October 13th 2007



Interview with Andre Osokin (Eclipse Hunter)

Hi Andre how are you doing? It is great to have an interview with you.

Hello, Silvana! Doing just fine, played a very important concert with the band on a contest on Wednesday and we nearly took the 1st place, but nope…the jury decided the band called Retriem to be just a little bit better this time. Celebrated two bandmates’ birthdays yesterday and very pleased with the results of our long hard work.

About Eclipse Hunter, can you introduce the band to our readers and future fans?

Yeah, sure, I would start with our guitar player

Vladimir Ilyuhin, a kind-hearted and friendly person, a talented musician and a close friend of mine. If you talk to him he’ll never ignore you, so feel free to ask him a question or buy a drink, if he’s not driving! It’s really great to work with him. I can’t even imagine the future of Eclipse Hunter without him. The next guy is our bassist,

Tim Alexeyev, the youngest band member, the dude that loves music, photography and chicks haha. The man works hard. Especially, during the last few months. He’s quite extroversive, I think. Has a good sense of humor and very serious at the same time.

Andrey Novosyolov, our drummer, is also a talented drummer, he has a great potential, that affects his technique improvement each year. He “grows” very fast, so to say. And we love it! It’s kinda problematic to have a good drummer in Russia, but it’s very cool to have such a drummer as Andrey in the band.

Our newest addition, Alexander Yurov, impressed me by his skills, abilities and hard work on our first rehearsal with him. And he still does! When Vladimir and I first went to his concert with his other band Dirizhabl, that plays covers on Deep Purple and other classic rock bands we were like…”wow! This guy is perfect!”…not to mention his flawless performances of Child In Time and Space Truckin’. So I’m happy he’s in the band. On our first concert together that was on November 7th, that I mentioned before, I felt self-confident like “it’s all gonna be ok”. Confidence means a lot to the leader of the band, so he can concentrate more on his performance. But nevertheless, I experienced 2 technical problems during the show, like one of my keyboards turned off during Coming Home because I accidently pulled the power plug off, fortunately, that was fixed before the solo; and during the performance of the acoustic version of our new ballad Angel, my sustain pedal turned upside down and it was kinda hard to step on it from the back side, but thank God I managed to do that. So, Alexander is a pure professional. And I would also like to mention our additional member of our “musical family” – Alexandra Popova, who does the backing vocals and lead female vocals on the song called Fading. She has a powerful and wonderful voice, and more than this, she’s truly talented not only as a vocalist, but as a composer. Sasha writes kind of a symphonic/rock music, you can check out some tracks at her MySpace page. And, speaking of all of us, we don’t do drugs, we don’t like football and we all like to joke with each other, prank each other and do other stuff to spice up our life and to be in a good mood!

How did it come to the this current line up of the band?

Well, it was back in 2005 when I realized that our first guitarist, Tim Kotchergin, will not join EH to work 100% effectively, I started to search for the new guitar player with the help of our vocalist for that time, Anatoly Afanasov. He sent me an e-mail of a guitar player that posted an announcement “Guitar player is searching for a band…”. We exchanged a few e-mails and music files; then met each other, talked a bit and next week my sequencer and I were rehearsing with him . In late January 2006, I met Tim Alexeyev by accident, in the place when we used to rehearse before. He suggested me to take his friend, Andrey Novosyolov in the band. Andrey was 17 years old then and he blew my hair back with his playing! In April 2006 we had those rehearsals featuring Vladimir, Tim, Andrey and me. Then, we started searching for a new vocalist, because Anatoly and I had different points of view about the band and its development, and decided to part ways. Vladimir suggested his ex-bandmember from Retriem (yes, he played in the band that won the race on November, 7th), Alexey Tyshkevich somewhere in July-August 2006. We started rehearsals with him in September, had a photo session, but after a few rehearsals we realized that our personal and discipline differences can’t fit in our band, though he had (and I guess still has) an incredible voice. In November 2006, I met an friend of mine, Dmitry Kazakov and asked him once again (back in 2005, Dmitry and I talked about his place in Eclipse Hunter) if he would like to try to sing and then join the band. We had a success this time! On December, 16th, we had our first concert with a bunch of well-known Russian bands. We had some successful shows in the next months and I started to realize that Dmitry doesn’t work hard and began to give a fuck about the discipline in the band; that fact also affected the band. So four of us decided that the show “Rock against drugs” that I organized with the guitar player Dmitry Lukashev from Vendetta will be Kazakov’s last with Eclipse Hunter. So it was. I called Alexander Yurov just 3 or 4 weeks before that show. The first attempt to have him as a singer was in the end of 2006, before Dmitry came, but at that time he started working with the band called Everlost, but as it turned out, the band and the musician thought that they don’t fit each other musically. So, we had one rehearsal before July, 5th, and I told myself “we’re making the right decision”. We had rehearsals from July to November 2007, prepared for that first show with him. And I gotta say, 3+ months of hard work gave a big boost to Eclipse Hunter’s reputation. I also didn’t want to record our debut album with Dmitry because of his lack of professionalism, that Alexander has. And speaking of Alexandra Popova, she was there for me and for the band for the last 1.5 years. I felt that potential in her and that willing to perform, so I decided to perform with her! And I think I made the right choice, because Sasha gave more of the boost of reputation that I was talking about.

Are you responsible for writing and composing in the band and do you write the material first in Russian and then translate it later in english?

No, I don’t write anything in Russian! I firstly write the music and then the lyrics. In English. I can’t say that I’m responsible for writing and composing in the band. Everyone may write songs and then show’em to others, but it turns out that guys just give ideas how to “improve” the songs. But I must say that Vladimir Ilyuhin and I wrote two songs together and we have one more, planned for future. And you know, with each new great addition to the band, I progress in writing even better music than before, everyone of them made me write new songs, using that knowledge and experience that I’ve gained during the work with them.

