Russian band
Russian band
Amatory (stylized as [AMATORY]) is a Russian metal band formed by Daniil "Stewart" Svetlov and Denis "Denver" Zhivotovsky in St. Petersburg in 1998. In the autumn of the same year, Evgeny "PJ" Potekhin joined them, and two and a half years later, Sergey "Gang" Osechkin joined the group and the trio became a quartet. The first rehearsal in the "classic" line-up of 4 people took place on April 1, 2001 - later this date became the official birthday of the group.
Amatory are considered one of the founders of Russian alternative metal, but throughout the existence of the group, their musical style has changed several times.
In 2005, Amatory won the RAMP award in two categories: the song "Black and White Days" won the "Clip of the Year" nomination, and the group itself won the "Group of the Year" nomination. In the same year, the team received the St. Petersburg Alternative Music Awards in the categories "Best Music Video" for the song "Black and White Days" and "Best Album" for "Inevitability", as well as the audience award of the FUZZ 2005 award. In 2008, the group won in the nomination "Best Alternative Group" FUZZ 2008 award, and the following year received the "Internet Choice" award of "Our Radio". Also in 2009, the song "Breathe with me" became the winner of the RAMP award in the "Hit of the Year" nomination.
As of 2020, the band's discography includes 7 full-length albums, 2 instrumental albums and 7 mini-albums (4 of which are instrumental).
Amatory founders Daniil "Stewart" Svetlov and Denis "Denver" Zhivotovsky met at the age of thirteen in the spring of 1998, when they skated in the yard of the house where they both lived at that time. Having agreed on musical preferences, they began to rehearse at Svetlov's apartment - Daniil played the drums, and Denis played the acoustic guitar. In the autumn of the same year, a mutual friend, having heard that they had a group, but they were playing together, brought them together with Evgeny Potekhin, who was older, more experienced and had additional equipment, including an amplifier and a guitar pedal. Potekhin became the vocalist and "real" guitarist of the group, as well as its leader and ideological inspirer. Zhivotovsky was asked to switch to bass, but he initially took the idea negatively, as he did not want to spend money on a new instrument. Soon the group of one of his acquaintances broke up, from whom he bought a bass guitar for little money, thus putting an end to the unsuccessful search for a bass player.
With the advent of Potekhin, rehearsals moved to Zhivotovsky's apartment, since there was a free room where Svetlov moved his drum kit. They covered all the walls with carpets to muffle the sound, but this did not help - the neighbors regularly called, banged on the door and called the police. The repertoire of their first concerts in nearby schools consisted mainly of cover versions of Nirvana songs. Soon Potekhin and Zhivotovsky became interested in Korn, and Svetlov at the same time was imbued with the ideas of ultra-heavy forms of metal, such as black metal and grindcore. He began to gradually distance himself from his bandmates, not wanting to play their "pop music", and eventually left them, taking his drum set. In order to return Svetlov, Potekhin and Zhivotovsky went to the trick - they began to compose music in the style of grindcore, gradually introducing elements of nu-metal into it.
In the summer of 1999, PJ found a rehearsal spot in the Rubin teenage club, in connection with this, the nameless group needed a name - Potekhin called it Amatory, having found in the English-Russian dictionary a word consonant with Crematory, Obituary and Cemetary.
By the beginning of 2000, Amatory's repertoire consisted of about a dozen grindcore songs, which were divided into two types: several tracks of forty seconds each and a few more that looked a little more like full-fledged songs with a verse and chorus. At this time, PJ and Denver began to implement the second stage of their plan and slowly integrate alternative moments into grindcore. At first, this was very annoying for Svetlov, because any retreat from grindcore was perceived by him as an alien ideology and a “deal with conscience”. This transitional moment is reflected in the first demo, which was recorded live at the same rehearsal space and consisted of 30 tracks with a total running time of about 18 minutes. By autumn, PJ had written several songs for a new demo, in which the emphasis was even more shifted towards the alternative, but by that time Svetlov had already become imbued with the KoЯn Follow The Leader album and the Limp Bizkit soundtrack for the Mission Impossible film, so the gradual departure from grindcore perceived by him already without acute internal conflict. The second demo, which included the tracks Without Tears (the oldest song of Amatory), Transplants, Not Living, Lesbis and Fight Me, was noticed by the director of the St. Petersburg club "Polygon" Pavel Klinov. From performances in this club for Amatory began the path to fame.
