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THE INTERVIEW

Hi Karine, thank you as well. Well, a couple of years ago, after a long break I started listening to eurodance music again, and to be honest this time I was really hooked, I started to dig more deeper into the story of the genre, bands, projects, etc. As time passed by I decided that I had to create this music myself, to contribute my personal vision to it, as these days I almost don't see projects that produce Eurodance in the old tradition with THAT sound production.

I was born in 1989 in Russia, but in 1990 my family moved to Belarus and I spent my childhood there, so I personally identify myself as Belarusian. My family moved to Israel in 2004, when I was almost 15 years old, because of some serious problems with my eyes, and there was a chance to get the necessary medical treatment. Since 2004 I have been living in Israel, although my connection with my homeland is still very strong.

Since my earliest years, as much as I remember myself, I always had a real passion for music, my first real love was Army of Lovers, later Scooter, Masterboy, but on the other hand I was a fan of Queen, Metallica, AC/DC, etc. My huge influence at this young age was my uncle, who listened to a lot of music that became my favourite later, from Hard Rock / Metal to Eurodance and just something melodic. At the age of 9-10 my love for heavy guitar music "prevailed" over anything else, and for many years I became obssessed with Heavy Metal and all that is close to it. When I was 12, I received my first guitar (simple acoustic guitar, made in Belarus), I started taking lessons, to understand some basic things on guitar but after 8 months I realized that my teacher couldn't give me anything new, so I quit and continued to study guitar by myself, with the help of different books, etc. Later, when I moved to Israel, I managed to buy here my first electric guitar and an amplifier (I was 15), and my musical education moved to another level with more opportunities. Later I started playing bass guitar, classical guitar, and when I started writing my own Heavy Metal music, I started to learn about the drums and how they work. I mean, I've never had real drums, but I know how they sound, work, thanks to the different drums software/plugins. The story with synths is the same as with drums.

As I already said, when I was a kid I started listening to music and Army of Lovers were one of the first ones, may other big love was Masterboy (still in my top 5 of Eurodance artists!!), and the only big Eurodance project from Belarus, called D-Bronx & Natalie (Ди-Бронкс и Натали). When you're just a 7 to 9 year old kid, you don't really understand it, for example, Masterboy is Eurodance, and Robert Miles or Marusha (they were my favourite artists as well in 90s) are something else, for me all this was just electronic music, I remember only when many people became Scooter fans (as well as myself), this word "Rave" appeared from somewhere. In short, I can say that in the latest years when I rediscovered eurodance, I learned about MORE eurodance artists than I knew in the 90s (remember - I lived in Belarus, poor place, the access to music there was very limited, mostly bootleg cassettes and sometimes here and there some videoclips - and it was the same situation with all "alternative" music - be it eurodance, extreme metal, classic rock or hip hop).

My Heavy Metal project was founded in 2007, since then I am still doing it. 99% of all my music was written and recorded by myself, but in recent years I started inviting some friends or just good people to take part in it here and there. However it's kinda hard to call it "music business", as this is just underground, small runs of CDs/tapes, participation in the same underground magazines or fanzines, that do it just because they love it, not as an attempt to make some money... Concerning Eurodance, the idea to create this music came to me sometime in the middle of 2021, and the first real musical pieces came to life in the autumn of the same year. As a real project, DanceFronT started in 2022.

It's difficult to answer this question, as I am listening to a lot of different music, but let's say the following: I love hard and heavy guitar music the most, from classic rock of the 60's to the heaviest bands from 2000s. But my favourite time in music is from the 60 to the 90s, I am not listening too much music released in the 2000s, and even less from the 2010s. Some of Rock/Metal idols: Metallica, Nirvana, Ozzy Osbourne, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Queen, King Crimson, etc etc etc. Talking about electronic music in general, I like projects produced by Michael Cretu. Eurodance idols... it's hard to choose some idol, as most of the projects were changing their style too often, and the only band I'd mention here is Masterboy, as they released 5 albums, and I love all of them, even the first one that for many people is not really Masterboy's style. Besides, I'd mention Michael Staab's first albums of Mysterious Art (call the OMEN!!!!!) and Magic Affair; Culture Beat's Serenity; E-Type's Made in Sweden; 2 Unlimited's 3 first classic albums, of course Cappella's U got 2 know, Space Invaders by MC Sar & the Real McCoy and many others. For me the real eurodance was the music made mostly in 93-95 (in 92 there were just a couple of songs in this direction, like Rhythm is a dancer that I personally think was the very first real eurodance song) with energetic, hard sound, minor (dramatic, haha) synth riffs (that often remind of some metal melodies actually). Since 96 most projects went in other directions, some of them went to happy hardcore and other ones to lighter and poppier sound, that lead the whole movement to the stupid pop stuff of the late 90s very fast. All this absolutely is not my music and I am very far from it.

No, DancefronT is my first Eurodance project and in general first electronic music project.

Yes, of course. I am working in a little printing company as my daily job. When I was a kid, I was dreaming of becoming a full time musician, but Israel is not the right place for this, only if you're not performing some modern pop music that is played on radio. But I don't care about it, really. For me the main goal is just to create music and try to do it with maximum of my actual abilities.

It took me a long time to find the right name, but since the war in Ukraine started it just somehow came to me: Dance Front. The word "Front" is often associated with war (War front) and I thought that it would be symbolic to change "war" with "dance" as the opposite to the war. The general idea looks like the one which was in the 60s in the time of hippies, who protested against the war in Vietnam. Their slogan was "Make love, not war". My slogan sounds "Make dance, not war".

