1. I don't have a physical body, I've been in the astral for a long time. Zen. That is, how can I be crushed? I am paraffin!
2. I personally do not want to live a calm, measured life. Permanent revolution is part of the stage image of any rock musician.
3. The word “principle” is reminiscent of the concepts of “technology”, “method”, “rule”, and I love experiments, so I can’t name my principles. The word "independence" comes into contact with my work and with my life. On the other hand, a person cannot be completely independent - circumstances, relatives, friends, weather conditions, magnetic storms - all this affects us. It seems to us that we are completely free, that our thoughts are bright, and we go our own way, regardless of external and internal circumstances, and our macrocosm and microcosm are so changeable every second that we cannot even say what will happen to us in a minute . You think that you will win the Olympics, but the flu virus puts you on the shoulder blades and, in general, in your dreams you are an Olympian, but in reality you are an outsider.
4. I feel like working class from music. Each concert brings me the only and stable income.
5. Basically, tattoos are such notches. I drive into myself, into my epidermis, things that are very important to me, those that I should not forget.
6. I am very grateful to my parents for the fact that they did not try to drive me into any framework. I was often left to myself, there were adjustments, but, in general, I found a lot for my own development myself.
7. As a person who has seen narcotic and post-alcohol dreams, I want to say that everything else, of course, pales before these fantasies. You know, devils still draw and tell more entertaining and detective stories. Everything about angels is beautiful and predictable - all their dreams are so interesting, with knights, but more like children's fairy tales. I have seen many interesting dreams, after which you wake up and still tremble for several minutes.
8. A very serious turning point occurred when I finally realized that all my, so to speak, alterations, small upgrades, small innovations - all this is completely unimportant. I need to completely free myself from the past and try to start all over again. Do not add new parts to the constructor, do not try to repaint and repair - throw it away and take a chance.
9. I don't have holidays. The word "holiday" I excluded from my vocabulary. I believe in the feeling of a holiday every day and in the pursuit of the concept of sempervirens, that is, the feeling of spring should be with you constantly, every day. And then you yourself will not depend on calendars - you can make every day a holiday and every day should be working. Every.
10. I would not like to be successful, elite, sit on the jury of KVN, be invited to Channel One, come to the Prime Minister for an order. Of course this won't happen to me. I am confident that I will be able to resist such a development of events. I hope that I will have the strength for hooliganism. I still think that old age is a time when you can fool around. Maybe I'll drink and travel. I would like to frolic with my grandchildren and young friends. There are examples like Henry Rollins. He is not exactly old, but still cheerful and cheerful, like Iggy Pop or Billy Idol. That is, I associate myself in old age with such an idle person.
11. We are artists who bring joy - I can say that for sure.
12. I have never had an adequate perception of the world, so I have nothing to lose. I am a funny, painted, bald 40-year-old gopnik in shorts and sneakers. Where can pathos and narcissism come from? I myself laugh at my ridiculous statements for a long time and mess up on all fronts. Self-irony as the highest degree of self-contemplation is my life motto.
13. Metamorphosis and mimicry for a creative team is a necessity. Because predictability is consonant with mediocrity. We play on the lack of logic in our actions. Creative search, breaking stereotypes and new form expressions as a creative credo, and surprise as part of our artistic concept.
14. I have been a romantic since childhood, I read a lot of fantastic stories. Every day, every year of my life, I saw my friends become disappointed, lose their dreams and become cynics, and I still wait for some miracle.
15. What we do is part of the original rock and roll. Rock and roll should never be blissful, it should never be comfortable, fragrant and bourgeois. Therefore, Western bands like U2, Muse are such a bluff! These people who make billions of dollars are just such "ideal" rock bands who are not interested in rock and roll.

Sergei Mikhalok is a Belarusian musician who plays music in the styles of ska, reggae and anarcho-punk. Popularity came to the artist in the late 1990s thanks to the group, as the frontman of which he is known to most listeners. Deliberately frivolous texts and specific vocals, uncharacteristic of the traditions of post-Soviet rock, became Sergey's "calling card".

Sergey Vladimirovich Mikhalok was born on January 19, 1972 in Dresden, which then belonged to the GDR. The boy's parents were thrown abroad by the profession of Vladimir Mikhalok - he was a career officer. Therefore, although the parents sent their son to Belarus every vacation, the subsequent years of Sergei's childhood were spent on the road. The future singer went to school in Slavgorod, Altai, graduated in Norilsk, and received his higher education in Minsk.