Gradually, the band members realized the need for a second guitarist, and after a short search, Sergey "Gang" Osechkin became one. The first rehearsal as a four-piece took place on April 1, 2001 - later this day became the official date of birth of the group. As a quartet, the team played several concerts, but in June Potekhin was drafted into the army for two years. Having lost their leader, vocalist and main songwriter, Amatory decided to move on. Vocals and lyrics were taken over by Denver, while Gang took over the music. With such a truncated line-up, the group recorded a demo “I don’t live”, which was originally supposed to be recorded together with PJ.
After the first demo was recorded, Amatory decided to experiment with the sound. At that time, the topic of rap was extremely relevant in heavy music, and Denver suggested that his school friend Alexei "Lexus" Ovchinnikov, who wrote and performed songs in the style of rap and hip hop, try to record something with them. In September 2001, Lexus joined the group as a rapper, and six months later Alexey "Liolik" Skornyakov joined them, who had a professional AKAI S1100 sampler, which made it possible to diversify the music with electronic sound. After the appearance of two new members in the group, Amatory recorded a split cassette "Bread" with the group SPERMADONARZ (a joint project of the Animal Jazz and Bricks groups) on the Caravan Records label. The presentation of Khleb was scheduled for November 26, 2002 at the new club Orlandina - everyone came there except Skornyakov. After some time, it turned out that Lelik was on his way to the club when a patrol stopped him to check his documents, and on the same day he ended up in the army after Potekhin. Thus the group lost its second musician.
"Bread" sold well, and the band decided to record their debut album. The pre-single was the song "Shards", to which was added the newest song at that time, Moloko (Milk Shake) and three live tracks taken from Khleb: "Feelings", "Not From Here" and a cover of (SIC) Slipknot, recorded with the participation of Danila "Danny Boy" Smirnova from the Kirpichi group.
In the spring of 2003, Alexander "Alex" Pavlov became the second guitarist in the group. At the same time, Yevgeny Potekhin returned from the army, who, during his stay in the ranks of the armed forces, formally remained in the composition. By the time of his return, Amatory had already changed direction quite a lot, so PJ began to realize his musical ideas as a guitarist, vocalist and songwriter in the group The Korea.
On November 14, 2003, the album Fate Always Hiding was released, named after one of the songs, which was written under the influence of the eponymous story by Irvine Welsh from the Ecstasy trilogy: Three Stories About Love and Drugs. Mixing and mastering were done by Pavel Klinov and Zakhar Mai, who had just returned from the USA after 15 years of emigration and had advanced sound engineering equipment.
In early 2004, Lexus left the band, and Stigmata guitarist Igor Kapranov took his place. The first work with Kapranov was the maxi-single Two Lives, released on March 14, 2004 on the Kapkan Records label. On the cover of this release, the [AMATORY] corporate logo appeared for the first time - square brackets that enclose the name of the group and the nicknames of its members. Immediately after the release of the single, the team began recording their second album. Despite the fact that Igor joined the group as a vocalist, by the beginning of the recording of the songs he still did not have sufficient vocal skills, so almost all the growling parts during the work on the new release were recorded by Denver.
The second album [AMATORY], produced by Danish producer Jakob Hansen and called "Inevitable", was released on October 14, 2004. Thanks to the work with Jacob Amatory began to play "in a Western manner". Inevitability became one of the top five best-selling rock albums, and the group's vocalist [IGOR], according to FUZZ magazine, became the voice of a generation. In 2004, Amatory, together with Psyche and Jane Air, created the SPbMusic coalition, which significantly increased the audience of each of the teams.
On December 17, 2004, a music video for the song Black and White Days, shot by Evgeny Priest Kazakov from Devian Creations, appeared on the Internet. In addition to the main idea of Black and White Days, the video contains references to many other songs by Amatory, such as: Milkshake, Shards, Two Lives, Forever Hiding Destiny, Not From Here, Cage, Kilometers, Run After Me, Broken World and Deep Inside . In February 2005, the single Black and White Days was released, on the cover of which there was a dedication to guitarist Dimebag Darrell of Pantera and Damageplan, who was shot by a fanatical fan right on stage during a concert in December 2004.
In the spring of 2005, Liolik, their former electronics engineer, who had returned from the army by that time, joined the group as a technician. His first concert, worked out with Amatory in a new capacity, was the FUZZ festival at the Yubileiny Sports Palace, where, according to the voting results, the group won the "People's Choice Award". In May, Kapkan Records label released the band's first DVD called [P]OST [S]CRIPTUM, which included amateur footage from concerts, dressing rooms and recording of new songs at DDT and Hansen Studios. The DVD also includes music videos for the songs Shards and Black and White Days, and several live tracks filmed at the Inevitability presentations.
