Ilya Lagutenko

Tigers’ influence on Russian rockapops

Russia Today: Why have you decided to support the organisation? Maybe it has something to do with your Far East origins?

Ilya Lagutenko: I guess in the Russian music world I'm closer to the Far East than anyone else. I grew up in Vladivostok, the band Mumiy Troll was created there. The tiger is even featured in the city's emblem. So I think when I was chosen as a patron for the charity fund, the geography had played its role too. It seems like people from the state institutions in the regions have no time for tigers at all, they're busy dividing power, so I thought - if not me, then who will do it?!

RT: Did you dream of becoming a famous musician when a child?

I.L.: When I was a teenager I couldn't even imagine such a thing would ever happen to me for real. I was just playing a game, pretending to be a rock musician. In the Soviet times we knew almost nothing about the rock world, there was no internet, no magazines. So we were trying to build our own world, the music world of our dreams, which we didn't believe would become real.

We thought it would all end in those sheets of paper, on which I with my friends wrote lyrics for songs, trying to imitate the rock bands, whose music we barely heard, but only knew they existed somewhere. As it turned out - this world of our childish fantasies was fated to become a reality decades later. But times have changed, the country we live in has changed - and I'm very happy with what it is like now.

RT: But back in the 1970s and early 1980s where did you get those recordings from?

I.L.: There was the black market, so called ‘barakholka’. People sold items that they had somehow got from abroad. Vladivostok is a port city, and many sailors were in that kind of trade, as they had a chance to travel to Japan and Singapore a lot. And it was very expensive to get a record! It cost about 70 or 80 roubles for a copy. My scholarship at the university was 40 roubles, and I could afford to travel to Moscow on a holiday for that money!

RT: You define your music style as rockapops. How did you come up with such a word? Did you invent it?

I.L.: I have been always wondering: who are the people who first said boogie-woogie or rock-n-roll? I was a bit jealous of them, as they've given a name to a music style, which now lives its own life. And once on tour in Japan some Japanese musicians were performing on stage with us. We asked our interpreter what kind of music they were playing. And he said: "Well it's difficult to define - not really rock, and not really pop, a kind of rockapops, you know". I thought at that moment: “Wow! what a great word!”

It really eliminates distinctions between the genres, and it gave us an opportunity to stop the critics' debates about Mumiy Troll's music. At the beginning it was like a joke, but now I tell all my foreign friends that we play rockapops! I think it sounds very Russian - rockapops!

RT: Mumiy Troll tours America, Europe and across Asia. Which audience is closer to you?

I.L.: Of course our main audience is in Russia and in the former Soviet Union's republics, where people understand the Russian language. Because we sing in Russian and lyrics are very important in our songs.

RT: Most of the Russian singers who perform outside the country tend to record their songs in English. Do you perform in Russian?

I.L.: English for sure is the international language in the world of music. The audience doesn't want to be fooled, people want to be able to understand what a musician is singing about. I should say that thanks to Mumiy Troll songs, there are more and more people who want to learn Russian. We receive a lot of feedback from many countries saying that. In one of the universities in Japan there is a faculty of the Russian language, where students learn by singing our songs. We are very happy about that, as of course I'd like everyone in the world to listen to my songs in the original language.

RT: What musicians would you like to perform on one stage with?

I.L.: When I was a teenager I had varied music in my record library - from Pink Floyd, Motorhead, and Iron Maiden to Blondie and Duran Duran. It's amazing - years have passed, and with some of the musicians I was a fan of I've had a chance to perform together. I've recorded some Russian romances with Marc Almond for his solo album, worked on a song with Brett Anderson from Suede and recorded some of Mumiy Troll's songs with the Beijing opera!

RT: Many say the band's popularity has a lot to do with your personality, so to say a special Ilya Lagutenko charisma. You agree?

I.L.: If you are really good at something, why not use it? During my life I've realised there are many things that I just don't have a talent for, so there is no use in trying to do them. Like there was a time when I was trying to sell Greek lentil in Russia - it didn't work. Or when I was studying Chinese, I took part in some investment projects in Britain, Russia and China - they didn't work either. So when I understood that people really like my music and the way Mumiy Troll performs, I've decided to make it my life affair.

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