The artist's family belonged to the category of "Soviet intelligentsia". There were always books at home, the magazines "Youth" and "Seeker" were constantly subscribed. Parents encouraged their son's craving for independence: Sergei could choose circles and sections himself, although the boy often changed them, losing one interest and acquiring a new one. According to the musician himself, he was a restless child and once almost drowned while riding a raft during the spring ice melt.

The period of youth with Sergei was not easy, his rebellious nature made itself felt. He was attracted to punk culture with all its attributes: fights, alcohol and drugs. The abuse of the latter led the musician to a hospital bed. Sergei overdosed on jef (aka “mulka”), a highly dangerous ephedrine-based drug common in the 1980s.

After resuscitation, he ended up in a specialized hospital, and the impressions received there were enough to give up injecting drugs. After a course of treatment, Sergei entered the institute, but he could not finally give up alcohol and psychoactive substances, which later had a strong influence on the musician's life.

Music

Most of Sergei's work is currently associated with the Lyapis Trubetskoy group. Mikhalok founded it in 1989, and gave the name to the team by the name of a character from "The Twelve Chairs" and.

At first, the group was organized specifically: its members saw each other mainly at concerts. The situation changed after the performance of the musicians at the "Festival of Musical Minorities" in the capital of Belarus - from that moment on, the band nevertheless began to gather at rehearsals.

At first, Lyapis Trubetskoy gave concerts only in Belarus and could not boast of popularity outside the narrow circles of fans of the musical underground. The position of the group improved in 1996 when they were offered to record an album in a professional studio.

Even then, Sergei, the author of the vast majority of the songs of "Lyapis ...", was not afraid to confront the authorities. The rock festival "Kupalle z" Belarusian Maladzezhnaya "" literally blew up the group with the composition "Lu-ka-shen-ko" to the motive of a song about from a Soviet film. However, she still did not enter the album "Wounded Heart".

Sergey's team earned success outside of Belarus thanks to the album "You threw". In the late 1990s, the songs "Ay", "In a white dress" and "You threw" were regularly rotated on the radio, and the clips for them were a success with music channels. From that moment on, Lyapis Trubetskoy became popular throughout the entire post-Soviet space.

The song "In a white dress" by the group "Lyapis Trubetskoy"

The 2000s were the peak of the group's popularity. The musicians regularly toured both in Belarus and the CIS countries, as well as in far abroad countries, up to the USA. In addition to concert activities, Lyapis Trubetskoy has repeatedly recorded songs for Russian films.

Since the beginning of the 2010s, a sharp social context began to appear in Mikhalok's poems, mainly aimed at criticizing the authorities, and not only Belarusian ones. Due to the peculiarities of the political situation in Belarus, the musicians were included in the "black list" - journalists were not recommended to mention "Lyapis Trubetskoy" in the media, the band's concerts were cancelled.

The peak of the political protest of the Belarusian punks was 2013-2014: the group openly supported the protests on the "Maidan", in Russia they performed as headliners at a concert organized as support as a candidate for mayor of Moscow. The team also released the album "Matryoshka", which many in Russia considered frankly Russophobic.

On August 31, 2014, fans of Lyapis Trubetskoy learned that the group officially had its 24-year existence. Mikhalok himself explained in an interview that this should have happened back in 2010, but due to political persecution in Belarus, the musicians decided to wait - otherwise their act could be mistaken for fear of the authorities.

The song "Warriors of Light" by the group "Lyapis Trubetskoy"

After the collapse of the team, Sergey came to grips with a new project, the Brutto group. The artist decided to move away from the traditions that became classic during the time of "Lyapis ..." - primitive poems with the most frivolous content. The musician himself claims that the band is rather a Belarusian-Ukrainian propaganda team of “creative terror and musical rebuff”.

Creativity "Brutto" is closer in form to the songs "Iron" and "Warriors of Light" - in them social issues and the theme of human resistance to society and power come to the 1st place.

Personal life

In the personal life of the artist, there were 2 marriages in which two children were born. For the first time, Sergei married the singer and composer Ales Berulava while still studying at the university; in 1995, the couple had a son, Pavel. Later, the marriage broke up, and, according to Michalk, the separation was painful, but the musicians were able to overcome differences and remain on friendly terms.

The second wife of Sergei was Svetlana Zelenkovskaya, Zelya, a Belarusian actress. On November 13, 2013, the woman gave birth to the singer's second son, Makar.

The musician has a difficult biography: problems with alcohol and drugs, which began in his youth and nearly killed Sergei, only worsened with age. According to Mikhalka, by the time Pavel was born, he was a drunken alcoholic who did not disdain to regularly use narcotic drugs.

