Sinoptik: We can't wait to see your beautiful country again. (Interviu)
22 Iulie 2016 de Andreea Gherfi
Trioul ucrainean Sinoptik a devenit unul dintre cele mai efervescente proiecte muzicale ale momentului, statut confirmat anul acesta prin castigarea celui mai mare premiu de la GBOB 2016 World Contest. Sinoptik isi descriu compozitiile ca fiind "Three generations of rockn'roll in one shot. The best mix of the '60s and 2000s rock. Unpredictable fusion-absorption of psychedelic rock, old-school rock and digital stoner.", pe scurt, o nebunie de sunetele si versuri care deschid un portal catre o alta dimensiune a universului.
Metalhead: Let's start with something easy: can you tell our readers how your story began?
Sinoptik: We were born in the 80s, and since then, all our lives we are trying to create new and exciting things. For the last few years we are doing this together with some other psychos like us. All together we call this SINOPTIK. This project emerged in in the 2011, but only at the end of the 2013 we started to seriously work on it, and the current band members gathered at that time too. Since then we never stop recording music and playing live shows.
Metalhead: During this beautiful Sinoptik adventure, did you met any obstacles in promoting your music and how did you overcome them?
Sinoptik: Any young musician is destined to meet multiple obstacles on his way. In Ukraine it’s mostly week music business and its inability to invest money in rock music. The other big trouble became the civil war, which started a couple of years ago. It’s made us flee to different cities, but we didn’t stop touring, and soon reunited in the capital of Ukraine – Kiev. This only made us stronger and closer.
Metalhead: What gets you going? What is your secret on staying so musically creative?
Sinoptik: Self criticism. We are very strict with ourselves when it comes to music, we try to escape repetitions and borrowing from other artist. Sometimes it is very hard, but this approach has more advantages than drawbacks. We also pay a lot of attention to the quality of live performances. During rehearsals we can play the same short fragment for hours, just to perfectly polish it and make it sound the exact way we want.
Metalhead: How do you describe the people that listen to your music?
Sinoptik: They are usual guys, who study in college or university. These people have listened to a lot of music already, and they have taste and their own opinion for music, they don't follow fashion. For them music is air, not some kind of cheap jewelry or just everyday background.
Metalhead: How much of Dmitriy's England-experience we can hear in Sinoptik's music?
Sinoptik: His experience always emerges when we do recordings and mastering, as he studied sound engineering and production in England. We do not try to borrow ideas or anything else from British bands. Dima’s experiences is very important for us, but it’s not determinative for our music.
Metalhead: Sinoptik won the GBOB 2016 World contest in Germany. How can you describe the feeling of winning such a great prize?
Sinoptik: It was very unexpected for us. We did expect to be somewhere on the top of the list, but didn't expect to be so high! At the beginning we didn’t feel anything special, but back at home when we arrived, people met us as if we were some kind of national heroes! And this made us understand that it’s a very important victory for the whole of Ukrainian rock music scene.
Metalhead: Talking about GBOB (Congratulations, btw!), why do you think bands should or should not join such a contest?
Sinoptik: It’s quite simple, really - for relatively small money you can travel to another country and meet there people from around the world. And these people would be musicians and other people from the industry. Eventually this will lead to gaining new useful contacts for the band, which definitely help in future. Also such contest helps you see in reality what your band is worth in comparison on an international level.
Metalhead: We heard that you are going to release a new album at the end of this year. Is it true? If yes, can you share some details?
Sinoptik: At the moment we haven't decided is it LP we want or EP. You won’t have to wait too long for the new songs, as they are already in the process of making. In the new release we want to drift away slightly from the cosmic theme, and dive deeper into other topics which interest us. Apart from that, we are currently working on a couple of collaborations, which will be released quite soon.
Metalhead: We have to ask because it gave us goosebumps when we saw the pictures: how was the concert at Olimpiyskiy Stadium in Kyiv? What did you feel when you saw such a big crowd?
Sinoptik: Of course at the beginning it was rather scary, but closer to the second song our usual vortex of sounds and rhythms made its work. We played at this concert just as we always do – at 120%. To be honest, we tried not to pay too much attention at the amount of people, we tried to enjoy the moment and share the joy with the listeners.
Metalhead: Do you have a favourite song that you like to play during your concerts?
Sinoptik: It’s hard to name just one. We like Brother, White Cats, Wait for Me, but lately Crop Circles became an absolute favourite for our live shows. On one hand it’s a relatively simple song without complicated parts, but on the other hand we have a great freedom for improvizations in it. So recently we usually finish our shows with this song.
Metalhead: What is the most beautiful moment you got to live on a stage?
Sinoptik: Not so long ago, we had a gig in one of the Kiev’s club, where there is a theatrical curtain on the stage. When the curtain opened before our show, it revealed a full club of our crazy fas to us, this blowed us away completely. And all of the 40 minute gig went just like in a kind of oblivion for us, we can’t remember a thing… But it definitely was mesmerizing!
Metalhead: This September you will play on the same stage with Within Temptation in Bucharest. Do you have any message for the fans that will come to see you perform?
Sinoptik: The Bucharest gig will be a part of our Romanian tour, and we can’t wait to see your beautiful country again. During our first February tour we fell in love with Romania and its people, so we are really looking forward to come back to the cities where we’ve already played and to see the new ones: Iasi, Suceava, Brasov, Oradea, Cluj. Come to the concerts to see and listen to the rock music from the future now!
