozzey: “The more we have our bands, the less we have theirs.”
The tribute concert to Serhii Kuzminsky, the memorable board to Ihor Pelykh was established at the cost of musicians. Please name other examples of unions or mutual help.
Fahot: “I am going to congratulate Natalka Hordiienko, the winner of the Voice of the Country Show, who is signing a contract with the Russian branch of Universal. She is leaving Fozzey hostage. (Laughing.) I did everythin possible to support her: I needed a back vocalist at the time. She was going through hard times. She even wanted to quit music and go to work as an office manager.”
Fozzey, you said once that a person can be brought out of Kharkiv, but Kharkiv cannot be brought out of a person. What are specific Kharkiv things? How do they show themselves?
Fozzey: “This is a paraphrase. You cannot mix Odesa residents with anyone else. It has also become true of Donetsk residents. And Kharkivites. Above all, this is the slang. We call a hanger ‘trempel.’ By the way, they say there is a dictionary of Kharkiv words published in Israel.
“I like to go to Kharkiv by train. Then get on a subway train. I smile at every station: I was arrested there, we had rehearsals here, then I was a seller at the Moscow Market.
“And it is especially cool to come to your native city with a concert.”
Do you perform in clubs most of the time? Or do they invite you to the City Day, Independence Day, and New Year’s Day. Last year, on August 24, when I turned on TV, I did not understand at first from where they were broadcasting the live concert: it featured Zhanna Friske, Ivanushki International. As it turned out, the broadcasting was from Kharkiv.
“You know that the one who pays orders the music. Actually, those who pay like low-quality Russian pop music. We had a funny incident. We performed on the eve of the City Day on the square, around 15,000 buffs of alternative music came there. Then the mayor took the floor and began to invite to the concert which was supposed to take place next day and announced Russian pop musicians. After all he left the stage and I asked: Is anyone present against Ukrainian music? Everyone replied in unison: No! Kharkiv is a city of students. And students are always in the front line.”
It seems to me that national awareness came to you and Fahot gradually?
Fozzey: “In 1998, when Ihor Pelykh brought TNMK to the festival Nivroku in Ternopil (that was our first full-fledged performance in western Ukraine). I remember that Yurko Zeleny called us banderivtsi.ru [which means banderites from the Russian-language Ukraine. – Ed.].
“Chervona Ruta was the fact that had an impact on our national awareness. We would hardly come ourselves to this, as we come from Russian-language families and Russian-language Kharkiv.”
Fozzey, what would you wish to yourself for New Year?
Fozzey: “That at least half of my plans came true. Because 25 percent, as it has been this year is too little. I want us to perform new songs in every concert. I plan to finish my third book in winter and write new songs to a TNMK album, and release my third solo album.”
What would you wish to our country?
Fozzey: “I would like to make a cutting like in the film A Man from the Boulevard des Capuchines, and delete about 20 years: from the Soviet Union to a self-sufficient country. But we can’t choose the time. Our lot is to live in this time, so we should live. Who said it would be easy?”