This also affected the appearance of the singer: the soloist of Lyapis Trubetskoy is remembered by most fans as a cheerful fat man, because at that time he weighed more than 100 kg. At the beginning of 2010, Sergei decided that this could not continue any longer, and took up his health. The musician completely abandoned alcohol and drugs, lost weight, began to play sports.

The result was an excellent physical shape: with a height of 172 cm, the singer's weight is about 70 kg. In new clips, he is removed with a naked torso. Thanks to this, fans were able to see Sergey's tattoos: there are more than 10 of them, and each is not just a picture, but also a certain symbol.

Sergey Mikhalok now

In 2018, the musician presented his new electronic project "Drezden", named after the city in which he was born. Presenting the self-titled debut album, the rocker said that he had long dreamed of trying his hand at electronic music.

Mikhalok was noted for a number of categorical statements about, which even became the reason for calling the singer to the prosecutor's office of the Republic of Belarus. However, the check did not reveal any offenses in Sergey's words. The musician speaks no less harshly about Russia, whose political course he calls tyrannical without hesitation.

Sergei supports the situation in Ukraine and believes that Ukrainian people in 2014 he achieved great success, overthrowing a corrupt and totalitarian government. The musician also believes that a rocker must constantly be in confrontation with social injustice, and if he cannot find one, he must invent it.

Sergei also criticizes other musicians: he calls popular representatives of the Russian rock scene who do not support the ideas of political protest “skinned”. Mikhalok is no less negative about performers in the pop music genre.

Although, perhaps, this does not apply to some pop compositions: in 2017, Sergey posted an amateur video on YouTube, in which he performs the song “Sunny days have disappeared” with feeling and without arrogance.

Sergey Mikhalok performs the song "Sunny days have disappeared"

Fans of "Brutto" can follow the work of the group and the life of Sergey in the official blog on Instagram. There, the singer uploads photos from concerts, invitations to performances and shots from everyday life.

Now Sergey continues to perform and go on tour with "Brutto", as well as regularly cover his civil position- often more intense than talking about creative plans.

Discography

• 1996 - "Wounded Heart"
• 1998 - "You threw"
• 1999 - "Beauty"
• 2004 - "Golden Eggs"
• 2006 - "Men Don't Cry"
• 2007 - "Capital"
• 2008 - "Manifest"
• 2012 - "Rabkor"
• 2014 - "Matryoshka"
• 2014 - "Underdog"
• 2015 - "Native land"
• 2017 - "Rocky"
• 2018 – "Drezden"

Sergei Mikhalok, the leader of the first Lyapis Trubetskoy group, and the last 3 years of Brutto, is known to almost everyone who is at least a little interested in music more than switching radio stations in the car. Even though they know. However, something else is interesting here - how a Belarusian, who sings mainly in Belarusian and Russian, became one of the symbols of the Ukrainian fighting spirit.

Perhaps no one should be reminded which song became a symbol not only of Euromaidan, but of all the first stormy-romantic months of the war in the East. That's right - it's "Warriors of Light". For the "stoned" who like to rant about the fact that there are no Russian-speaking Ukrainians, we note that the song was in Russian. But we are not talking about language now, but about essence.

I think that everyone who still doubted already understood that Mikhalok's work of the era of the early "Lyapis" about "Apple Trees" and "all the girls like it if they were given flowers" - it was a banter. Which was so talentedly played and won back that it was taken seriously by just those categories of the population, over which they were joking.

But these are things of bygone times. It's been 10 years since Sergei Mikhalok turned from a "alkan and a junkie" into a "boxer and a jock", although this is not surprising now. Much more interesting metamorphoses occurred precisely with his popularity in Ukraine.

Yes, of course, in the latest albums of the updated Lyapis, he already acted as a fiery rock fighter. But still - not Ukrainian in the truest sense of the word.

And with the advent of his new group Brutto, which very quickly came under a ban in the Russian Federation, Sergey moved to Kyiv. It seems not only physically, but also mentally. It's not just that Mikhalok began to sing in Ukrainian.

He very clearly fit into the field with which Ukrainian rock music traditionally has problems. That is, in the end, the field of the present, without an admixture of indie, pop, ethno - pure, distilled rock.

Somehow it happened that we Ukrainians are rather sentimental people. In music, this manifests itself more clearly than anywhere else. That is why we have rock with a serious facial expression for a quarter of a century can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

We either traditionally slide into a banter a la "Brothers Gadyukiny", or into pathos. And so that in simple terms about simple things in a simple and understandable form for everyone - it’s hard for us with this.

