Jake Pashkin is a Russian composer multi-instrumentalist hailing from Western Siberia, where he was born in 1977. In childhood he attended muic school, studying the accordion. At age 15 he started playing the electric guitar, which soon became his main and preferred instrument.
From the mid 90's and onwards he was a member of several bands, and instigated som band projects of his own as well. After the last of these folded in 2002 he pulled out of the music business all together, vowing to end this chapter in his personal history.
However, in 2007 the drive to create music became too strong, and he decided to take up music again - this time as a solo artist. Following this two efforts has been released - Prequel in 2007 and Gain Over in 2009.
I got in touch with Jake Pashin, who I believed was living in Russia. Instead, it turns out that he now lives at the end of London Road, 700 km down this road from me. His relocation to London is a gain for us here in Great Britain, I think it is fair to say.
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First,
let's start with your personal history. Where were you born and where
do you live now? What is your musical background and which bands did
you play with before
you took a break from music?
I
was born in Russia, in the city of Tyumen,
it’s quite a big city (around 700.000 people) in South West
Siberia, the capital of Tyumen Region, the territory where most of
oilfields were discovered. Most of the time I’d been living there
up to 2009, only occasionally nested in Moscow for 2-4 months due to
my musical necessities. In 2009 I’d managed to settle in
Saint-Petersburg, from where I’ve migrated to the United Kingdom in
April of 2010. So now I’m in London.
I’ve
been playing music since my childhood. I used to attend a children
musical school to learn to play accordion. There was a piano in our
flat, so I played piano constantly. As long as I remember myself I’ve
always tried to compose something, some melodies or just chords
progressions, but it should be something new – and when I was
around ten or eleven I started to try to write it down, I mean I
began to compose more or less consciously. At the age of 15 I
suddenly tried to play guitar and that has changed my life….
I’d
organized a couple of projects by my own, in 1995-97 and 2000-02,
they had a certain regional success. I used to play with some bands,
leading by somebody else too, of course; I played in a really wide
variety of styles, from classic jazz to psychedelic punk. I had an
experience of working in a function band. as well.
But I guess the most successful project among all in
which I had involved was the band called “Trite Dushi” (“Rub
the Souls”) supporting Russian independent psychedelic and
punk-rock star Nick Rock-n-Roll, well known in Russia as “Russian
Iggy Pop”. I used to play in his band for five years, from 1997 to
2002.
How
is the music scene in your area and what is the pros and cons of
living in your area of Russia?
Since
I have an
experience of living in different areas of Russia I can compare and
make some conclusions. To say in a few words, there is an enormous
difference in between living somewhere in province and in Moscow (or
Saint-Petersburg). Immeasurable. Both Moscow and Piter (this is a
slang name for Saint-Petersburg) have solid and strong connections
with Europe, there are lots of opportunities for a musician to be
involved in “something”, to play gigs, make records, collaborate
with other musicians, to get access to a national broadcasting TV and
so on. Even to play abroad occasionally (i.e. in Europe), this is
kind of a sci-fi affair for most musicians in Russian province being
quite normally in both major cities.
Nevertheless
there are some streams in Russian rock music developed in different
areas, cities and towns, with distinctive features over them – for
example, like in American music you can use terms such as “Seattle
Grunge” or “Chicago Jazz” and everybody can easily understand
what a phenomenon you describe, something similar you can find in
Russia, everybody knows what means “Moscow style rock music”,
“Piter style rock music” or “Sverdlovsk style”. In this
respect Siberia is a territory of punk rock music. ”Siberian Punk”
is a common term, especially among critics and music journalists.
Tyumen
is a really interesting city in this regard,
since due to its geographical location it is influenced by some east
Siberian cities like Novosibirsk and Omsk (hometown of a cult Russian
garage punk rock band “Grazhdanskaya Oborona” (“Civil Defence”)
and others) on the one hand, and a major city of Ural Region -
Ekaterinburg, which is well known by his unique rock music style,
close to “new- wave”, on the other hand. Both these powerful
cultural force fields generate quite a quirky atmosphere in Tyumen
music society. I think this left a certain mark on me too.
Somebody
of my acquaintances said
once “It is always good to ripe in province, but if you really want
to self-actualize you ought to come to the capital”. I agree with
him.
Please give me your (long or brief) thoughts and
lowdowns on.......
“Prequel” from 2007
This is my first solo released
album. And I’ve counted my “real” musical
history from this one. It wasn’t an easy decision - to swim through
the sonic ocean further in a one-man canoe. This decision was
preceded by years and years 1) working with someone else’s bands,
2) two expired group projects leading by me and 3) four years of
total musical silence… So this effort is a really important
challenge in my life I couldn’t overestimate.
“Gain
Over” from
2009
I
wouldn’t know… On the whole I’m satisfied with this album. I’ve
got quite a few real good responses from critics and reviewers, and
in the gross “Gain Over” was accepted more enthusiastically than
“Prequel”, at least among mainstream audience.
I’ve
tried to say “thanks” to hard rock and generally to “solid
rock” music
with that performance, in spite of the fact that I’ve never been a
real captive fan of such a style. “The Doors” and “Pink Floyd”
were always more significant for me than, for example, “Deep
Purple” or “Black Sabbath”.
Actually
I’m the
“ordinary” child from the generation of 90-s. I’d been growing
up listening to “Nirvana” and “Smashing Pumpkins”, not
so-called “classic rock”. Grunge and alternative – that was my
love! That’s why I didn’t try to record “something like
“Aerosmith” or “AC/DC” – no, it was merely just an idea to
have a deal with something kind of “good-old-damn-rock-n-roll” in
my head. Accordingly, sometimes to make “Gain Over” was like a
play the game with “retro-rock” and there was a lot of funny
experiment for me. I hope this experiment was successful.
