LATEXFAUNA soloist Dmytro Zezyulin: there should be no politics or opportunism in music

He believes one of the most discriminated groups in Ukraine is gay people.

In a new episode of the program «Antipody» on the Islandia TV channel, LATEXFAUNA soloist Dmytro Zezyulin spoke about politics in music, performing in Russia, his attitude toward Zelensky and society's lack of education.

Music outside politics?

I don't know, I've heard this question before, it's often asked of my colleagues. I think politics shouldn't be in music, that's the main thing, that politics shouldn't be in music. Because in music and any art, I think, there should be no opportunism.

I think art is good when it is inexplicable and when it isn't built on your everyday logic. When it is built on the subconscious. Personally, I love that kind of art more. And art that chases trends can be very good, beautiful, very pompous, but I personally still don't like opportunism in music. And some political counterpoint.

How do you view artists who perform in support of politicians? 

Money doesn't stink. 

Do you believe that?

Seriously, I have no negative attitude toward them deep down. I think it's their choice, and they're fine with it. They feel comfortable with it. That's just how they are. I don't want to condemn them, and I don't want to say that because of this I see them covered in crap.

So we have to accept their choice, while we can remain neutral toward it. 

Let it be, I'd say. 

Did you ever perform for politicians?

No.

Were you ever offered to?

No. And we wouldn't have agreed.

Why not?

I don't want to be someone who performed for a politician. They also offered us to go and perform in Russia, and we refused. 

How long ago?

After 2014, of course. We had just released our latest single «Bounty» and they started writing to me from Russia: come to us, to our label, and how should we bring you over, where should we meet you in Russia. So we kind of said that there's basically no chance we'll go to Russia. 

Do you explain it to them somehow? 

Well, when it comes to that, of course we explain.

What do you tell them? 

We talk about Crimea, about the war in Donbas. 

Do they have any arguments for you? 

Well yes: «why are you dragging in politics, you bring art, go tell Crimea to that girl who'll come to the concert and who's jerking off to your voice». They've said things like that, I even have voice messages. «Why are you dragging it in, people want to come and see you, why are you bringing your politics here». 

Why are those people not right?

I think nobody is ever right. 

Why don't their arguments work?

The explanation is very simple. I can't go and entertain people who stole part of my country, who started a war in the east, and who killed my fellow citizens. For me that's unacceptable. 

And what about when someone like Dorn does it? 

Again, we were just talking about this, in his map of normality it's okay. He accepts it. Let it be. I can't speak for him. And I can't condemn him. I respect him as a musician, but I wouldn't have made that decision. And also, in general. Our musicians' business is built on selling in Russia.

That's how they were originally formed: the group «Nervy», Dorn, «Poshlaya Molly», their business model is built on going there, earning money there and bringing it back here. That's how they've arranged things.

And in that context, what about people who, say, go to Tyumen to service some oil pipeline?

Or those who build country houses outside Moscow.

Are they different from «Poshlaya Molly», so to speak?

Probably, yes. I don't condemn anyone. 

I'm not asking you to. We're now at the level of formal logic and subjective attitude. 

They're probably different, because they don't entertain anyone. The ones who build houses.

How can you explain the popularity of Russian music in Ukraine? 

I think it's listened to by all sorts of little kids, schoolchildren, who haven't formed any position or any taste yet. They watch their TikToks, and there's much more Russian traffic there, they watch YouTube, and there's much more Russian traffic and content there.

It captivates them, roughly speaking, they absorb a lot of Russian product this way, they understand it, get hooked on it and listen to all those rappers: Eldzhey, Morgenshtern. And their taste isn't formed yet, and at that age they listen to all kinds of crap. And that's how it happens. And there are plenty of these little pi***s in Ukrainian schools. They listen to it on their smartphones. And there you have the statistics. 

Is this evil? Is it bad or not?

It's a matter of taste. Whether they'll outgrow all this nonsense and whether they'll start listening to good music from the 70s and 80s later on, that depends on luck. Because when I was a kid I also listened to Decl. Well, he went somewhere else later.

In every sense of the word.

So the question is where people's taste comes from. Some have refined taste, some don't. That's the question. I have a best friend who always listened to that kind of garbage, I never thought he'd start listening to anything decent. But I look, and for the last five years he's been listening to great music. He started listening to good music, with bass guitar, with groove. He sends me great tracks, and I enjoy the ones he sends.

And how does taste arise? There's good taste, and these people can be from a village, say, from a small town, come to Kyiv and listen to beautiful, great music, and at the same time he'll live next door to a native Kyivan who keeps saying how native he is, how cool he is, who'll listen to some «Ruki Vverkh» or whatever. 

