“It is very useful to consider phenomena from the height of historical experience”

Tomorrow the group “Aloe Vera” releases a new album “Let’s pretend”. Boris Barabanov asked the leader of the group Vera Musaelyan about “Schrödinger concerts”, prohibitions and reasons to believe.

– Usually the Aloe Vera group released one album in two years, but this time it took four. What is the reason for such a long period?

— I felt that the album was not going to. There were separate singles. A lot of things happened in my life: in 2019, when I began to actively go to Moscow rallies, and in 2020, when covid happened. But it still didn’t make it into the album. And only in 2022, when the songs “Let’s pretend”, “News”, “General” appeared, I realized where everything was going. Some lines of songs that were written a long time ago have now become completely clear to me. For example, the song “General” appeared in January 2022, but very little time passed, and it was filled with a meaning that I did not even know when I wrote it.

– In 2022, Aloe Vera became in the full sense of the banned group, although this ban is not documented. You came up with secret concerts, according to your definition – “Schrödinger concerts”. Has this model worked?

— We started to practice such concerts a year and a half ago. We were forced to do this, they began to put pressure on the venues where our concerts were announced. We were already ringing all the bells then, and we were told: “Who needs you to ban you?” But over time, it turned out that there are banned groups, and there are blacklists. If at first it even looked like some kind of game: we were banned here, but we – once! and quickly moved everything to another site, then in 2022 it became clear that this was no longer a game. When the owners of the venues began to be told directly that if the concert took place, they would be razed to the ground, I decided that the games should be tied up. The option of secret concerts proved to be short-lived. The yards in which we played were nevertheless found, searches were carried out there, and besides, specific spectators began to be identified from the footage from the cameras. It became dangerous not only for the band, but also for our fans. We played three such concerts and did not perform in Russia again. Now abroad we need to go through again what we once went through in Moscow – when you are nobody and nothing and ask to play in a club on Wednesday.

– The Anacondaz group, which was also among the banned ones, tried to defend its right to perform in court. Did Aloe Vera have any idea to follow the same path?

– It turned out that I was deeper in this batch. I receive periodic calls from the E center, and the police periodically visit my mother. It has less to do with my music than with my personal circumstances. But this does not add to the desire to climb on the rampage. I don’t want to let my family down again. So far, my ex-husband Ilya Yashin (included in the register of foreign agents.— “b”) was at large, it seemed to me that there was still some chance. Now there is no faith in it.

– From the song “Dress to the point” there is a feeling of Stockholm syndrome. Here is a city that was created in order to fall in love, run on dates, dress beautifully, and this is the price of this romance – “red spots on the pavement, but this is not Shiraz”, “meet me on Mnevniki – kiss in special detention centers”. However, the song is so beautiful that one gets the feeling that the characters have come to terms with these rules of the game.

This song was written in 2019. I remember the rallies about the elections to the Moscow City Duma, I remember how it seemed to us that now something could change. I felt like the heroine of a book about revolutionaries. It was an important event – my friends and I are going to a rally! Selfie in the paddy wagon – it actually happened! For us, there was nothing wrong with riding in a paddy wagon. Our album has the song “Diskokats” – I remember very well how every evening I watched Maxim Katz (included in the register of foreign agents.— “b”) on YouTube. He reassured me, although the song contains all the most acute topics of that time, including the “fogged visor”. When I wrote “they say they will ban kissing on the territory of the Russian Federation,” I didn’t even imagine what laws would be adopted in 2022. From the album you can see how this light mood changed – “we danced so that we lost fear”, how anxiety appeared. The song “News” is a completely different life.

– I liked how the song “Letter” combines complex large text with a professionally constructed jazz-rock form. But tell me, please, who is Oleg?

– Everything is very simple – this is Oleg Yagodin from the Yekaterinburg group “Kurara”. Once he wrote me a letter in the form of a song. And at the end of this song there was a question. Instead of answering, I also wrote a song. And he – a song in response. And here is the song “Letter” – this is the fourth message in our correspondence.

– In the song “Telegram Channel” you beat your name and sing about faith. What gives you confidence right now?

“Now I believe in the historical process. It is very useful to consider phenomena from the height of historical experience. You begin to understand that nothing lasts forever and there was always a way out of any most difficult period.