Photo from Brutto acoustic concert in Kyiv. Photographer - Julia Polunina-Bout

And that's exactly why Brutto turned out to be so relevant in Ukraine. Because this team is far from being just “horizontal rock” or primitive punk for football hooligans, as it seems to some snobs. This team quenches the thirst for normal rock music. Protest, masculine, real, without admixture of narcissism.

However, there is an even deeper layer, which, in my author's opinion and thousands of listeners, has been consistently providing sold-outs at Brutto concerts for the third year now, explains the success of this band. Like it or not, but they appeal and base their creative image on things that are really understandable to everyone.

Mikhalok is not shy about emphasizing that he was born in the USSR and is trying to take from there almost the only good thing that can be found in Soviet aesthetics. It is a cult of knowledge and belief in progress. And this finds a very wide response in the Ukrainian society tortured by pseudo-religious obscurantism.

Another notable factor. Unlike a very large number of Ukrainian musicians by birthplace, Mikhalok does not suffer in songs, but calls for battle. Calls to comprehend the world around with your mind, not to trust anyone and not be afraid, even with the help of your fists, to defend your dignity and creed.

He also appeals to the ancient aesthetics of sports as the highest ideal of the strength of the human spirit and the god-likeness of a person who is capable of an act and victory over himself. All these things are really new for Ukraine, and all this, multiplied by the natural charisma and artistry of Mikhalok, gives an explosive mixture of revolutionary punk testosterone.

In conditions of war weariness, when a stream of official grief and days of mourning are constantly pouring from the state level, this call for victory and fortitude finds great acceptance, first of all, among the active part of society. Which desperately needs those songs that will support them on a thorny path. Brutto gives these songs.

The number of front-line soldiers and people in soldier's uniform at their concert suggests that the team has long gone beyond the subculture. The fact how popular their songs are among the female audience shows how much Ukrainian musicians sometimes lack a good charge of masculinity.

Well, the fact that even the older audience, which the author of these lines saw with his own eyes at the last acoustic (!) concert of the group in Kiev, recognized as their own Mikhalka, suggests that their work has the meaning that older people need. Not to mention the fact that their brutal artist is perceived throughout the territory - from the Donbass to Transcarpathia.

The last nail is a wonderful collaboration of the team with the best for today Ukrainian poet Sergei Zhadan. If suddenly one of you has not heard the tracks "Middle Ages" or "Sabotage" - then you simply have not heard real modern Ukrainian music.

Therefore, let us rejoice that war sometimes brings good results. After all, the fact that Sergei Mikhalok and Co. have already become Ukrainian musicians, I think, no one doubts.

Sergei Vladimirovich Mikhalok. Born January 19, 1972 in Dresden (GDR). Belarusian musician, singer, composer, poet, songwriter, actor, screenwriter, director. Leader of the punk rock band Brutto. Founder and leader of the Belarusian punk rock band Lyapis Trubetskoy (1989-2014). Nickname - Yuzik Kilevich.

In connection with the father's profession, the family often had to change their place of residence. They lived in Slavgorod, Altai Territory. Then in Norilsk, where Sergei graduated from high school.

Since the late 1980s, the Mikhalki have lived in Minsk.

Graduated from Belarusian State University culture and arts. Actively participated in various amateur competitions.

From his youth, he was attracted to punk culture, which resulted not only in musical addictions. In the 1990s, he suffered a clinical death from an overdose of the popular drug jef.

In September 1989, he initiated the creation of the group "Lyapis Trubetskoy", the leader and almost the only songwriter of which he was before the band's self-dissolution. The name of the team was given by the name of the character from "The Twelve Chairs" and. The group gave its first concert at the Three Colors festival in Minsk. In addition to Sergei Mikhalok, other members of the first line-up of the band were bass player Dmitry Sviridovich, guitarist Ruslan Vladyko and drummer Alexei Lyubavin.

In the 1990s he worked at the Bamboo Theater as a director, screenwriter and actor. Later, in parallel with the work in the group, he was the art director of the Minsk reggae club Addis Ababa.

At first, the activities of the Lyapis Trubetskoy group were semi-amateur. In 1994, Evgeny Kolmykov became interested in them, who organized concerts and good fees, becoming the director of the group. Then the first tour of the group in the republic took place, in which the audience was presented with the rock opera “Conquest of Space” jointly with the Bamboo Theater.

In the same 1994, the Lyapis Trubetskoy group took part in the KG. Angry holiday”, held in the Minsk Sports Palace with the participation of Russian groups"Chayf", "2va Plane", "Chufella Marzufella" and others.

