USA Progressive Music:  Thank you very much for making yourselves available for the interview.  What is each of your musical endeavors prior to joining or co-founding the band?

Iggy Kurtzman:  Half Past Four is my first band. Before then I just played for myself

Ann Brody:  I was in a classic rock band called Pandamonia. We were an activist band for animal rights.

Costya Necrasov:  I played in several post-punk and alternative bands. Played bass and guitar and occasionally sang.

Dmitry "Les" Lesov:  I played lead guitar and sang in a Russian rock band called Pavlov’s Dogs Orchestra.

Kyree Vibrant:  I was in a few bands and worked on a lot of studio recordings including background vocals for other people’s projects.

USA Progressive Music:  Les and Costya, how did the band start and what prompted the founders to form it?

Costya:  Pavlov’s Dogs, a band Les then played with, had an open mic night at Kathedral. I came onstage and sang some of my tunes, which people liked, and soon I was joined by Les and Danila (their then drummer) for a fun jam. That’s how we met. The rest is an ongoing mystery!

Les:  While playing in Pavlov’s Dogs Orchestra, a pop-folk oriented band, I was striving for something more complex and less mainstream. Once they disbanded, I was looking for musicians to join me in that direction and I thought of Costya.

USA Progressive Music:  Iggy, Kyree, and Ann - How did you join the band?

Iggy:  I met Costya through the former keyboardist and he invited me to join.

Ann:  Costya answered my ad on Craigslist.

Kyree:  I answered an ad on Overhear.com.

USA Progressive Music:  Kyree, during your Angry Shoppers days you did some experimental art performances in which you dressed as a flower, half man/half woman, a clown, etc., and you also have a film career. I see you also brought the clown in Half Past Four shows, as well as screen projections. Peter Gabriel too once used a flower head, and in the lyrics of Genesis's "The Cinema Show", prophet Tiresias evaluates his experience as both man and woman. So, was Peter Gabriel, with his appetite for costumes and multimedia, an influence on you in this sense?

Kyree:  I was just doing my thing back then. I was naturally drawn to theatrics but back then I had never seen or heard early Genesis so I had no reference. I thought I had made it up! Then years later I saw Musical Box perform and I realized what everyone was talking about when they compared me with Gabriel. Now I am a huge fan and they influence me in other ways for sure.

USA Progressive Muisc:  Ann,  I have known you as a very talented drummer and (blog) writer. Who would be your influence in either?

Ann:  My drumming influence is Vinnie Colaiuta and Danny Carey. I have no influences in blog writing. I just enjoy doing it.

USA Progressive Music:  How do you manage, in whichever order, day jobs, family/personal lives and making music?

HPF:  Music is our passion and we make time for it.  We rehearse regularly and it is built into our schedule. Gigs are priority.

USA Progressive Music:  Les, Costya, Iggy, and Kyree - How did you get to score the music for director John Kalangis's film The Mad in late 2006? Is the soundtrack available in any format?

Kyree: We heard through close friends that the job was available and we wrote some music and the director loved it. We wrote the whole score’s songs and all in less than one month. It was grueling but fun. We’d love to do it again.

The soundtrack is not for sale. The production company never wanted to release it.

USA Progressive Music:  Again, for each of you: it looks like you don't need longer tracks to make your musical statements. Besides the soundtrack for The Mad, have you thought of other larger scale compositions that would have some "conceptual continuity"?

Les:  As Zappa said on conceptual continuity: “The crux of a biscuit is an apostrophe.” We will take whatever challenges come our way – whatever scale.

USA Progressive Music:  What were some of your efforts to promote your band and their results?

Les:  I am in charge of the website. I update it and research the web for any mention of our band to post on the site. I track our traffic internationally. The results? We are known across the world in progressive rock communities.

USA Progressive Music:  What is the meaning of "Rabbit in the Vestibule"? Any connection with the Russian cartoon You Just Wait! (Nu, pagady!)?

Les:  No connection to the cartoon. The idea of the frantic energetic Rabbit influences the concept of the album which is a random wander through a vestibule (which is a chamber in the ear that recognizes music) with many doors. Each room represents a song - which explains the opening and closing doors between the songs.

USA Progressive Music:  Kyree (as lyricist) - what symbolizes "Biel"?

Kyree:  Biel is meant to be a modern God who sends his word through a young girl who can heal people like Jesus. Then he comes down to earth and presents himself to the world shattering the illusions of all world religions. A new one is formed, but since no one has anything to fight about anymore, the world dies of boredom.

USA Progressive Music:   Costya, Iggy (as co-composers) - I've heard themes similar to those you use in "Salome" and "Spin the Girl" in the music of groups like Osada Vida from Silesia, Poland and Transsylvania-Phoenix, who originated in the Banat area of Romania. Costya is from the Transdniester region of Russia and if I'm not mistaken Iggy has some partly Ukrainian background. Then again how do we explain the circulation of similar musical themes on such large areas of Eastern Europe?

Iggy:  “Spin the Girl” started off as more of a Klezmer oriented tune. It is true that Klezmer music is very related to eastern European music. Salome is more Balkan/Hungarian in reference. We aren’t trying to adhere to any specific musical tradition.

Costya: When I wrote “Salome” it was an experiment in Hungarian scales. To me this is what it is.

USA Progressive Music:  Kyree, with you being the only Canadian born in the band, whereas the other four speak, among others, the same language, have you already performed or plan to perform for compact Russian audiences as well, or even plan to sing in Russian, too?

Kyree:  I attempted to sing a bit of back-up on a few Russian tunes when I first joined but I only know a few words in Russian so any more than that couldn’t really happen.

USA Progressive Music:  Les, What is your St. Petersburg connection and what kind of visual impact does the city have on the band's music?

Les:  Aside from being in St. Petersburg once when I was 12, and being completely generally inspired by this beautiful city, there is no direct influence on the music. I was born in Sverdlovsk.  My wife is from St. Petersburg and she designs the band’s artwork.

USA Progressive Music:  What are the band’s future plans?

HPF:  We want to attract as much wider audience around the world and sell a lot of records. We are concentrating mainly on getting into festivals so we can play to big audiences and trying to open for bigger bands – although nothing has panned out so far.

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