Alexey sent me his new song “The Devil in us All” the other day, which features the talented singer Iris Boanta (The Mystery; Souldrinker). Today finally I got around listening to it and fell in love with it there and then! Now here I am trying to get to know the talented musician better!
Come on guys, let’s get some answers!
Lady Obscure: Hi Alexey. Can you give us a little bio?
Alexey Soloviev: Well music is my life and metal music is my religion, I can’t live a day without music…he he.. But what about my project “Ascension” so I always wanted to create a perfect band or project of my dream. And I started to play the electrical guitar when I was 20, at that time I started to compose my first songs. But here in my Siberian city Krasnoyarsk we have no developed musical industry so it was really hard for me to create a perfect band, of course I spent about 5 years playing with Siberian musicians but it was a real nightmare…Because when people couldn’t play some Nightwish or Stratovarius music it’s awful. And I don’t like Russian music at all, because it’s easy and boring…I’m not looking for easy ways in my life ha ha… so I always try to compose some good music and for wise people. With a very good lyrics about everything including life, religion and love… In 2010 I made my first demos of my songs with great guys from Moscow, Ufa and Kazakhstan, then I released my demo album “The Center of My Universe” in 2011. But in 2012 I met a great female singer and perfect Swedish girl Elize Ryd (Amaranthe) who sang on my song – “Alone in the Universe“ Elize came into my life like a hurricane, like a comet…she rocked my world and changed my life forever…I really owe her till my dying day for her great performance of my song, Elize and her manager Lena Bruhn showed me a perfect world…It’s a huge honour for me to work with Elize and Lena! And I’m so grateful to them for their great friendship, support and many many other great things 😉
Alexey: Thanks to “Alone in the Universe” I met a lot of fantastic people such as: Nicoletta Rosellini (Kalidia), Iris Boanta (The Mystery; Souldrinker), Gaby Koss (ex- Haggard, Therion, Equillibrium and etc), Alessio Lucatti (Vision Divine) Elina Laivera (Seduce The Heaven), George Rain (Sebastien), Mark Cross (ex- Helloween, Firewind, Tainted Nation), Alberto Rigoni (solo artist, Twinspirits), Federico Solazzo, and many many more wonderful people. I really appreciate their great friendship and support and I have no words to describe how great, talented and beautiful they are. Every collaboration is a great gift of God! So I’m so excited to work with all these great people because I love them all so much! And I’m huge fan of them all 🙂
LO: Wow. That was one passionate answer. Glad to hear that you collaborated with all those great musicians. How would you describe your music?
Alexey: At the very beginning I wanted to play power metal music or symphonic power metal music and some stuff in Yngwie Malmsteen’s style cuz Yngwie is my God!!! But I always loved soundtrack music…and there are too many power metal and “Malmsteen Metal“ bands in Europe ha ha.. So maybe I’m not an original guy, but I tried to combine soundtrack music with some metal sound…This is a way of “Ascension”. I love Hans Zimmer very much; he is my favourite composer in whole world. So I always wanted to compose some beautiful music in his way, but also I love metal and here we got a huge dilemma ha ha… metal or soundtrack music…so I mixed these two great genres 😉 And now I call it my style of music – Cinematic Metal…!!!
LO: How did the initial musical and thematic elements evolve?
Alexey: The inspiration for my music are movies, video games and metal music. But also I want to be a good composer so I must go further than just metal music… I want to make good music for good people in different genres. And I want to have a lot of girls to collaborate with ha ha… Usually if you take Avantasia or any other Metal Opera project there are only few girls and a lot of guys. Guys are good but girls are much better…they have so beautiful, romantic and divine voices… So I want to make a lot of songs with female vocalists in my “Ascension” project, and some songs with male voices of course… But girls are my main inspiration in life and music, because there are so unique, so talented, beautiful, strong, independent; real Angels with heavenly voices…so I want to compose something really special for them. And there are a lot of men in metal and girls must have their opportunities to be heard!!! Because they all are special and unique! 😉
LO: Are you happy with your product? I mean, what aspect of it do you think you nailed, and what parts do you think you could improve upon?
Alexey: I’m more than just happy!!! I have no words to say how happy I am 🙂 Now my life has a reason to live ha ha…No I feel myself “Alive”. I’m so glad that people around the globe like my music, I’m so grateful to them for their great support. And if they feel just happy when they are listening to my songs…it’s the best reward for me I don’t want to have a millions of fans to follow me…I’m not a God or some shit like that… I’m just an ordinary guy who makes some good stuff…And “Ascension” is reflection of our live with all its good and bad sides. So my songs are not some new or old fairy tales about mighty dragons, enchanted lands, unicorns, Harry Potter or something like that. My songs are about our normal life and I want to give people some “food” to think about…Maybe my songs will be useful for them…or maybe not ha ha
LO: Will you get involved in performing live at some point?
Alexey Now I’m working on my debut album with great musicians… so I guess when we release our album… I think there will be opportunities for lives shows…It would be so great to see new places and new wonderful faces 🙂
LO: What do you see for your future? How is it looking?
Alexey: Working, Working, Working, Working, Working, and….working… I will rest when I’m dead… So many great plans and musical ideas…so many things to do and to come… I can’t tell you about everything now…because I want to do my plans step by step and part by part 😉
LO: Could you tell us about the themes you focus on or plan to focus on? How do the ideas come about, and how do they influence the writing process?
Alexey: Very good question…there are too many inspirations and influences for me.. But if you let me to give a short answer because the full answer will be tooooooo big. My music is soundtrack to my life…ideas for lyrics are taking from real events.. And not only from my life but from life in general…I try to describe my feelings, emotions, attitude to some events around the globe, I’m trying to be honest with myself and people around me. Even if some people don’t know me…they can listen to my songs and they will understand everything about me. I don’t want to hide my nature…why?…I have my point of view so I’m trying to express it through my music…so you can see my soul through my songs…God I feel so naked ha ha
LO: lol. Which is more exciting? being on the road or studio?
Alexey: I’m making my guitar recordings for my songs at studio…so I’m very excited about these things. This is so cool! a new experience of my life..and I feel so satisfied with the result. Thanks to my new friend Vlad Paderin for his great work of my soundproducer for recording my guitar session 🙂 He is a serious musician and a great guy! It’s a pleasure to work with him!
LO: Who is composing the songs? Writing the lyrics?
Alexey: Music is all mine…and lyrics…95 % of lyrics are mine the other 5 % I let people to write their ideas
LO: So what bands do you guys draw your inspiration from?
Alexey: All Hollywood composers, all power metal bands, some black metal bands, all classical composers, all gothic metal bands, and many more…
LO: What’s more important to you? Catering to the audience or music for its own sake?
Alexey: People are important for me…All of them!
LO: When you look back your music career, what do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?
Alexey: I’m at the beginning now of my career.. but I never look back anyway ha ha. I can’t say that 5 years ago I wrote bad songs and now I write good songs. They all are great, cuz they were composed by me 🙂
LO: Anything else you think your fans should know?
Alexey: Keep on rocking! Never look back, because life is too short to regret about the past..always go to the top..and never fall and never stop!
LO: Thanks for the interesting Q&A session Alexey.
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