In 1996, they were offered to record at the Mezzo-Forte studio. The result was the debut album "Wounded Heart". And at the presentation of the Belarusian music awards "Rock Coronation-96" "Lyapis Trubetskoy" got three awards - "Best Lyricist of the Year", "Album of the Year" and " The best group years" (the so-called "Big Crown").

But the really widespread fame and popularity came to the group in 1998 - with the release of the album "You threw". The group was recognized far beyond the borders of Belarus.

The songs “You threw”, “In a white dress”, “Ay”, “Apple trees”, “Jester” became super popular.

Lyapis Trubetskoy - Apple trees

Lyapis Trubetskoy - You threw

Lyapis Trubetskoy - In a white dress

In 2000, together with Aleksey "Khatson" Khatskevich, he founded the comic duet "Sasha and Sirozha", within which he performed in the colloquial genre on TV and radio.

In 2001 he became one of the founders creative association"Children of the Sun".

In 2003-2004, he actively collaborated on recordings and concerts with the Krambambulya group (albums Karali Rayonu and Radio Krambambulya 0.33 FM).

The 2000s became the peak of the popularity of the Lyapis Trubetskoy group. The musicians regularly toured both in Belarus and the CIS countries, as well as in far abroad countries.

"Lyapis Trubetskoy" won the RAMP award three times, twice in the "Clip of the Year" nomination for the video "Capital" (2007) and "Lights" (2009), as well as "Group of the Year" (2009).

At the 13th award ceremony for the best Belarusian musicians "Rock Coronation" (2009), the group received three crystal crowns - "Song of the Year" ("Zorachki"), "Album of the Year" ("Manifesto") and "Group of the Year".

In 2012, the musicians also won the main Russian rock award "Chart's Dozen", winning in three categories at once: "Group", "Poetry" and "Video Clip". And the song “Jester” at the end of the year entered the top three most popular tracks of the hit parade “Chartova Dozen” (“OUR Radio”).

In 2013, Lyapis Trubetskoy received two figurines of the Belarusian Rock Profi award at once.

In 2014, the group won the "Concert" nomination of the "Chart's Dozen" rock award.

In 2004, he made his film debut as an actor - he played a singer in the film Men Don't Cry. He also wrote the music for the film. Later he was the composer of the films "Men Don't Cry-2", "Queen of the Gas Station 2" and "The Last Slaughter".

In 2007, during the concerts of the Lyapis Trubetskoy group, he began to actively perform poetry written under the pseudonym Yuzik Kilevich.

In 2011, he played one of the main roles in fantasy "Star Wars". His hero is Bogdan Sherstyuk, a junior researcher at the Research Institute "Parsek", Ryap's assistant, a member of the crew of the space rover "Skorobey". According to the story, a long time ago, a professor lived in a galaxy on planet Earth. He worked in the scientific town of Ishtym, lost among the expanses of the Siberian taiga. The idea of ​​the construction of the Universe haunted the professor and was the subject of his scientific research. And then one day, in 2221, he had an insight, and he made a discovery that turned all the textbook ideas about the structure of our Universe upside down. And so the heroic crew of the ship gathered in distant Ishtym - the designer-pilot, the professor himself, the navigator, the producer of the expedition with an assistant, a cook, a doctor and the head of the security service, to set off on a path full of mysteries through the intricacies of the star pile, in search of answers to various questions.

Sergei Mikhalok in the film "Star Wars"

On March 17, 2014, Sergei Mikhalok announced the dissolution of the Lyapis Trubetskoy group from September 1, 2014. A week before the official breakup of the group, the first video of Mikhalka's new project appeared on the network. Brutto.

Since 2014 lives in Kyiv.

At the beginning of the summer of 2016, Mikhalok launched a project "Lapis-98". As part of this project, concerts are held at which the old songs of the Lyapis Trubetskoy group of the late 1990s are performed.

In January 2016, he applied via the Internet to the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Belarus with a request to give permission to hold a group concert in Minsk. In October 2016, a concert was held at the Gomel Ice Palace of Sports. This was the first performance of Mikhalok in his homeland in 6 years. Later, on March 8, 2017, the Brutto concert took place in the capital at the Minsk Arena.

In 2018, together with guitarist Vladimir Opsenitsa from the Okean Elzy group and sound producer Vitaly Telezin, he organized an electronic group Drezden, whose self-titled debut album was released on August 31 of the same year.

