LOUNA – The Interview
By Johnny Price
The Russians may be invading the US again, but this time it’s definitely not a redux of the 1980s classic movie Red Dawn. Instead of fighting, we’re going to be head-banging because the band Louna is about to branch out from their homeland and they have their sights on taking over the metal world. What’s that? You say you are not familiar with this Russian juggernaut of metal? Well, we here at RockRevolt™Magazine are going to give you the cliff note version of why this band is hugely popular overseas and what to expect of them as they bring their flavor of metal to the US.
The band consists of lead vocalist Lousine Gevorkian, bassist Vitaly Demidenko, guitarists Rouben Kazariyan and Sergey Ponkratiev, rounded out by drummer Leonid “Pilot” Kinzbursky. They were formed in 2008 and shortly after releasing their first EP, the recognition and awards began to flow in. Their full-length album Let’s Get Louder came out in 2010 and the momentum kept growing. Now, their international debut CD Behind A Mask has been released and the entire world is now fair game. Pull up a chair and listen in as I sat down to talk with the band about their history and plans for their future.
Johnny/Rock Revolt: First off, just a little history on how the band was formed and came together. 
Lousine/Louna: Vit and I were in a band called Tracktor Bowling, and it’s a pretty famous band in Russia. We wanted to try some new songs and lyrical directions that wouldn’t have sat well with some of the other band members for various reasons. So we thought why not start a new band where we could try out other things? We got Rouben to join and he suggested Sergey, who he had been in bands with for years, and those two just clicked. You could tell they had been playing guitar together in the same band because they could read each other’s thoughts almost. A bit later we got Pilot and ever since then we’ve all been together.
Johnny/RR: You have received some pretty big awards in the short time that you have been together; five years if I have my numbers right including the 2009 Best New Artist RAMP, 2011 Rock Song of the Year Nashe Award. That must be an amazing feeling to receive those so early in your career.
Vitaly/Louna: Well, we really only put out our first album in 2010, but before that we had put out some internet EPs and singles. I’m still unable to really believe how quickly we’ve shot up like a rocket to the top of the rock scene in our country. We’ve been playing on the main stage of festivals ever since we released our first CD alongside bands that have been around for decades. It’s hard to imagine how it happened so quickly because we only ever got radio airplay on one station, and the media doesn’t do anything to support young, modern rock bands here. When we first started out we were playing in underground clubs for 30 of our friends, and now three years later really we’re playing at and selling out some of the biggest rock venues in Russia. Nothing I have done to try to understand it has helped me figure out what it is exactly that we did that reacted so well so quickly.
Johnny/RR: Lou, you received the Female Vocalist of the Year Nashe Award for 2012. Can you share your thoughts on winning that award?
Lousine/Louna: It feels like all the love of our fans just got symbolized in one moment in time. The Nashe award is basically the closest thing we have to your Grammy or American Music Award, but it’s a bit different because it depends on the votes of fans all across the country. There’s no back room panel of experts or committees getting paid off. We never had a big record label promoting us, or even a small record label really promoting us here in Russia. So there’s no other explanation that it was just the support of our fans. It’s not really an award for me but for all of us in the band, and even for our fans that show their support to us in every city we travel to no matter how far away from Moscow. There are cities in our country that are farther away from Moscow than twice the distance east to west of the US, and we go there and people show up and we feel like we’ve known them all our lives, and that they know us. It’s really a special feeling that I don’t think I can ever really explain perfectly.
Johnny/RR: I am sure you know how the music scene is here in the US, but can you give our readers some insight into what it’s like being a rock band in Russia. What’s the music scene like there?
Rouben/Louna: What we know about the music scene in America is only from what we can see on television and on the internet. We’ve played with a lot of American bands on festivals like Korn, The Offspring and opened for Billy Talent. Ok, they’re Canadian, but it’s almost the same thing right? Forgive me if I’ve said something anybody has issue with. We’ve never been to the US, but we’re really excited about the idea of getting to show American audiences what we have to say. We’re from a really huge and unique culture and there’s no Russian band that has any influence on American music, but your bands have an influence on us. We think it’s time that at least in some small way that we can hopefully change that. But, the music scene here is not what you’d expect at all. The only artists here that get any respect or attention from the media are old Soviet style musicians who sing folk music about drinking and everything is rainbows and sunshine with our younger pop artists. Any real rock music is completely pushed underground here. There are good bands here for sure, but you’ll never hear about them. Even if you did, they almost all sing in Russian and Americans don’t listen to music in any other language.