In September 2005, [AMATORY] opened for Korn at the first RAMP 2005 awards ceremony of the newly created alternative music channel A-One, at the same time the music video for the song Black and White Days won the "Clip of the Year" nomination, and the group itself took the prize " Group of the Year. Around the same time, the band formed a fan movement [White Trap], whose members organized various fan-actions during performances and added entertainment to the concerts.
In early 2006, the Discovery EP was released, which was originally planned as a comic New Year's release. It included 5 covers and one original Rock Baby song.
In the spring of 2006, the band went on the Rock 5 Tour, during which [GANG] often had a fever and a sharp pain in his right side. In the summer, while working on a new album with Jacob Hansen, he felt very bad, so during the first part of the Live Evil tour he was replaced by Perimeter guitarist Nikolai "Niki" Yuriev.
The band's third album, Book of the Dead, was released on Friday the 13th in October 2006. Five days later, shortly before taking the stage in front of Stone Sour at the 2006 RAMP Awards, the musicians learned that Osechkin had been diagnosed with liver cancer. He died at the age of 23 on March 15, 2007 and was buried in the January 9th Memorial Cemetery, along with his first Jackson guitar given to him by his grandmother. In 2015, on the album "6", the group dedicated the song 15/03 to him. Later, members of the group repeatedly called this period the worst time in the history of the group - they decided to continue, but this decision was given to them with difficulty. According to Svetlov, they then drank non-stop in order to somehow survive it.
Despite the fact that the group again remained a four-piece, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in 2007 [AMATORY] became a phenomenon and a "fashion dictator" on the Russian music scene, giving a record number of sold-out concerts throughout the country and causing an unprecedented stir. Around the same time, the group gained fans in other countries - they received letters from Latin America, Europe and Asia.
Guitarist Ivan Ludevig (ex-Kirpichi) went with them to the second part of the Live Evil Tour. On April 26, Amatory played a concert with him at the Yubileiny Sports Palace, which was filmed in collaboration with Evgeny Priest Kazakov and released a year later as a live DVD Live Evil. In the summer, the group performed as a four-piece, and Igor played the second guitar if necessary. In this capacity, they were invited to play with Linkin Park, but opted for their solo concert in Moscow and a charity concert in memory of Gang'a, all proceeds from which went to his family and the installation of a memorial.
In September, Amatory embarked on the Saint Seventh Tour with session guitarist Dmitry Rubanovsky. To coincide with the start of the tour, the live video of the Butterfly Effect was released in support of the upcoming live DVD, and DVD Evol.01 was released, consisting of amateur videos shot by the musicians themselves and their team during tours starting in May 2005. During the Saint Seventh Tour, Nashe TV aired a mini-series called "[AMATORY] in your city", which included behind-the-scenes footage from concerts and dressing rooms, as well as their road trips.
In early 2008, ESP, together with Alexander Pavlov, released a signature guitar "ESP LTD [A-600]" - it became the first signature guitar from a musician from Russia.
On March 20, 2008, [AMATORY] celebrated their seventh anniversary at the Luzhniki Sports Palace with new session guitarist Dmitry Rubanovsky. At the same time, the presentation of the DVD/CD Live Evil took place, which became the third release created in collaboration with Jacob Hansen. During the year, [AMATORY] won the "Best Alternative Band" award at FUZZ's Xll Annual Rock Music Awards and won the "People's Choice Award" at the Metal Planet Awards.
In September, the group's session guitarist Dmitry "Jay" Rubanovsky became its official member and main composer. A little later in the same autumn, the Nashe TV Internet channel began showing video reports from the studio about the recording process of a new album under the guidance of Danish producer Tu Madsen, known for his work with Meshuggah, Dark Tranquility and Ektomorf. In October, the first Internet single from the upcoming album titled "You are all deprived of your life" appeared on the band's official website, and a month later Amatory released the single "Breathe with me" on a physical medium and signed a contract with the FG Nikitin music label. The song received heavy radio play and topped the charts for seven weeks.
On November 7, 2008, the band's fourth full-length album, VII, was released, named after the band's seventh anniversary.[68] The album was recorded simultaneously in Russian and English, but the English version was never released.