Socio-political position of Sergei Mikhalok

In March 2011, the group "Lyapis Trubetskoy" entered the "black list" creative teams Belarus for condemning the dispersal of the protest action on December 19, 2010 by the Belarusian authorities. Later during one of the interviews Russian journalists the leader of the Lyapis Trubetskoy group expressed a sharp rejection of politics. In October 2011, the Minsk prosecutor's office summoned Siarhei Mikhalok "in order to check his statements against the authorities of Belarus." He repeatedly publicly expressed his critical attitude towards President Lukashenko, calling him his enemy.

On April 12, 2014, at a rock festival in the city of Wuppertal (Germany), Mikhalok shouted the slogans “Long live Belarus!” from the stage. and "Glory to Ukraine!". Then he addressed those present from other CIS states: “There are a lot of guys from Russia and Kazakhstan here. I don't know what it is customary for them to shout during the liberation movement, but I hope that within the next few months or years we will hear something. After that, one of the nationalist-minded spectators in the hall began to jiggle and show the middle finger. To which Mikhalok replied: “I see someone showing us the fingers from the audience. I want to say: they scared me with pistols and machine guns, they threw bricks at me and hit my head with nunchucks. The only finger that can scare me is if it gets bitten off and stuck in my ass. So if you don't want to do that, then fuck off, imperial imbecile."

He supported Euromaidan in Kyiv. He performed on the Maidan stage contrary to the position of the producers of the Lyapis Trubetskoy group and some of the musicians. In particular, he said from the stage of the Maidan: "We, Belarusians, look at you with respect, admiration and delight. You are really great! You are superheroes, cheers!"

He wrote the song "Warriors of Light", which became the anthem of the Euromaidan.

Lyapis Trubetskoy - Warriors of Light

On January 24, 2015, Sergey Mikhalok and his producer Anton Azizbekyan turned to the Ukrainian authorities with a request to help them obtain the right to permanent residence in Ukraine. On May 25, 2015, they received a residence permit, this decision of the authorities takes into account the position of the group in support of the events on the Maidan in 2013-2014 and their contribution to the development of Ukrainian music.

Sergey Mikhalok's height: 172 centimeters.

Personal life of Sergei Mikhalok:

Was married twice.

The first wife is Alesya Berulava, singer, soloist of the rock group Mantana (1999-2003) and the synthpop group Merry Poppins (2004-2008).

Filmography of Sergei Mikhalok:

2004 - Men don't cry - singer
2011 - Star Wars - Bogdan Sherstyuk

Sergei Mikhalok's vocals in the cinema:

2011 - Star Wars - song "Star Wars"

Sergei Mikhalok's works in cinema as a composer:

2004 - Men don't cry
2005 - Men don't cry-2
2005 - Gas Station Queen 2
2006 - Last slaughter

Discography of Sergei Mikhalok ("Lyapis Trubetskoy"):

1996 - Wounded heart
1998 - You threw
1999 - Beauty
2000 - Heavy
2001 - Youth
2004 - Golden eggs
2006 - Men don't cry
2007 - Capital
2008 - Manifest
2009 - Cultural enlightenment
2011 - Funny Pictures
2012 - Rabkor
2014 - Matryoshka

Discography of Sergei Mikhalok ("Brutto"):

2014 - Underdog
2015 - Native land
2017 - Rocky

The former main Lyapis, and now the frontman of the Brutto group, told MAXIM about when Russia, Ukraine and Belarus will fall in love again, and about who will break his head.

Rybik

Seryozha, when did you realize that you are not attached to your home, that you can live in other cities without sentimentality?

Back in 1997, when we often visited Moscow to record the most successful album in that past life, You Threw, I realized that I could travel safely if I had a circle of friends and a lover with me. In Minsk at that time, life was really difficult for me. Half of the people carried us in their arms, the other half were wildly outraged that Michalok, who was so dismissive of rock music, was thrown into the mainstream. I did not have long hair and leather jackets, I haven't listened to the Rainbow albums and I don't know what band Page was in. For me, all this is tinsel and ***** [minor phenomenon]. I came into rock 'n' roll for the purpose of ********** [pinning] him. I've always been interested in punk culture.

Do you remember the brightest punk antics?

All my youth from the age of seventeen is punk and zen, two things that guide me. I wanted to enter the history department in Krasnoyarsk with friends and my first girl from Norilsk. I was a real northerner: I went on archaeological expeditions, played in a rock band, was known as an informal, played volleyball and fought on the streets. In the biggest fight, more than a hundred people, Edik Petrov punched me in the face. Mine! Confused! I sat on one dude, bought him something, and Edik ran away and, as the owner of a good football kick, so ***** [hit] me that the black eye did not go away for four months. In general, my parents persuaded me to enter the history department of the Belarusian State University in Minsk. I was driving with the firm intention of failing my exams and enlisting in the army. But in one Minsk summer of 1989, he met hippans and punks. I was supposed to become a historian, I was aimed at serving the system, I had conservative views - I'm from a military family. But when my parents arrived a year later, I was in the psychiatric ward with an overdose of Jeff. Then, on the flat of the queen of Minsk punks, mother Lyuba, we drank mash, when I received the third summons to the army. And I squinted for appendicitis. They cut it out for me, although I still don’t know how it hurts ... With the main punk Pig from the Automatic Satisfiers group, we drank twelve bottles of vodka and sang Green-Eyed Taxi under the piano.