How is the music industry in Russia, is rock and metal very alive there?

Alive. But not as alive as it is in Europe, USA or Japan. Pop music is most wanted here…sorry to say this truth…speaking of that pop-rock that we can hear on the radio and see on TV, well, ok, it’s popular. Major rock/metal bands perform in big venues and have good record sales. Personally, I think that in comparison to European metal bands (even those that don’t have a label), they would lose due to lack of new ideas, professionalism and devotion. BUT! There are many professionals, that I can name, but I won’t . If you ask me of my favorites from Russia, #1 of them are Extrovert, they play pure prog metal, and some people even call them Russian Dream Theater!

You are playing the keys in the band. Do you have any musical idols?

Yes, I do. It accidently turns out that some of them were born in Soviet Union, but that’s not because of my patriotism or something like that, no. Of course, André Andersen from Royal Hunt is my favorite keyboard player. Jordan Rudess and Vitalij Kuprij are also on the list. Well, those are like…my “irreplaceable top 3”. Speaking of music writing idols, among classics my most favorite composer is Johann Sebastian Bach, among modern songwriters I must name Jeremy Soule (he’s also a pianist), who mainly composes scores for video games, but I’m totally impressed by his music. And among rock/metal composers, André is once again my idol. Among the bands without a label, I think Epiclore is my favorite, and Olli Hurskainen, their main man is a truly talented composer!

I want to know also how much your music is influenced by Andre Andersen? (Royal Hunt).

How much? Emm, you know, actually, I listen to lots of music everyday. It’s like a drug! And it has no cure for me, I guess. The music that I write just depends on what music I’ve been listening to before a particular riff or melody comes into my mind. André’s music is like a basic influence to me. But this base also contains elements of other bands’ music. I think you can’t just say that “this song is influenced by Royal Hunt, and that one is influenced by Dream Theater” and so on and so forth, because, as I said the overall influence on a particular song depends on what I’ve been listening to.

About the songs you have on Eclipse Hunter's myspace page can you tell us more about the songs and the lyrics?

Hehe…so what was the first one? Freedom? It is one of my first metal songs, the music was written in August or September 2004 for the purpose to have a fast and energetic power metal opener. The lyrics of Freedom are based on my life’s events during the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006. Of course, I gave it a little bit of fiction. Lost Symphony is even a bit older than Freedom. The main riff came into my mind after the recording of Dream and other tracks with Tim Kotchergin in spring 2004 and in summer 2004 it was finished. Eternally is a ballad that I actually dedicated to the love of my life, it was written in the first two weeks of 2006. The music was inspired by the feelings I had in my heart. Actually, the weather in my heart means a lot in songwriting . The lyrics were meant to be a part of the Eclipse Hunter story (a fantasy story about a dude from family that was born in the day when moon covered sun bla-bla-bla…then I decided that writing fantasy lyrics is not for me and re-wrote some lyrics), where he sings the song for his beloved girl that was poisoned and then she awakes after his tear falls on her hand (a real fairy tale, haha). Ok, let’s advance. Coming Home? I don’t wanna lie, but I guess I started writing it somewhere in 2004 and finished it in the end of 2005. Lyrics are about a man that loves someone that is far away from his home and after they spend time, circumstances force him to go back home. The last on MySpace but not last in the whole list of our songs, I’m going down, the music of which was written in fall 2004 and was also meant to be a part of Eclipse Hunter story (it was called You’re Going Down before). The new lyrics are about a schizoid man that has those symptoms like “somebody’s watching me” or “it’s wasting my energy” and asks God to help him and lift this curse. Actually, the tragic suicide of a good friend of me and a good friend of my family inspired me to write those lyrics. But I can’t say that they are in memory of him.

On Freedom we hear the influences of Shaaman (Andre Matos). Eternally is a very good instrumental song. I like the way you play. It is a very emotional song. You’re right there! Shaaman’s “Here I Am” influenced me in writing Freedom, but not only that song))

And about Eternally – it’s not actually an instrumental song. The thing is that I’ve uploaded the instrumental version of it because we had no time to record vocals of Dmitry Kazakov in February and we’ve only managed to record the demo of Freedom. But the instrumental version happened to be very suitable for upload to the Web. And thanks for the compliments!

How many times is Eclipse Hunter in the rehearsal room?

You mean, how many times to we rehearse every week? About 2 times for 3 hours each. It because of our “lack of time” – we have other duties like work and studies. So one or two times a week is just fine for us. If music becomes our “bread”, I think we will have a minimum of 3 rehearsals a week.

Any shows planned in Moscow or St. Petersburg?

Yes, we have one show planned for December, so please check our website for updates. About Saint Petersburg – I’d love to perform there…when we have this opportunity!

Where do you see the band...let's say...in five years?

If you mean the band’s progress, I would say “A well-known band that released several albums and singles and that tours in many countries”, though I’m not that sure about it. But I hope for the best! And we will try and work hard to gain respect and good reputation among the listeners around the world.

What can we expect in 2008 from Eclipse Hunter?

We’re staring the record of our debut album, so I truly hope that we will release our debut album in 2008 as soon as possible. I can’t exclude numerous shows and I hope that we can make it to somewhere in Europe or maybe the States or…who knows? Time will tell.

Thank you very much Andre for the interview!

You too, Silvana! Thanks a lot for the interesting questions! Take care!

Interview: Silvana Breur
Photos: Pavel Osokin