Johnny/RR: When things happen with bands like Pussy Riot, which has been featured prominently on US television, do you feel limited with subject matter than you can touch upon on in your songs?
Lousine/Louna: Of course we worry about censorship, but it doesn’t change anything that we say in our music.
We sing about what we see around us that makes us want to speak out or even scream. Last year we played at a government protest rally in Moscow where over 100,000 people were in attendance. Rock music has always been the music of protest and rebellion against the system. So many musicians now, especially in our country, just close their eyes and pretend that the world is great and sing about love and relationships and how the world is perfect. Maybe they do it because it’s easier to just not think about the problems we all can see. It’s not real and it’s not from the heart. We always make music that matters to us and we all believe that when you make music from the heart that you will always make something real that people can understand with their heart.
Johnny/RR: Behind a Mask is a compilation of ten songs from your first two albums. If I have my facts correct, you relied on Travis Leake to choose those songs. Did you have any input? Also, how tough of a process was translating those songs to English?
Lousine/Louna: Yes, he did all the really tough work. Russian and English are really very different languages. Of course we discussed several different songs, and here’s something that we’ve never told anybody before, but there are some other songs that lyrics exist for that we decided not to put on our first English CD. Mostly we relied on Travis to suggest songs of ours that he thought would be acceptable to western listeners, and I’m really happy with the way the track-list and the final songs turned out. How tough it was you’d have to ask him, but I know that the 10 songs we have on our CD started being written about the time we released our first CD in 2010.
Rouben/Louna: You really can’t call what Travis did translations. That’s just silly if you think about it. The songs we have sound like they were written in English for the first time in English, and they make sense on their own. The really amazing part is that they have the same sense, and sometimes the exact same sense in both languages. The vowels rhyme in the same place, the melody is the same, and the place where you do long notes is the same, sometimes exactly the same. It’s really strange, but I have to say I have no idea how he did this job. For me, some of the songs on Behind a Mask I like even better in English than I do in Russian, especially “Business.”
Johnny/RR: You mentioned earlier that you had yet to play a live date here in the US. Are there any plans to change that in the near future?
Vitaly/Louna: It’s priority#1 for us. None of us have ever been to the US or played outside Russia or the Russian world, so we know that we’ve got a lot of work to do to get there. We really hope that people will respond well to our CD and that will get the attention of the promoters and agents that decide who gets to play for people. Even if we had a thousand people in every city swear to go our shows it wouldn’t matter if an organizer doesn’t think so. They really are the ones in control of the music business and they know it. All we can say to them is, “Look at our track record and look at what we’ve done here with nobody promoting us. We’ll put on good shows and people always comment about how much energy we have.”
Rouben/Louna: You really have to experience Louna live. Maybe it’s bad to say, I don’t know, but I have to be honest and say that where we really shine is in our live performances.
Johnny/RR: No, that’s not bad to say at all! Being able to bring an album to the stage live, and be known for great 
live performances is excellent. Your two singles “Mama” and “Business” are receiving airplay here in the US and are doing well on iTunes and starting to get some mainstream radio spin. What’s your feedback so far from the US audience who may be experiencing your music for the first time?
Lousine/Louna: It was really cool when we found out that our song “Mama” was on WRAT in New Jersey for seven consecutive days in some kind of song contest they have there against other bands. Our manager called us on tour to tell us that we were up against Dave Grohl and John Fogerty on our first day and he was really mad. He was almost screaming, and then about 30 minutes later he called back to say we had won by almost two to one. After that, we just couldn’t believe it when people who had never heard about us before were calling and voting for us against really good bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Skillet, and a lot of other bands with lots of fans. We have had people on our Facebook talking about how they have heard “Business” on the radio and asked us to come please play it for them, and we’re just here ready to come there. We want people to feel the sense of our lyrics first, and then hear the music. It’s the most important thing for us that people understand the meaning of our music.
