Interview with the musician Anton Belyaev about the unprecedented concert of the Lab project
On May 31, at the VTB Arena stadium, the Lab project will host-37 songs that are performed in non-stop mode, accompanied by a choir and orchestra. Among the soloists are ZIVERT, Lolita, Zoloto, Tosya Chaikina, Sergey Bobunets, Iowa, Elja, Alexander Revva, Sirotkin, Pompeya, Dima Zhuravlev, Nastya Sadkovskaya and others about an unprecedented concert program Igor Gavrilov I talked with the creator of Lab and the leader of Therr Maitz Anton Belyaev.
– Lab is a project that once came out immediately on streaming, and in the period when the series shot immediately for streaming are not very used to it. And here-music, the producers are afraid of it on TV. Was it scary?
– The producer with the glory of Dusmukhametov removed pilot issues at our own funds, without looking at television. This money is all that we risked. Trying to do something is part of the work, roughly speaking, and the song can fail, and a television project. Yes, we did a project that we have never been anywhere, we did not copy anyone. The then existing site « Yandex Air » reacted very actively and bought a whole season from us at once. At the same time, the format we invented is not commercial. When we started, the scale that everything spilled into was not felt, but in the end Lab grew up in aesthetic form, impossible without philanthropists. The price of the series became such that even our partners from the Big Bank said: “Well, this is too much,” and this despite the fact that the budget is mainly production of the show, and the fees are very modest. Including mine. Therefore, we went offline and began to do Lab live performances, which allowed us to reduce the cost of shooting the project at times.
– In fact, Lab is the performance of famous songs in new arrangements with a large composition, which includes an orchestra and choir. How did you select this team?
– Look, Lab has several large tools, each of which is controlled by a separate person. There is a rhythm of my group Therr Maitz. There is a choir. And there is an orchestra. I will add a sound and video sales here. Here are five main elements. Naturally, at the stage of selection, I invaded every little thing, into every movement. But over time, we polished this system to such an extent that the choir, for example, has become an independent business, it works with Bastost and L’One, in some television programs. The same applies to the orchestra. In general, it is called Opensoundorchestra, it is led by Stas Malyshev. And imagine, for example, we made a program with any Uspenskaya and decided to make from the song “I disappear” a stupid disco with string in the Jamiroquai style. In this song in the string group, at first there were four people.
I listen to the record and I understand that it sounds liquidly. It took much more people to get a real sound. Hence the increase in the cost of the show.
– Were there among Lab heroes those whom you took exclusively by the criterion of folk love or the number of subscribers, but from a musical point of view they were not interested in you?
– Of course, we want to shoot Lab with people who are pretty to us. But we cannot proceed only from our desires. Yes, we always look at numbers, at formal indicators of popularity. But, having come to us, a person gets the opportunity to do what he would not do inside these “numbers”. There was no someone whom we took into the project only for marketing reasons and suffered from this.
– That is, when a character like Koka Koka or Niletto comes to you, you are leading …
– Curiosity in the first place. Yes, different musicians have different opportunities. But we have a show not only about music. Lab is a transformation of people in the proposed circumstances. Sometimes the artists who are sincerely pretty for us were uncomfortable, hard. This also happens.
– And which of those for whom you did not make big bets surprised you?
– Lev Leshchenko. He was supposed to perform the song of Victor Tsoi « Calm Night ». For many, it was a risky move, there are people for whom there are still some inviolable values in music. Leshchenko came to a rehearsal in a sleepy state, did everything that we asked, but without much involvement, and I thought: “We are the end. There will be no emotion on the set, and you will have to dissolve these 200 people. Give them these millions of fees and go home to cry. ”
And it turned out that Lev Valerinovich as an experienced artist protects energy. He did everything perfectly, from the first double. « Well, all, Antoshenka, for now! » And he went to himself. I liked such a business approach.
– In your group Therr Maitz is played by cool musicians, many of them have fans, they expect new music from them. But if you look at Therr Maitz, there are mainly concerts of the concerts of the Lab project in the concert schedule. Didn’t it work that he “pushed” Therr Maitz a little into the shadow?
– Of course, it turned out, and consciously. Since 2015, we have not had full-format albums. One or two new songs per year is normal for us. Now for the musicians Therr Maitz is more interesting to play on a large Lab scale. This is not to say that we forgot something or scored something. Just now outweighes curiosity: what else can you do in this form? And it turns out that Lab moves forward the group technologically and emotionally, and also allows musicians not to play on the stream, in pop projects music that causes vomiting in them. In Lab, they are busy with others.
