History

Singer, composer and poet Boris ‘Purushottama’ Grebenshikov is one of the “founding fathers” of modern Russian music. He has produced more than 500 songs and 50 albums since the formation of his legendary band Aquarium in 1972. His music over the years has incorporated a range of styles, from folk and blues to translucent acoustics - and includes a whole slew of various ethnic and folklore influences, from Celtic to Asian.

“As far back as I can remember I was singing - since I was three or four. I always felt this strange feeling when I was listening to music that it means more than people give it credit for. Music has a special sort of enchantment that works when you hear the first couple of notes. I would say that music is sort of an ocean, so I just venture into the ocean and I follow the waves”.

His schoolboy adoration of the Beatles eventually extended to include a deep appreciation of Bob Dylan, which slowly transformed Aquarium into a low-fi electric blues band that moonlighted in acoustic reggae. The first song he managed to play on guitar was The Beatles' Ticket To Ride; his first public performance, in 1973, featured him performing songs by Cat Stevens.

In 1964 I was lucky enough to hear the Beatles, and something clicked and I said, “Oh, now I know!” From then on it was easy because I started investigating all kinds of religions just to get myself an explanation as to why I was getting this special joy”.

As a student of applied mathematics at Leningrad State University he started experimenting with poetry, music and theatre - merging Eastern philosophies and traditional Russian themes. He spent much of his time tracking down smuggled copies of Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull and anything else he could get his hands on.

The first six years of Aquarium's history saw Grebenshikov and his various bandmates following the Soviet equivalent of the hippy lifestyle: playing apartment jams, drinking the low-quality port wine available from the Soviet stores of the time, and intermittently traveling to remote gigs, even hitchhiking on rail freight cars.

“This was a time of vague mythology, wandering in the Engineer’s Castles of this world with a guitar, a flute and a cello”.

The poet laureate of Russian rock refused to submit his contemplative songs to the government’s censorship committees. When Aquarium could not get sanctioned gigs, they played in underground venues, basements, back alley bars, sometimes escaping through the window when police came to break things up. They used the instruments they had on hand -- a cello, a flute, bongos, a few guitars -- to create the "poetic rock" sound which Grebenshikov sought. These ‘concerts’ were a unique Russian phenomenon. Grebenshikov’s message was not “We are fighting for freedom” but “We are Free”. This gave his audience a new perception of itself and he began to attract a dedicated following.

“It’s a living feeling. When I sing I just feel alive, only more alive than for example now. Now I’m sort of fifty per cent dormant. When I sing that’s when I really live”.

Using primitive equipment, he recorded illegal cassettes and sent them out into the world, where they were dubbed hand-to-hand across the Soviet Union's 11 time zones. Fans began making pilgrimages to Grebenshikov's communal apartment, where they left reams of legendary graffiti in the stairway.

“Since I was a small kid and I discovered music - it has been an uplifting experience, something close to ecstasy. With music everything becomes a unique and uplifting experience as soon as I pay attention to it. You can sit down and look at the grass or out to the sea and it can become an uplifting experience.”

Grebenshikov's big break came in 1980, when Artem Troitzky invited his band to perform at the Tbilisi Rock Festival. The festival was a state-sanctioned attempt to channel the then-burgeoning Russian rock music movement into a controllable ideological vessel. On the one hand it allowed the authorities to monitor the musicians and fans. On the other hand it offered the musicians the opportunity to perform publicly and to increase their exposure.

Following the festival the band were officially banned by the State and Grebenshikov was demonstratively sacked from his job at a research institute as “an engineer for a hundred roubles”. He was also expelled from the Komsomol (the Communist youth organization, membership of which was de facto compulsory for all young people in the USSR).

However, his underground profile continued to rise sharply over the next 7 years under post-Brezhnev KGB-fueled reactionism. “From the autumn of 1986, moving from one stadium to another, hearing such loud accolades, it was as if we had abolished Soviet power ourselves”. Mikhail Gorbachev and Perestroika ushered in a new era of opportunity for Russian rock musicians; Boris became the first Russian rock artist to record in the West.

“Music is our name for Harmony - harmony that we can hear. We can see harmony, we can feel harmony. Harmony is the point. The world is a perfect place. The problem with us humans is that we don’t see it. We’re not being taught to see it. I would say that if somehow meditation could be learned and taught at schools ….. it could make life better for everybody concerned, because life is great. We don’t see it. We must be taught to see it”.