What, in your opinion, makes people write songs in Russian?

For guys like those in «Komisiya», for example, it may be that it's their native language, they think in it, feel in it, most likely. I think so. I believe it's very important to write songs in the language you feel. Not to fake it or try to do it in English, or write in Ukrainian when you think in Russian to the bone. It's always very unpleasant to listen to, you feel it and you want to cringe. 

Are there Russian artists you admire?

Yes, of course. For example, Pompeya, Tesla Boy, but they're like that, even though they're Russian, culturally it's Western music. 

They sing in English. 

Yes. 

Okay, Russian-speaking.

No. Generally not very Russian-speaking. 

In your lyrics you actively use surzhyk, I read that you talk about it, that you think this way and believe it's more honest. 

It's just that everything has its shades. There are words that have different shades. And when you say, for example: «I'm simpatichny and I nravlyus to you» and when you say: «I'm simpatichny, I podobayus to you». Do you feel the difference in the whole picture in all this?

I feel it, yes. Purely phonetics. 

Not only. We understand the lyrical hero, we feel his background, we feel the situation he's in. Imagine I sang in the song «Lyme»: «Everything about you suits me» and «Everything about you ustraivaet me». 

The first version is Vakarchuk.

Exactly. There would be a kind of pathos there, and the lyrical hero would say «everything about you suits me», which means that basically you're okay, I accept you, but when it's sung «everything about you ustraivaet me», it actually means I love you. That's different.

So there is context. And when you say «ustraivaet me», you're showing a completely drunk guy who isn't ashamed to say «ustraivaet me», because he feels that way and with this cultural code, being drunk, frank and open before a person, he says it to her like that. 

You're sometimes criticized for this, that surzhyk is the language of the provinces. By the way, I used to take the same critical stance, but I had a guest who made me rethink this topic, and I agreed with him. In general I change my point of view very easily.

A man should always reassess values. 

No, well, if his arguments seem reasonable to me, why not, why can't I rethink it again somehow and draw a new conclusion and stand on it. So, about surzhyk, is it the language of the provinces?

For me it's colors and shades. If we're talking about music. In life I also speak surzhyk, just to be as expressive as possible. 

You speak far more correct language than you sing. 

Not always, I have a lot of songs in pure Ukrainian. 

No, I know, but I mean your bangers. You understand that those bangers became bangers partly because there's clever and not ordinary lyrics there. 

For me it's simply a better expression of what you feel, that's how I see it. And surzhyk in culture has to exist. Especially in film, well, how can you shoot a Ukrainian film, if it's not fantasy, if it's a film about our life, shoot it in pure Ukrainian, where everyone around speaks super strong Ukrainian words, well, like, that would be untrue.

Like «Catching Kaidash», well, they made it great. Because it's living language. In fact, this is already a given and it already exists, and it's clear that Russia influenced it somewhat, some other regions influenced it. But it's already a given and it exists, and it's our objective life. And if you want to create a picture of objective modern life, then you have to put living, real language into your characters.

Do you follow politics?

I try not to follow the news at all, or any social stuff, unless it catches up with me. I'm terribly stressed about everything, and opening the news feed means filling yourself with a pile of negative emotions. And maybe that's not a very civic position, so to speak, but I try not to follow anything, not watch TV, not read the news.

There was a period when I deleted Facebook and Instagram entirely, and that was fairly recent. Our director Borya persuaded me: set up Facebook and Instagram, run social media, because subscribers are unsubscribing, you need to throw some content in there. And now I'm stuck in this crap again, when you upload little videos and start looking, well, how many people watched them.

And I'm already getting remarks from my wife that I sit in my phone all the time. And it's really awful. So I don't follow the news either. Because you know how it is, it's like constantly refueling with bad gasoline, and all kinds of sludge settles at the bottom. That's what it's like when you watch the news, it all surfaces so unpleasantly. 

How do you feel about Zelensky?

You know, I didn't vote for him, and I don't like him much as a comedian, if not to say that I really don't like him. And I kind of thought everything would turn out badly. But now I look, you know, how they say in Talne, it doesn't matter. It's like when it's not bad. You know, when they ask, is the Krakow sausage good? Well, you know, it's indifferent. That's how we say it in Talne.

Which Ukrainian politician would you award the «Dovb**ob of the Year» prize to?

Well, then they'll give me a beating. Or won't they?

I don't know. I'm asking questions. No, well, there are absolute degenerates.

Kiva. 

Seriously? 

Yes. 

I'm not asking why.

Because I'm afraid of him. I look at him and I'm really afraid of him. 

