“I could be rich person”

-Not all, who interests music in youth, become professionals. What features of character should the person have to become the professional composer?
-I think, that in music and in art, in general, the talent is the key, because some things can’t be achieved by hard work or long waiting. It needs to join the talent, the patience and the diligence – these very things give the musician a chance to realize them self. Of course, more it needs self confidence and will to bear rumors, talks, humiliation in this busyness. Art is very difficult labor, that is why the artists are special people, consisting of many good, talented, bright persons, but at the same time there is lots of envy and malice. You should, at least, try not to become dirty and keep the fidelity to your ideals, because the whole life is the system of compromises. You need to be flexible and not to break.

-Did you choose the music as the busyness of your life from the very beginning?
-My father is the musician, I was taught music since the age of five, some circumstances, for example, the absolute pitch, predetermined my life.

-Music is the only way to earn a life or you can do something else?
-Yes, I can’t do anything else. There are other people say the same about them self, but still they sell cars, work in real estate, occupy other busyness in parallel with music. I occupy only music, nothing else, this is the only busyness, the only profession, that gives me the means of existence.

-The is the writing of the song a inspiration form above or a wish of the composer?
-There are two approaches. Sometimes, people come and say, that they need a song tomorrow, for example the hymn of some radio station or football team, than I have to sit down and make it up. Then everything depends on your professional skills, on the ability to concentrate, to make the demanded thing, which the customer would like. That way, the craft defines the process: sit and make. And there is the musical necessity to express, when something gathers in you and form the flow, which shall bring sounds.

-You noticed that the music is the busyness. Does it become more civilized in our country?
-The busyness is not civilized in this country. Author are robbed dishonestly, the royalties supported by laws don’t come. On TV they try to assure us they fight with pirates goes full throttle, they show some instance actions – smashing of CDs by rollers, but every time the manufactures of the pirates are located somehow on the military areas under the control of well known services. In the end, Gorbushka is located in the center of Moscow, and 70% of media there is illegal. I can’t allege, who is connected to that busyness, but the chain of corruption goes far to the top. It is possible to take money from the musicians, to sell the songs to them, but that isn’t very good trick. The better thing, when small author royalties go from every concert and radio/TV broadcasting. That share is small, but if the song is in hot rotation, when all radio stations of Russia play it, that the royalties become pretty big sums of money, you can live on.

-How do you earn your life then?
-I earn by royalties, which come from official disks releases, from TV and radio, form the concerts of the artists, when they perform my songs. Of course, it is impossible to follow all concerts, rotations in media, and the gathering of royalties is bad. In the case of real normal royalties, I would be much more rich than today.

-Do you write to order?
-Yes, I won’t hide it, that is my profession. But that doesn’t mean the orders are always paid by money, sometimes people just ask, sometimes I write on other motives, for friends…

-What is the average price of a song in Russian show-busyness?
-The song price can start from 0 and come to – I heard – 50 thousand dollars. But I think that those person was just crazy or so rich that it was all the same for him.

-How do you work with lyrics authors?
-Unlike many composers, who made up the music at first, and then give it to poets, I maybe a bit more conservative – I start from the lyrics, because I think there is some point in it. Sometimes, I just read the text and understand what the music should be like. Concerning busyness relations, it depends on the status of the person you work with. There are masters – Ylia Reznik, Michael Tanich – and it is natural, that their share in the fee is big, but that is not big money, not astronomical figures, I can assure you.

-Do you offer your songs to the performers?
-Very seldom. I don’t want to impose my songs. If somebody calls me and asks about the songs I say: “Come to listen, maybe there is something”, because I don’t write a lot, I composed only 35 songs last year. The producer work takes a lot of my time, I handle all musical work with Boris Moiseev, “Prime Ministr” and with five projects, which come out from “People’s Artist” project.

-How do you show the songs to the potential customer?
-Usually I record the songs my self, and sing my self too, except for some cases. For example, when dealing with the duets, I call the guys, fortunately, I have lots talented guys, they sing it, make me a demo that the customers understand what it would be like, because I can’t alone sing for male-baritone and female-soprano.