Johnny/RR: I really like the cover art for “Behind a Mask.” Where did that artwork come from?
Rouben/Louna: We have a friend here in Moscow who designs our concert t-shirts and has a clothing line called Hate, and Vova is the designer who comes up with our illustrations. Vit had a lot of input, as did everybody in the project when we were talking about how to make the cover art.
Lousine/Louna: The name of the album itself came from a suggestion that Travis had about a line from our song “The End of Peace.” It’s a long tradition from our very first single that our fans will wear masks to our show, and it’s been a constant element in our videos. So when we heard about this idea we thought it was appropriate and we ran with it.
Johnny/RR: As a band, what do you think you have to offer to fans of rock music here in the US that’s going to make you stand out?
Vitaly/Louna: We are lucky and have the best rock singer in Russia as the face and the voice of our band. We have songs with meaning, and we aren’t trying to pretend to be anything that we’re not.
Rouben/Louna: I’ve seen a question similar to this on a lot of our interviews, and I have to say that my favorite 
answer has always been this: How many Russian bands do you know in America right now or anytime in the last 25 years or so?
Lousine/Louna: No “Moscow Calling” please. We don’t have Russian electric folk guitars, Soviet flags, dancing bears or fake lesbians in our band. We’re just a real rock band and we play music from our heart with meaning.
Johnny/RR: Who are your musical influences?
Lousine/Louna: We’re influenced by life and not by other musicians.
Johnny/RR: Music videos here in the US don’t seem to have the budget that they used to. In the 80s and 90s, they were these big, elaborate productions. Now, they have scaled back on the budgets quite a bit. I read that the video for “Business” was one of the most expensive and elaborate productions in Russian music history. What was your vision and goal going into making that video?
Vitaly/Louna: We had a lot of debate about that. We were backstage at Billy Talent before we went on and had a big discussion about what should be our video, and should we even focus on our song “Business.”
Rouben/Louna: The question you asked is pretty much how we came to the decision to do it. Nobody is doing it. MTV stopped playing videos a long time ago for the most part and it stopped being a priority for bands and labels. But what if we make something really different and something that gets people’s attention. So we picked our most controversial, and I think one of our best songs lyrically, and we just went all out. When people see and hear this they are going to have an opinion, that’s all I think I can say at this point.
Watch “Business”
[embedplusvideo height=”325″ width=”450″ standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/HVTrlK9Bo38?fs=1&hd=1″ vars=”ytid=HVTrlK9Bo38&width=450&height=325&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=1&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=” id=”ep1941″ /]
Johnny/RR: What’s next for the band? Do you have plans for a new studio album?
Vitaly/Louna: We’re always writing new music and coming up with new songs. We’re working on our third Russian album now and it should be ready by the end of the year. We really hope that our English project is even a little bit as successful as our Russian project so we can put out more English CDs as well.
Johnny/RR: Other than playing your music in front of fans here in the US, what are you looking forward to the most about visiting the US?
Rouben/Louna: It’s always amazing to me when we go somewhere new. Even a small town in Russia has something interesting for me. To think about touring in someplace as far away and famous as the US is really something I can’t even predict how I’d feel about.
Johnny/RR: What are a few fun facts about Louna that you can share with your US fans? Hobbies, musical guilty pleasures, what you do in your down time?
Lousine/Louna: I collect all kinds of things with skulls on them, dolls, pajamas, cups; even my telephone at home is a skull. And, I really love coffee.
Rouben/Louna: When I’m not touring I am a Staff Researcher in the Korean Department at a big university in Moscow. If I wasn’t in Louna I would be working full-time in scientific pursuits. I have a PhD in Political Science and I speak Korean. I have spent a lot of years in Korea when I was a child and since then.
Johnny/RR: Lastly, can you close out the interview with a message to all of your fans?
Lousine/Louna: Stay true. Listen to true music – rock music!
CONNECT WITH LOUNA HERE ON:
FACEBOOK | TWITTER | WEBSITE | YOUTUBE