How do you know that you stop drinking?

I tried to quit even before the Lapis took off. He drank in the last years of the institute, the birth of Pasha's first son took place in constant wild drinking bouts. Lena had a difficult pregnancy because of this. I worked as an assistant to a parquet floorer, received money, managed to bring home some amount, disappeared for three or four days and returned home with a broken head ... I hung by a thread. And because of the heavy waste, I didn’t stop drinking: I got a hangover - and further, further ... When I became a popular “lapis”, I merged with the image, began to gain weight. In rare moments of sobering up, I ****** [went nuts] when I saw artists with me in the dressing room, whom I just wanted to break into a few years ago. We mocked pop and rock and roll, and then it turns out that I became part of show business.

That is, people did not see through the irony?

No, the melody is important to them, apple-***apple-trees [a rhyme with a prefix denoting the male genital organ]. In the meantime, the Minsk punks began to hate me, I betrayed the ideas of the underground and lost my friends. Several times I tried to go to shamans, I coded - it did not work. I had attacks of delirium tremens, I could not work sober, I was scared, I sat at home and watched the video. If he quit drinking, he smoked hashish. Once, leaving for a year, I went on a picnic. There I artificially rejoiced, thought to myself that being sober is very good. And my late friend Vadik filmed the picnic on camera. I saw the recording in winter. I look - in the lake, a monster swims in the liquid! I didn't realize it was me! At the same time, the monster behaved directly, showing a “killer whale” with a bare ass. But I didn’t see myself like that: I didn’t act naked in videos, I didn’t look in the mirror during sex, there weren’t any selfies then. And the camera still adds kilograms! And realizing how ugly I was, I took up the body. And the thoughts to jump off the “lapis” appeared after the first album.

Hero Hit List

Comedian: John Cleese

Poet: Arthur Rimbaud

Minsk city

Did Pasha Bulatnikov and other “lyapis” foresee the breakup of the group?

I don't even know what they thought. I was surprised that they did not realize that their personal fate and the fate of their children directly depended on me. I was very careless and they made no effort to stop me. I knew that sooner or later we would part. Everyone had a firm belief that I had grown together with Lapis, and I want to say that the Capital revival album was already more Brutto than Lapis. It has a lot more of my position than all the musicians put together. When they ask me about their new group "Trubetskoy", I answer that at the competition of cover bands playing songs of "lyapis", they would not have entered the top three! They say to me: “How do you treat your colleagues in the shop?” And I do not work at the factory, I have no colleagues in the shop. On *** [my sexual organ] I turned everyone - so, by and large! What workshop? What colleagues?

Apparently singers.

I started by parodying them. This is the punk concept: I burst grenades from the inside, knowing what a challenge and annoyance in art is. But I want to say that "lapis" are wonderful people. Only for me, a beautiful person does not have to stand on stage. Yes, probably a wonderful person Chizh, a wonderful person Stas Mikhailov. Maybe! He is probably more beautiful than Kinchev. And Hoffmann is a bastard, and Wagner slept with the wives of friends, and Tchaikovsky is a bugger, and Marc Almond too, and I wouldn’t go into intelligence with Boy George - but they are cool in art! Sergei Bezrukov, posing as a righteous person, is not a good person in my code of people. And the brawling Cord, whose behavior I don’t really perceive, is kinder. He will give grandma money or an alcoholic for a hangover. But Bezrukov won't.

Why do you think protest rock disappeared? Where is the new Choi?

And Tsoi was not a protest musician, he was a romantic. And the stadium. We did not like Talkov, Shevchuk and Kinchev. Then their protest rock became fake. It was not for the countercultural, but for the civilians. Rock for civilians is Scorpions, Joe Cocker is dead, music for the director of a furniture factory.