-Is the performer selection is important?
-Yes, of course, the singer defines the 80% of the success: he pass the song through his soul and it results in other story. Very few songs are the hits from the very beginning that it is not important who will perform it.

-Nowadays, many composers take the producer tasks, what are the positive and the negative sides of such joining, on your opinion?
- The positive thing is that the composer can lead his work till the logical end, not only composing the song but also controlling the whole process – arrangement, publishing, release. In our company FBI Music my and Eugeny Fridland’s spheres of activity are separated. I mostly occupy the musical part, he – the part connected to the promotion activity, he takes the public part of the work, and I take the underwater part of the iceberg. In some cases of joining the is a danger, especially when the creative potential is low. The thing I will say you can put o the collectives you know well. Very bright start, then after a while the production becomes pale. It seams to the person that he can do everything by him self, but in reality he starts to repeat him self. The composer and the producer combined in one man should be very strong personality, mobile, capable to accept new waves, capable to specialize, to modulate the new processes. There only few of such people at us.

-Is it only the musical support of the projects called by you take your time?
-Those projects, in general, demands permanent care, like flowers, which should be watered, cleaned and serviced. Of course, there are some direct professional tasks: to organize the records, the work in studio, the arrangement, the repertoire, but there is other work. The working with young artists demands lots of efforts, because they have less experience. Sometimes, they are disposal to unjustified delights, fr example, the successful performance can turn them to full euphoria. Or, on contrary, long without the concerts, invitations and shootings on TV cause the depression. Thus my work is connected to psychology. I have rich experience and I try to cool them down when they galvanize too much, and support them when feel bad.

-Do you have the time of downtime, when you just can’t write?
-Yes. But the work compensate it, the fuss around doesn’t allow to fall into deep depression, because something happens all the time and everybody have to work. Finally, I am a producer ,in the end, and I work with other authors, if it doesn’t come to me, I bring the song from other author. There very good composers in our company( Slava Bodolika from “Prime Ministr”, for example), who can help or replace in some cases. In general, I think that it is stupid to force the coming of new names, new talents. And I’m not capable to write so many song as needed, because the annual repertoire of our company is more than 100 songs, and there is also the project “People’s Artist”, where 150 arrangements are needed.

-Can you tell your main achievements?
-The main is the “Dialog” band, which leader I was. Its presence on the sky of national rock bands, acted as the starting point for numerous young artists at that time. I read somewhere in the interview, that Max Fadeev noticed, that after his visit to our concert on Kurgan affected his choice of the profession and showed that it was possible to write such music. I won’t say it was global, but still we influenced on some amount of musicians including “Mumiy Troll”, Butusov, “Agata Kristy”. I think, those achievements with “Dialog” were put on my account and the attitude to me is different now, because I have another story. I came form different music and aesthetic. And the main achievements are the popular hits, telling about the luck of the composer, hit-maker. Speaking about certain songs, than it is “Blue moon” for Boris Moiseev, “Leli-leli” for Jasmin, “Kilimangaro” and “Radio, baby” for Kirkorov, “Peterburg-Leningrad” for the duet of Moiseev and Gurchenko, “Northern girl” and “Simple arithmetics” for the band “Prime Ministr”. It is very important for the author that his songs bring success for the performer.

-You are recognized hit-maker, you found your place in life. Do you have anything to say to our readers, who search for their places under the sun?
-Sometimes it is hard to stop and made some inner inventory, which is good to do. I had such period too, when the “Dialog” band ended. I had to result and understand the reasons, of which it ended its existence, to understand the reasons in general, according to which I needed to change something in my life, otherwise I could stay an outsider forever. It needs to make the breaks. Sometimes, people look for job so rapidly, that they don’t even understand what they are searching, so to say, the search becomes the aim. It needs to stop and think, maybe you look for the wrong thing. Because the work affects much on the person’s life, even the health, whether the man go to work in good mood or he goes there as to the jail. If you didn’t understand at some moment, what did you want, than you could be unhappy person all rest life, occupy somebody’s else busyness and make the work bad, feeling your self waning.

“Vacancy” #16(172), Oleg Rudakov