Wow, good question actually, but I'd rather say no, as I don't see the point in covering something in the same style that sounds great as it is. On the other hand, I'd really want to collaborate with some musicians from the 90s, especially with great female singers from that era. There were MANY super talented performers, that's the fact.

They both were (and still are) working as music freelancers. I liked their voices, tried to record 1-2 songs with them, it went well and I decided to continue working with them on all the album songs. Aaronikk, as far as I know, is making his own hip hop stuff, Liliia is working mostly as session singer in different styles, from dance and pop to rock and metal music.

It's better just to look at one of his social media accounts and you'll find all the basic info about him... I am not the right person to tell about him. I know he's not only producing hip hop stuff, but he also played in a rock/metal band. Please, check out his facebook page "Aaronikk Records". The only thing I should add - I am happy that I found him for DancefronT!!!

Liliia: My full name is Liliia Kysil. I went to a musical school. I've been singing since I was 12. Then I entered the university where I was studying law. I almost didn't sing during those 4 years that I spent at university. And I thought that I would never come back into music. During my studies I realized that I didn't want to be a lawyer, I really wanted to do something creative. I created a profile on freelance websites not expecting anything. But there were more and more projects and clients. It proved me that my talent was worth something. I'm truly happy to do what I'm doing now. There are many projects I was a part of. I can share one of the most successful. Recently a client's song with my vocals was played on the online show of the world-famous Dj Armin Van Buuren.

I've been in Ukraine since the beginning. I don't want to leave. The first two weeks were the most difficult. It was very hard to work. My place was relatively safe so I came to work as soon as I adapted to the new reality psychologically. I was lucky to have an opportunity to work from home. And this work is one of the most important things that help me during these difficult times.

I write choruses / main ideas, sometimes I write some lines for verses that may be taken as the basis for complete lyrics, but mostly Aaronikk just takes the idea of the chorus and develops it into his rap verses. The inspiration for my ideas is mostly just the same subjects that were used in 90s Eurodance, but not only those. Besides simple lyrics, there are some serious topics like war, money, freedom etc. I like when a Eurodance project brings something serious into its lyrics here and there, not just some words "because we have to sing something", but something with a real meaning... Like it was with Ice MC, 2 Unlimited, some Snap! songs, etc.

Unfortunately, I don't have any real synths and I don't play keyboards in any way. To be honest, most of the main melodies are composed just with the same acoustic guitar that was bought in Belarus, haha! Most of the arrangements are created using different software, some vst plugins etc. Before starting I was reading a lot of forums, sites, discussions in the internet about working methods of Euro producers in the 90s, what hardware and software they were using etc. Probably it helped me with understanding what do I have to use for the right sound, as my main idea was to sound as identically as it could be in 92-95. I don't want to bring any modern things into this style and production, for me the real Eurodance is Eurodance that sounded there in the early 90s. I want it to sound strong, serious, not just like some stuff "for fun" with strong influence of radio friendly pop that came after 96. To put it simple - I prefer the sound of Masterboy or E-Type that was in 94, than it was in 96. I'm sure you understand what I mean.

When we started working on the vocals for the first song I had almost all the songs done musically, I mean with all the arrangements, etc. If I remember correctly, the work on the music for 10 songs took around 8-9 months. On the average I'd say one song may be done during ~1 month. I don't like spending half a year working on one song, especially when you have good inspiration, and you understand what the finished result has to sound like.

Of course. Although I'm trying to avoid using standard harmonies or progressions that were used in the 90s, anyway some melodies were inspired by other classic bands. I think it's absolutely normal.

If Aaronikk or Liliia would like to perform these songs live, I'd be very positive about it, but I don't think it would happen in the near future.

As of now I have 3 more songs that are planned to be finished with the vocals within a couple of months I guess. If everything goes well, I hope to release the full album by the end of the year. Although the actual singles have been just released digitally, the full album will be released on CD as well. Being a CD fan almost all my life, I will do my best to release those songs in a physical format. Probably someday we will release some singles compilation on CD as well, but it's just the idea. The main goal is the album.

I'm planning to release the new album of my heavy metal project in the near future. Concerning DancefronT project - beside of the album I hope many new singles will be released.

I think the nowadays music industry just sucks... hahaha. Well, ok, not completely. I mean, there're always 2 sides of the coin. It's cool that now everyone has the opportunity to record his ideas in his own room, no need to go to an expensive studio to record a song and collect money for 3 months after going there in order to record another song. Now a musician can think about the music itself, not about some unnecessary things... but! All that I said before can be regarded as a negative thing, because now all the technologies became not just affordable, but VERY affordable, and now everyday you may see more and more new music in every style possible, all this thrown away into the internet like garbage, hahaha. In the end what we have – a potential listener just starts drowning in those endless streams of neverending music. Basically, the same thing is going on with all the directions of culture and media - because of easy accessibility there's satiation with the amount of content. For many people it's some kind of freedom, like "I have it all for free, I can choose what I want", but I'd prefer to have some filtration.

Music. Simple as that, haha.

I hate religion in any of its form, politicians, restriction of liberty; when some shithead starts explaining that it's not right just because he doesn't like it. Racial or sexual intolerance. Well, seems like I have much more things that I don't like than what I like, hahahahaha!

Make dance, not war! Enjoy today, as tomorrow may not be happening! Thanks and cheers to all who read up to this place!

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