Interview with 5R6

Igor – guitars, vocals.  

Eugene – bass.

Kirill – guitar. 

Igor: And Dmitry – drums, back vocals, sound engineering. But he went on a small tour with his other band and I didn’t manage to catch him to answer this interview, unfortunately.

Igor: Actually, I don’t even remember now how we decided that it is time to make this EP. We just had a bunch of songs and decided that we should record them and let people know about us. As for influences, I clearly remember listening to Alice In Chains , Soundgarden, Opeth, Tool,  Porcupine Tree and A Perfect Circle a lot at that time. Also Death was an influence as well, I loved this band since I was 14, I guess, and I still do. 

Igor: The title refers to the fact that the faintest celestial object that is visible to the naked eye has the apparent magnitude of 6.5. So, basically, this means all the stars you can possibly see without a telescope. The main theme is how small we are comparing to the universe, and how dramatically insignificant are our problems and aspirations from that point of view. But there is rather optimistic angle to it, than nihilistic. Like live, embrace this world as it is, and stop doing the things you hate.   

Igor: I think that there are two factors that made the songs sound so experimental. When I develop some musical idea, I try to avoid clichés and drop anything that reminds me too much of some other bands or our own songs. Of course there are many similarities here and there, you cannot reinvent rock music. But I try to at least avoid some direct references. And then when we all start to work on a song together more fresh ideas are brought in. Some things may start to sound in a way that I could not predict. We all have pretty different musical background (a lot of things are common between us, but even more are different). So, it is very interesting to watch, or rather hear, how the song changes, flows and takes its form. Usually the final changes are made in the studio, even with the songs that we played for years before the recording.     

Igor: Not really. Of course, you can hear that some piece sounds in the spirit of this band, and that riff reminds of that band. Some parts were inspired by certain songs or bands, but they don’t sound really similar, and I guess that it would be hard to guess which is inspired by what. There are no intentional music homages. There are a few intentional homages in the lyrics though☺. I’m not sure if I did something like this on Islands, but there were at least two lyrical homages on “+6.5…” EP, like the name of the song “A Dam Breaks Open”, which is an reference to the lyrics of a song from the most popular prog album of all times, or the line “I saw a bad moon rising…” in “Cold Shine” is an homage to one of  the most influential and much praised experimental/alternative rock band.    

Igor: The album art is traditionally drawn by our fellow 3-D artist Vadim Shchepilov. He has his own pretty unique style. We usually have very vague idea of what should be on the cover and rather explain Vadim the conception of the album and its emotional baggage. So, the result is usually a surprise to us. His art for “Islands” and “+6.5…” EP is fascinating, in my opinion, and surpassing all our expectations. 

The only release for which artwork wasn’t done by Vadim is “Vermin”, which we released as a single through our Bandcamp page. We wanted something more raw and simple for it. The cover for “Vermin” was drawn by the beautiful bassist of Kiev’s experimental/post-rock outfit Krobak, Asya Makarova.    

Igor: I often talk about our influences and sources of inspiration, so this time I would rather concentrate on what influenced me during the recording of this album, beside the bands that helped me to form as a musician long time ago. I would name Dinosaur Jr., Motorpsycho, Mogwai, Swans and Unwound as influences on my guitar playing on this record, as well as on guitars’ sound. I listened to Seven Impale, Die Nerven and Self Defense Family a lot during the recording so, I guess, they might have influenced me too somewhat. As to what influenced my singing on this record, for me it is hard to tell for sure. 

Kirill: Title Fight influenced my guitar playing much for the last couple of years. Lately, I listen to soul and hip-hop a lot, there is no obvious connection with 5R6’s music of course. But this music inspires me.

Eugene: I listened to Incubus during the recording of Islands a lot. But I tried to approach each song from the perspective of its composition and sound. So I don’t see any direct influence in particular. I just wanted to make it all sound good in the mix. 

Igor: I second that.   

Eugene: I would recommend you to make your friends listen to the album, and then ask them :)

Kirill: I don’t know. Rock?

Igor: Yeah, I guess it is pretty hard to describe how our music sounds. I would say that we play something like heavy progressive rock with alternative rock/post-hardcore feel or something like this. Tell them we manage to squeeze good songs in odd structures and strange arrangements :)

Igor: There is no well-developed prog scene in Kharkiv. Kharkiv is mostly known in the world for its black-metal outfits (i.e. Drudkh). As to prog there is a band named Sunchild, they are pretty successful but mostly known outside of Ukraine. They play more traditional neo-prog. Also, there are our fellows Burrow, who play kind of “proggish” sludge metal.   

Igor: We will, probably, make a video, release some new material next year, and do some touring. Then… We’ll see. 

"Islands" is available from Bandcamp. Check out 5R6 on Facebook.