Well, I think the marketing works. I sometimes forget to ask why, I write myself a note, I'll ask why. But here it's everything. No comments. If it's Kiva, then it's clear.

If you were writing Ukraine's anthem in an ideal world, an ideal country, what style or genre would it be in? Say you've been told to create a theme, not an anthem, not an official one, just a theme. 

I'd write something in the style of the music Jessie Ware plays. When there's a great orchestra, but it's still great pop. Like orchestral pop. 

Her latest album or her first?

I don't dig very deeply into her. In the style of Step Into My Life, I'd write something like that. How does that option sound to you, okay?

I think it's awesome. A parade in embroidered shirts, cool. Pride as a separate column on one side, and psilocybin supporters on the left flank. Because they're reliable people, layered, you have to trust them. 

On the level of metaphor. What does our society, your society, in which you live, bring to mind? 

I've never thought about that. I don't know, it might bring to mind cheese. Where there are holes here and there, and somewhere there's deliciousness, a blessing. So at the same time we have a country of holes and a society with holes, with holes in their underwear, in their pants, but at the same time there's an unploughed field of cheese and opportunities. And, it seems to me, money too. Cheese that can be mined. Right now I've projected this as a big chunk of cheese. Someone sits in a hole, and someone gnaws at those holes.

But if we speak linearly, without metaphors, then what I don't like about our society is that it's terribly uneducated. And it's prejudiced, it doesn't try to figure out the problem, and it condemns right away. This applies to gay people and to soft drugs. I imagine that if I now went to Talne and said, well, I have a friend there who's a f**ot. They'd say, are you kidding or what?

They won't even understand that sexual orientation isn't a matter of choice at all. Even if it were a matter of choice, then what the hell are you even discussing it for, holding rallies against LGBT people, mocking someone, shouting about Christian values. That's what terribly pisses me off about our society. And I don't know when it will get better. 

Do you consider this a flaw?

Of course.

Can you grasp it, understand where it comes from?

From ignorance. Roughly speaking, take my Talne. A boy is born in a house. His father goes to the factory and smokes cigarettes. He smokes these cigarettes all the time. He has yellow mustache, yellow fingers. So where would this kid learn that cigarettes are a terrible harm, if his dad doesn't deal with it at all? He finished nine grades at a boarding school, and then went to learn how to twist bulls' tails. And that's all.

Where would he know that gays are normal? Because he was born into a family of the same kind of dad, who was born into a family of the same kind of granddad. And so it goes. Nobody in childhood instills value in their children's education. All my childhood friends constantly laughed at me and some other friends that we always went to tutors in summer, while they could play football.

And those who got an education now objectively live better than those lads who were beating people up. Because there's education.

Education is when you're instilled with certain clear lines of truth at the level of dogmas. Let's put it this way, I've always come to something only when I first started doubting. I'd think, maybe it isn't really so. And I thought that this is some element of a self-critical approach.

When you have a dogma, you immediately try to deconstruct it. You mentioned this story about the dad who told his child right away that smoking is normal, drinking is right. But how can this dad give the child any new meanings for it?

That patriarchy isn't very cool, that xenophobia isn't very cool. When, in your view, in all this chill, will there be some flash of consciousness, critical attitude, and what needs to be done for that?

Honestly, I'm so far from all these things that I can only fumble here. It seems to me that we, as a society that is only trying to break away from the empire and from all of this, this bribery structure that existed even under the tsars. Because the Russian Empire was a terribly bribery-based structure, held together by cronyism.

And we're only now casting off from it. And when everything is transformed, when all this changes, I don't know. Probably it will somehow come to something on its own, and no one will get in our way.

Is lying cool?

I hate lying and try never to do it.

Why?

It's unpleasant. 

Physiologically?

Yes. As a child I lied like a nightingale, I just fooled everyone. I could lie to my mom's face so well that she could shed a tear, and I could shed a tear myself. Later, with age, it somehow became impossible. I somehow get caught right away when I lie. 

Don't you feel that you have to lie because it will make someone's life easier, but not yours?

I haven't had such situations for a very long time. 

Which group in Ukraine is the most discriminated against, in your opinion?

Probably gay people. 

Why?

Because they can simply get punched in the face, just like that. I say «probably». Or I assume that it could be so. They can't just go to a hotel with their partner, they're afraid of any suspicion. So I think it's exactly them. 

How can this be fixed?

Through education, I think. We need to talk, explain to people why this happens and that it's a normal, natural thing, found in mammals, which has always existed in the culture of human history, and there's nothing terrible in it. It doesn't affect children badly in any way, or Christian values, or family. I think so.