In April 2009, the NTV channel showed a story about [AMATORY] as part of the Neformat project, which told about ten underground musical groups from Russia that, without the support of the media and producers, were able to achieve great popularity. Shortly before that, the group released a music video for the single "Dyshi with me", which received wide rotation on the leading music channels in Russia and the CIS, and in the fall this song won the "Hit of the Year" nomination of the RAMP 2009 award. Despite its great popularity, "Breathe with me "caused confusion and erroneous accusations of plagiarism, because Rubanovsky wrote the music and lyrics in English during his stay in the Tearfall group, then the second version of the song was played by his next group Horizon 8, and the Amatory version, the words to which were written by Zhivotovsky , became the third in a row.
“In fact, this is the third reincarnation of Breath with Me, because I composed it back in the days of my first band Tearfall. The only difference is that we did not have time to record it then, but recorded it a little later with a group formed again by me after the breakup of Tearfall. The guys from [AMATORY] really liked the ballad - hence the decision to record it for the new album and unleash its full potential. We made a new arrangement, and [DENVER] wrote a good Russian-language lyrics… Actually, why not? To be honest, I didn’t even think that there would be such a reaction from part of the public, and I still don’t understand the outrage.” Dmitry [JAY] Rubanovsky, "Black and White Days: The Truth About [AMATORY]"
On November 27, 2009, the band released the online single Crimson Dawn, mixed by American sound producer Chris Zeuss Harris (Zeuss[en]), known for his work with Hatebreed, Chimaira, Suicide Silence and many others. A few days later, a music video for the song appeared on the Amatory YouTube channel.
In March 2010, Amphora Publishing House published a book by music journalist Alexei Kuzovlev “Black and White Days. The Truth About [AMATORY], which tells the story of the band from the early days of its existence and the rocky path to success based on many exclusive interviews with Denver, Igor, Stewart, Alex and Jay within two and a half years.
Meanwhile, the group's vocalist Igor Kapranov began to gradually delve into the Orthodox religion. In the spring of 2009, he spent a week in the Valaam Monastery in one of the most strict sketes, and on July 28, 2010, two weeks after Amatory's performance in Finland at one of the world's largest metal festivals, Tuska Open Air, Kapranov announced that he was leaving the band and is going to devote himself to religion. This statement was a complete surprise for both the band and the fans, it caused a strong response and a lot of discussion. After that, Kapranov lived for a year in the Valaam Monastery, turning off his phone and not getting in touch with anyone.
Since Igor left Amatory three weeks before the start of the recording of the new album, when the record studio was already booked and Tu Madsen's arrival in St. Petersburg was organized, the band had to urgently look for a new vocalist. Vyacheslav "Slava" Sokolov (ex- Such A Beautiful Day, The Wheels Of Sorrrow) became the winner. Since the end of summer, short videos began to appear on the AMATORY.TV channel in the Smorti.com video service, where the musicians talked about the process of recording a new album. On October 6, 2010, the band released their first single titled "Through Closed Eyelids" while also announcing their new vocalist.
The fifth studio album, called "Instinct of the Doomed", was released on October 26, 2010.
In 2011, on the occasion of the band's tenth anniversary, the band went on an anniversary tour with two vocalists - Vyacheslav Sokolov and Igor Kapranov, who had returned from the monastery by that time and temporarily joined Amatory as a special guest.] Before the start of the tour, a gift Internet single "Oskolki 2.011", where the vocals are performed by Igor and Slava, unlike the original version performed by Denver and Lexus.
On May 31, the FG Nikitin label released the anniversary collection [AMATORY] Mp3 Collection, which included the albums Fate Eternally Hiding, Inevitability, Book of the Dead, VII and Instinct of the Doomed. A month after this release, the band performed as a special guest at a Slipknot concert at the Olympiysky sports complex.
At the end of the year, Dmitry Rubanovsky left the band, and Ilya Kukhin (ex- Such A Beautiful Day, The Wheels Of Sorrrow) became the new guitarist. With him, the group recorded three singles - Believe Me, Moment of Truth and a cover of the song "Three Stripes", recorded together with Mikhalych, the vocalist of Animal Jazz. In 2012, Alexander Pavlov left the band and was replaced for the duration of the tour by session guitarist Ilya "Eel" Borisov, who later became a permanent member of the band.
On September 8, 2012, the Kapkan Records label released the anniversary DVD "The X-Files: Live in Saint-P." Shortly before this, Amatory announced the suspension of activities, explaining this decision by the decline of the music industry and the lack of opportunities for musicians to go on long tours. In the same news, they announced a tour called "The Last Concert?", and after it ended on January 1, 2013, they went on an indefinite sabbatical.
