Perm music band. Members: Alexander Piankov (bass, guitar, vocals), Pavel Fedoseev (drums, percussion), Dmitry Konushevich (guitar), and Maria Zarovniannykh (bass). The band collaborates with the British independent label Rocket Recordings. Gnoomes have released two albums: Ngan! and Tschak!, as well as alternative version of the hymn of Russia commissioned by the Dazed magazine.
Quotes (Alexander Piankov)
- The ordinary life inspires me.
- When I cook something, it is like I take part in some magical process. For me it is an interactive process of communication with reality.
- Listening to some other music doesn't inspire me. I try to transform unmusical into something musical.
- I read one book and find a reference to another book there, it's like a way from a fruit to roots.
- Dreams belong to an egoistic field. But I am happy with what's happening with me right now.
My story
Since kindergarten, I was fascinated with music. Our drummer Pasha got acquainted with music at the village club where his father-musician brought him once. Pasha is Komi-Permian, his dad's band also sang in Komi-Permian language. It was the first time also when he struck the drumstick over a drum, and it impressed him so much that Pasha also devoted his life to music.
We all had our first bands when we were teenagers, and we started making small steps, sometimes forward, sometimes backwards. We made mistakes but most importantly, we moved. In 2010, I met Pasha and we understood we were two parts of one. In 2014, Dima joined us, and Masha appeared half a year ago. I used to play keys, which were playing role of the bass part for us. Now I play guitar, and Masha took my place. She plays keys from childhood, so she's extremely good at this.
Name «Gnoomes» has nothing to do with the ideas; it came to me while I was sleeping. I saw it on the drum set of a band I was playing in. I woke up and realized: it will work.
In February 2014, we gathered to make a small program, and made it in two weeks. 30 minutes of material, 5 songs. We saw reaction of our friends and other people, and we realized our music would do, so we continued working. By July that year we decided to record everything we had; we brought mics, recorded and edited. Since then we keep doing everything on our own.
It was convenient earlier on to compose verse and chorus beforehand, then come to rehearsal and make the arrangement. Now we start realizing that music is beautiful when it is impromptu. However, to be able to think that way, to shut off your personal selfish background, you need to work a lot. The older we get, the closer we are to each other, the more we can relax, and the more we get inhabited to improvisation, jam. That's how our latest album was created.
When we first went touring, I was extremely impressed. It seemed so cool «there» and not cool «here». People who do not know you, who speak a completely different language, they don't care what language you sing and play in, but they care so much for the emotion that you offer. And in Perm when you are playing a concert, people just stand there with frightened eyes and can't understand what's going on. I used to separate those worlds, but now we, on the contrary, come to accepting where we are. We understand that these circumstances made us, gave us a kick on the arse, so that we would do exactly what we should be doing.