Nevertheless this is NOT a hard-rock album, it’s
eclectic, precisely as it should be.
How
is the distribution of your albums in Russia
and world wide? How do you promote your music?
You
can find my CDs
and mp3 in CD Baby and all sites, connecting with it worldwide. In
Russia I’m working with the Internet shop of the legal digital
content - “Soundkey”. But I think the case is not just about
that…
A
couple of weeks ago I suddenly found a statistics in someone’s blog
(I didn’t check it but it sounds truthfully) that in the previous
year (2009) around 80% of ALL new released CDs were failed to sell
even 100 copies. Almost at the same time, in 2008 (and this is
clearly true) RIAA paid its lawyers more than $16,000,000 to recover
only $391,000, trying to stop illegal downloading. In other words,
RIAA has ended in a fiasco. What does this mean?
It
means that CD
sales (and extended – music sales) as a business doesn’t exist
anymore. Primarily this business had become less profitable than
before, then it had turned in a kind of “self-supporting” affair
and now this is no more than “enterprise in default”. To product
CD nowadays looks more like a promotion action. Similar like a pizza
cafe prints its leaflets. But there’s a big difference between
them… To create an album is an incomparably more expensive, more
complicated, more time-consuming and many-many more additional “more”
serious task! No doubt this affair becomes more cheaper and more
approachable, but still very far from “FREE” concerning financial
aspect and the same difficult, if we’re talking about labor and
time expenditures.
Simultaneously,
such financial instrument as legal mp3 sales doesn’t function in
the reality due
to totally free downloading of musical digital content via torrent
trackers and other similar filesharing net resources. Consequently
the situation with free downloading transforms into something looks
like a catastrophe.
This
is the modern reality, not an abstract theory, when 99% musicians
don’t have ANY possibilities to finance their new CD. Earlier on
you could expect either support of label or profits from sales of
previous recording albums (that means if you are good in your music
you have to find funds only for your first album, then you release
the second from the profits from the first one and so on). Today:
first expectation (labels) is naive, record labels are actually dying
due to uncontrolled downloading and filesharing, nobody is going to
finance invariably lossmaking product. Second way (self-finance) is
impossible too due to the same reason…
Someone
could say “What about “pay-what-you-want” model? Be like
“Radiohead”. Sadly every musician should spend years and years of
working (that means money) to become “Radiohead”, and the
question “how
to support yourself and your music?” seems unanswered. I wouldn’t
surprise if “Radiohead” wouldn’t become such a cult band, even
continue to be a band at all in a few years, if they’d start today.
Someone
could say most musicians get paid from touring and gigs. Part true,
but the whole truth is that touring is the ONLY ONE income for 99% of
TOURING musicians and very often covers only living, modest living,
no more. A lot of musicians, especially in experimental music, can’t
performance their numbers in public, so they have to finish and go
working in tescos…
Many
famous “major” independent musicians start to raise the alarm,
for example, ex-King Crimson member Trey Gunn. In his blog he discuss
the situation with original
facts and figures and everybody’s welcome to this discussion.
Obviously
- this state of things should change and I hope it’s going to
change asap; otherwise all independent music is going to die, all
jokes aside. Unobviously -HOW and WHAT must change…
That
album was released in 2009. What have you been up to since the
release of that album and what is the latest
update from your life in music?
Last
1,5 years I was really busy with my movements, between cities and
countries. I
don’t think about new recording yet, it’s too early for that.
Those months I’ve managed to intensify my guitar studies. It’s
amazing, I’ve played guitar more than 15 years and I still have a
feeling that I’m like a baby in a playpit. All the time you find
something astonishing, something fantastic! And what’s more
incredible, you know for sure there are a lot of new dizzy
discoveries ahead! Great. Just great.
What
is the inspirations behind your music and
these two albums?
Literature
and cinema. Two
my “criminal” passions. If I weren’t a musician I would become
a writer or a film director, no doubt.
Just
to give those of us who are unknown with your albums a bit of a
reference point or two: How would you describe your music and which
bands would you
would compare your music with?
I
try to find a proper place for an electric guitar in the world of
modern music, in our digital
electronic era. I’m deeply assured that rock music (or better to
say “electric guitar energetic live music”) and the wide range of
electronic styles are not opposite territories, there’s a lot of
meeting points for them.
I’m
inspired by thousands of music things, because I’m completely
convinced that all music divides just in two categories: talented and
mediocre. So I’m an admiring enthusiast of the first one!
If we’re talking about names I hope you could hear
in my albums something from Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Buckethead, Nine
Inch Nails, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Bill Frisell, David Torn,
Ozric Tentacles, Pink Floyd, Air… And so on...
What is your plans for the rest of this year?
Now I’m working on a smooth-jazz
cover-project, commercial, besides there’s an idea to have a bash
at modern jazz-funk project with “live” band. You know, I’ve
come to London only a few months ago, I’ve fell in love with this
city and I feel
that at the moment I shouldn’t think so much about how to create
something new (as usually) by myself as to plunge in this new (for
me) world, to become a part of London’s musical community. So…
This is exactly what I’m going to do!
Anything
you want to add
to this interview?
I
want to say “thanks a lot”” to your site www.progarchives.com,
this is a reputable place for regular meetings for all prog-rock fans
worldwide, and it’s a honour to be amidst musicians, whose
creations attracted your attention.
And certainly I want to express my appreciation
personally for you, Torodd. Thank you very much.
Thank you Jake for this interview
His PA profile is here and his homepage is here
/PAlogo_v2.gif "Progarchives.com Homepage")
Jake Pashkin
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