About Junkyard Storytellaz: St. Petersburg soul with punk rock energy!
Junkyard Storytellaz is a soul and punk rock band from St. Petersburg! The unique sound of these guys can be compared, perhaps, if Iggy Pop and Kurt Cobain suddenly decided to sing with the musicians of Nat King Cole! The members of Junkyard Storytellaz themselves call their music “garage soul”:
“We are expressionists! Accordingly, our music sounds crazy, avant-garde, but, nevertheless, very harmonious ... ”- comments the group's keyboardist, Sam Morgunov (aka Semyon).
The biography of the band remembers long studio work, long tours, and even composing blues in police stations! Let's find out more about all of this...
History of Junkyard Storytellaz
The Junkyard Storytellaz group was founded in St. Petersburg. It was in the bars of this bohemian city that the guys gained their first fame ... Their expressive performance and eccentric live performances could not go unnoticed. The creativity of Junkyard Storytellaz harmoniously combines two seemingly incompatible genres such as soul and psychedelic rock... All this turns into a strong and insurmountable wall of sound on the guys' live shows, bringing the audience to a boiling point... It is this phenomenon that allowed Junkyard Storytellaz to come out beyond the small bar scene to large venues in two capitals of Russia at once!
The driving nature of Junkyard Storytellaz could not but attract the attention of more famous colleagues on the stage! So, the rock band Electric Six invited the novice band to perform at their opening act ... We can say that even then it could be considered a victory! After all, this is how the history of many, and now legendary musicians and bands began ...
Composition
The Junkyard Storytellaz group consists of five people: Semyon Morgunov (keyboardist), Nikolai Ordanovsky (saxophonist), Grigory Zalezhnev (frontman), Mikhail Zakharov (drummer) and Daniil Nepevny (bassist).
“The group was formed quite by accident. We were all invited to perform at a random jam, and as a result, this project was born. Most of the songs were invented by us spontaneously - we literally grabbed everything on the fly! - said Grigory Zalezhnev in one of his interviews.
By the way, Grigory Zalezhnev is known to many from the show "Voice", in which he took part. His signature, moderately hoarse tenor delighted the jury and the audience ...
As you can see, there is no guitarist in the band. Yes this is true. Together, Semyon Morgunov and Nikolai Ordanovsky replaced the guitar sound... Instead, the guys skillfully weave motifs of electronic piano and enchanting saxophone solos into the band's musical canvas...
First album and first success...
The release of the group's first full-length album titled "Golden Guillotine" (2018) finally shaped the musical style of Junkyard Storytellaz. The sound took on brighter, bolder brass tones… Large-scale shows soon followed: a big concert at the Opera Concert Club with a huge orchestra and backing vocalists, a concert with A2, participation in a dozen festivals, including Original Party, Custom & Tuning Show, Stereoleto… And all this is just the beginning of a dizzying success!
However, according to the frontman of Junkyard Storytellaz - Grigory Zalezhnev - it is too early to talk about the future fate of the group:
“What awaits us next is hard to say. The success of a group always depends on two factors: the share of luck and a direct hit in the heart of the listener ... "
“... Everyone around them only says that“ the artist must be hungry. But I didn't notice any degradation after the Junkyard Storytellaz project became a success. Moreover, I did not notice this with any of my favorite musicians, whether it be Muddy Waters or The Rolling Stones ... However, if we talk about the decay of talent, there are hundreds of examples: the same The Gories, or Nick Drake who has fallen nowhere ... Personally we want to spend more time on music than on basic needs…”
“... We don't know where we will be in a couple of years... Maybe it will be South America, or maybe our project will not exist at all... At the moment, our priority is to continue writing music and collecting halls in Russia. I will not dissemble: like any artist, in five years I would really like to find myself well-fed, well-dressed ... I would like to ride a Jaguar of the 90s in some crowded hall of the capital ... And so that we all, in full force, rise to the stage…”
About the album "Golden Guillotine"
Golden Guillotine is the band's first studio album, released in 2018. The release includes old tracks from the live EP "The Dog", as well as several new songs.
It is worth noting that with this release, the old works of the group have acquired a completely new sound! By the time the "Golden Guillotine" was released, the guys managed, as they say, to "play together". And the original rhythm and blues / rock and roll sound has turned into something completely different ...
“We can describe our music as “Garage Soul” ... As for the recording of the album, it was tough: we were reworking something all the time, coming up with new things ... In addition to everything, I got sick, which is why I attended most of the rehearsals on medication ... I remember how I constantly wanted to sleep because of this ... ”- Grigory said.
“For the recording of Golden Guillotine, I am especially grateful to Seva, our sound engineer. Apparently, he just has nerves of steel! Otherwise, he would just kill us all…”
Big tour of Russia
Shortly after the release of "Golden Guillotine", the guys made a big tour of Russia in support of the album. And this is what came out of it...
Grigory Zalezhnev:
“To our surprise, this tour went pretty smoothly. Unlike the previous one, when we went to the police… The only problem happened to us in Kazan: I lost my voice, because of which I had to urgently look for a phoniatrist. They gave me injections, poured adrenaline on the ligaments, washed them for forty minutes with some kind of solution ... And all this literally an hour before the concert! Wild Tour…”
It is worth noting that a lot of viewers come to the Junkyard Storytellaz show! People really want to enjoy the work of the St. Petersburg group, and some - several times:
“Repeatedly observed people who chase us around the cities! That is, our shows really bring them pleasure ... It's great inspiration! Although sometimes we hear from drunk balabols that with our “non-Russian songs” we will never gather large halls ... "
Well, Junkyard Storytellaz rightfully deserve such fame! Many authoritative figures in the music world note that the group has a unique context not only for the city, but for the whole country! In many ways, the success of Junkyard Storytellaz is due to the fact that they were the first to manage to combine the most colorful form of presentation with complex and rather serious content.