Have you heard many musicians who oppose Putin's policies? They really do shine. They are all very well: they lived in the zero, when the rockers had a lot of reserves. And "Chayf" at the festivals stated that they were Medvedev's favorite group. They are all great guys. But all bourgeois. What kind of rock star is Kipelov? He is from the ensemble “Leysya, song!”, Rastorguev’s friend, is fond of fishing. When they kill to eat and dress, this is understandable. And the passion for safari or fishing for sport gives off sexual dissatisfaction: I can’t take a woman off, so at least I’ll catch a fish on a worm ... Rock musicians have become stereotyped. Here, compare the movements of Kinchev and Leontiev. If these artists performed in the shadow theater, they would look like two twins. The state machine has crushed everything under itself, the rockers are participating in the TV show. Well, how can a rock hero go to the Voice show? The musician must force himself to find protest, even artificially. If everything around is super, invent windmills, invent an ephemeral enemy! Lancelot cannot live without a dragon. In rock 'n' roll you have to challenge!

As I understand it, you challenged yourself by going now to Mariupol, to a hot spot.

We played a concert in Donetsk, when ninety-five percent of the comments on the Internet boiled down to "Come, Maidan pederasts, we will kill you!" And we arrived with two machines of submachine gunners, we had a cue ball in the club, and everyone was shouting “Glory to Ukraine!” - in Donetsk, the center of separatism. If I sing "Kill the slave in you!", "Be brave!", "Go ahead!" Then why should I piss? How do I know what will happen in Mariupol? I am a normal person, I am also afraid for my life. But last year, during a tour in Russia, the danger to my life was greater than in Mariupol. Each concert of the Lyapis could end badly: I met opposition not only from the authorities, but also from radical groups. And at the festival "Invasion", where everything was in the flags of the DPR and "Crimea is ours", I did not piss and sang "Warriors of Light" - the anthem of the Maidan. The FSB, the "E" center for combating youth extremism worked for us. Although a couple of times they, on the contrary, helped, they said that right-wing radicals want to cover us in Kaliningrad. We are for them Maidan, Bandera-fascists.

Are you an entry to Russia now?

No, I will not go to Russia. I don't know what is entry or not. An aggressive environment has been created. By the way, the state does not need to spend efforts on me - there are enough activists. There are already relatives of those who died in the DPR, who are sure that I sang on the Maidan for American money and now I come to Russia, sprinkled with the blood of Russian fighters. Right-wing football fans, left-wing hardcore or cowards who piss to go to war, but walk around Samara with two hundred sabers, will break my head anyway. If they attack me without sabers, then I will chop two or three mummers. And if with a saber? Have you ever seen a man with a sword? And he is sure that I burned children in Odessa, that I personally did it ... A newspaper appeared in Tyumen, where it was reported that I shouted “Kill the Russian, kill the Jew!” on the Maidan, and then arrived in their northern international city. Propaganda and information warfare have done a lot.

Hero Hit List

Drink: cider

"Warriors of Light" - your main song for the next ten years?

She mysteriously became more important than the Lapis, and Brutto, and me. She began to live her life, this is no longer my song. I wrote it in the Dominican Republic, watching blue whales and remembering the history children's writer Rafael Sabatini about Captain Blood. And for some reason I wrote this song. I've been writing on cyberpunk geeks, trying to predict the course of events. artistic language. But I can't talk about it seriously, otherwise everyone will think that I ****** [went crazy]. In Samara they said (there is a video on YouTube) that I, a painted *** [male genital organ], could not write such a song, it was done in Hollywood, this is NLP.

By the way, about the tattoo. Are you still stuffing or are you already cold?

I stuff, although I often flirt: "I fall asleep - and they themselves breed." Tattoos affect life. If a fighting leprechaun appears on me, then I fight. But if the artist made him tipsy, it means that I will fall for alcohol two or three times a year. It's one hundred percent! I don't understand people who mindlessly prick bears and wolves. It means that they will rock the boat somewhere and get ***** [injured]. You can't get too bold tattoos if you're a coward.

Do you think Russia, Ukraine and Belarus will be friends, as before?

I am for socialism of the Scandinavian type. I like the relationship between Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Do you know the names of their presidents? Me neither. And so I want us not to know the names of our presidents, so that they are just functionaries. If we become independent states, then we will be truly friends. There is no need to push us into the Eurasian Union, the Warsaw Pact, build the USSR again. The empire has collapsed! Pieces fell off! What kind of architect do you have to be to re-glue a house out of crumbling stones? We should not be brothers, we should be normal neighbors. We are pushed against each other! And I want everyone to have their own. I need my living space. I'm on the train in my compartment. Come on, talk. I sat and talked - and that's it, get out of here! I don’t need: “Let me lie down here, this is a cool crossword puzzle!” I want us to ride in the same carriage, but each had his own compartment. Then we will all love each other again.