Since the late 2000s, [STEWART] has become interested in electronic music and often played DJ sets after Amatory concerts. In early 2013, when the band took a creative break, he founded the EDM trap project Fatsound Brothers with Dmitry Muzychenko (ex-Naily) and Taras Umansky from Stigmata. As part of this project, Muzychenko wrote several compositions, which subsequently laid the foundation for the new album [AMATORY].
In 2014, the band performed at several festivals, without officially returning from a sabbatical.
At the end of 2014 Dmitry "Helldimm" Muzychenko replaced Ilya Kukhin and became the main composer of music. With his arrival, the band acquired a more electronic sound. On January 30, 2015, the team presented a new song Stop Time at the Stars Fucktory festival. It was released as the first single from the upcoming album on June 15, 2015, and a music video was released on the band's YouTube channel four days later.
On October 6, 2015, Amatory released the album 6, which they worked on for two years, experimenting with sound. This is the first release in the history of the band, which almost completely lacked Denver's vocals.
On March 15, 2016, a studio music video was released for the song "15/03", dedicated to the band's guitarist Sergei Osechkin, who died of liver cancer on March 15, 2007. A week later, a neo-noir video for the song "First" was released. On October 12, 2016, a new official release of Amatory took place - the EP "Fire". The release consisted of three full-length tracks, one of which was recorded with the Russian rapper ATL.
Since the summer of 2017, Amatory has been on a concert all-Russian tour. In December 2017, Amatory took part in the Jager Music Awards, where they presented a joint track with rapper Bumble Beezy. This collaboration resulted in the maxi-single Original Go Getter/Original Go Getter (Rock Version), which was released on March 15, 2018.
March 11, 2018 Vyacheslav Sokolov was officially fired from the group. According to its musicians, over the past year, no one from the band has communicated with the vocalist because of his problems with alcohol and unprofessional behavior, and the last straw was his participation in the Songs project on the TNT channel, where, according to the band members, he led itself is incorrect in relation to [AMATORY].
On March 29, 2019, the group released the single "Cosmo-kamikaze" with a new vocalist, whose name was kept secret. Over the following months, the first concerts were gradually announced as part of the summer festivals "Fly away", "Invasion" and "Chernozem", as well as the dates of the autumn tour in support of the new album. At the same time, a promo photo of the group with a new member in a mask was used. On July 5, the second single "Knife" was released, recorded together with rapper Dirty "RAM" Ramirez, and a lyrics video for this song appeared on the official YouTube channel amatorytube.
A few days later, the group announced a live broadcast on VKontakte and posted another photo in an updated line-up without a mask. The new vocalist turned out to be Sergey Raev, a member of Obscure of Acacia, Triumphant, Celestial Meridian, also known for his work with Shokran and Sumatra.
On October 11, the track "Star Dirt" became available along with the pre-order of the new album. The album was called "Doom" and was released on October 18, 2019. On November 5, the video "Star Dirt" was released, in which the group's fans took part.
On April 17, 2020, [AMATORY] released three releases at once: “The Unvoiced Pt. I (6 Instrumental)", "The Unvoiced Pt. III (DOOM Instrumental)", and EP "The Unvoiced Pt. II (Instrumental Fire)". On June 26, 2020, a cover version of the DDT song "Rodina" was released, intended for the tribute album "DDT Territory", which is planned to be released in honor of the band's 40th anniversary.
While working on Doom, 23 demos were recorded, of which ten were selected that most fit the concept of the album. On January 30, the band announced the We play - you sing competition, in which participants were asked to write lyrics and vocals for one of the instrumental tracks not included in the album. According to the results of the competition, the song I Sing You Pay by the Belarusian musician Miroshland from the metal band An Argency won. It was re-recorded along with the band members and released as a single on September 18, 2020.
On March 30, 2021, on the eve of the Ama20ry All Stars concert, the group, together with Outcast, namely the former members of Amatory (Igor [IGOR] Kapranov, Alexander [ALEX] Pavlov and Dmitry [JAY] Rubanovsky) release the gift single "Snow in hell 2.021 ".
On August 13, 2021, the band uploads to YouTube a DVD of the concert, which was played on April 23 of the same year in honor of the band's 20th anniversary. Later, the live album "ALL STARS: LIVE IN MOSCOW 2021" will be released.