Although Boris still performs and records with Aquarium, he has periodically taken some time to do solo albums, including the US-released Radio Silence in 1989 produced by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, with contributions from Annie Lennox and Chrissie Hynde. In 1990 he spent the summer in London where he issued another English-language album, "Radio London".

Some of his most interesting musical endeavors have resulted from these personal recordings, where Boris—who is often compared to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen—is able to explore the roots of his songwriting and Russian heritage. As a result of these releases, Boris has today come to symbolize the best of Russian music, with books of his poetry and lyrics becoming bestsellers and each album a huge success both critically and popularly.

“I have to be in a special mood and when I play my guitar long enough things start to come, as if I am falling into this enchantment. First I have to feel the mood. Then I look for words that will mean something for me - just one line or a couple of words. Then the music comes naturally like filling an empty vessel and gives the words wings. Instead of simple words it becomes something much more”.

Upon his return to Russia in the early 90’s, Boris ardently began to play his new songs. The band was reinvented and renamed the ‘BG Band’. This group had, according to Boris, “a different mission”. The songs from that period, most of which are included on the ‘Russian Album’, became, on the one hand, a precise and pressing manifestation of the new changes in Russia, and, on the other hand, a reflection of the roots of Russian life. Boris combines words and music to create a sonic atmosphere that is undeniably beautiful and unmistakably Russian.

In Russia Boris ‘Purushottama’ Grebenshikov and Aquarium can sell out any stadium. But outside of Russia, he has to get by with comparisons. He's been called the Russian Bob Dylan, the Russian David Bowie, even the Russian Brian Ferry. With a smoky tenor voice, at times poetic, angry and seductive, Grebenshikov does have something in common with all of the above.

He was the subject of "The Long Way Home," a documentary by filmmaker Michael Apted. The film shows Grebenshikov's struggle to record his album "Radio Silence" with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics.

His 1997 album "Lilith" is still mostly Russian in lyrical theme, but is recorded, by way of a chance meeting, with his idol Dylan's one time backup band, ‘The Band’. In 1998 Boris, who was by then settling into a cult classic status in Russia, played a one-man-and-his-guitar show of 1970s and 1980s songs to a small audience of fans in a San Francisco bar, and decided to return to reggae-n-rock-n-roll roots.

More recently, he's released a charity album of Tibetan Buddhist mantras, "Refuge," with percussionist Gabrielle Roth. Russia’s greatest living songwriter was spending one month every year in a Tibetan monastery.

When he performs in Russian for audiences who don't understand his language, he says, there are still certain moments that captivate everyone, regardless of their native tongue. "There are things that are universal enough that every person who listens to it will perk up their ears," he says.

“I found out a long time ago that I can’t translate a song because a song is written in a specific kind of language and you cannot break the enchantment – it cannot be broken down into logical things. The song definitely has it’s own life. I can only try to make the song positive, to make people feel better. You can take any set of lyrics and make them depressing, that is an easy thing to do. It’s much harder to work a song into a shape where it really inspires people”.

Grebenshikov is also known as a student of religion and mysticism. He has translated several Hindu and Buddhist texts for publication in Russian and traveled the Orient widely. The album ‘Fisherman’s Songs’ was recorded in Russia and India with Indian musicians.

“The only missing ingredient was the meditation. As soon as I learned about meditation, it gave me the chance to transform every mundane experience into a great one. There is a great silence inside of everybody, the source of all inspiration, of everything. I always prefer to let music speak for itself and then the human puppet has no further words”.

In February, 2006 Grebenshikov met the Indian spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy. Sri Chinmoy blessed Boris with the name ‘Purushottama’, which relates to the Supreme Being who is beyond all limitations. Inspired by Sri Chinmoy, Boris Purushottama Grebenshikov performed with his band Aquarium free of charge to a delighted audience at the Royal Albert Hall in May 2007, and again in the United Nations in August 27. Following Sri Chinmoy's passing in October 2007, BG assembled a collection of musicians and instruments from all around the world for a May 2008 concert held in the Royal Albert Hall in his memory. Many of those musicians will also be playing in tonight's Royal Albert Hall concert.