#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Perhaps, a rare Norilsk resident has not heard of the Zippers, the northernmost rockabilly band in the world. One of its founders, Vyacheslav Galayda, explains what is so good about this style, how to master the double bass and to get what you want.
He is a sixth-category electrician, a foreman in the power shop of the Nornickel’s Nadezhda metallurgical plant (by the way, a representative of an industrial dynasty – his father worked for many years in the nickel electrolysis shop, and his mother – as a dispatcher at the Nickel plant). The native Norilsk resident graduated from school No. 9. And although he loved music since childhood, he did not study it specifically: he honestly admits that he is self-taught.
Initially, his interests were sports: first, his grandmother took him to the wrestling club at the Arctica sports palace.
“Then there was a little of table tennis and chess. As for basketball, I played it the longest – from the fourth to the 11th grade, then I played for my college team, the NMP power plant. In high school, I also went to karate. At that time this martial art became fashionable”, recalls Vyacheslav.
At the same time, the guitar appeared in his life: his father showed him the first chords, his friends played the guitar, and in general, in those years, it was the most fashionable path to music. Norilsk, meanwhile, was listening to rock, and a few years later, bands began to appear like mushrooms after rain.
True, for a long time, nothing special grew out of this hobby – the guitar was popular only for friendly gatherings.
The Zippers group was created according to the classic Norilsk scheme: “come to play”. True, with one exception – it was the era of the Internet birth in Norilsk, a popular forum Chuvachok (eng.: Dude) appeared.
“We had pages on the forum dedicated to music in general and rock music in particular. I said directly that I wanted to create a band. They say that thoughts are material; when you really want something, it happens. Within a few days, several friends called me, carried away by the same idea.
The group first got together in February 2007: drummers Maxim Lisovsky and Evgeny Ilyinkov, Alexander Lysenko. They began to think about the name. One of the pride of any rocker has always been a leather jacket with a powerful zipper. Evgeny Ilyinkov suggested the name Zippers Dudes. The name seemed interesting, but difficult to pronounce, and Vyacheslav suggested shortening it to just Zippers. The repertoire at first was, to put it mildly, adapted: since the vocalist Andrey Mironovich could not sing in English, they translated foreign songs into Russian. The first performances were for friends, and they called them not apartment concerts, but basement gatherings – after the location of the rehearsal base. And in June of the same year, they gave their first concert with a full line-up at the Tornado disco club.
Vyacheslav recalls that in 2009, the vocalist left the group, and Ekaterina Karaseva came to replace him, making adjustments to the concept of the group – since then, Zippers is associated with female vocals. But in the fall, the existence of the group was questioned, since the group was asked to leave the basement of the 15 Bohdan Hmelnitsky street – the concept of the premises was changing. Ekaterina’s mother, who at that time was the chairwoman of the 69th Parallel charity foundation, came to the rescue by allocating a place for rehearsals, which we’ve been using to this day.
With the move, the opportunity arose to play what the group dreamed of: true rockabilly. Vyacheslav bought and brought a double bass to Norilsk. True, he still had to learn how to play it. After shifts at work, he persistently mastered this new science for himself. Later, the Internet helped.
“Most groups in the world and in Russia play this style with a double bass. We wanted to match this trend. And when I started to succeed on it – I traditionally learned it myself – I liked its sound much more than the guitar’s. It is a direct sound, low, full. I play using the slap method, when the string is twitched and slapped on top with the palm. I think I quickly mastered the double bass simply because I was extremely interested in it”, Vyacheslav recalls.
In 2022, a new vocalist, Ksenia Golovina, joined Zippers, and her voice hit the right style. It is interesting that in addition to Vyacheslav, another of its co-founders, Alexander Lysenko, still plays in the group. Vyacheslav lured him from the crane service of the Copper plant to his work team at NMP. By the way, our hero, who tried a number of jobs, firmly settled in the Nornickel company. He says that he realized long ago that as long as he lives in Norilsk, his working life will be connected with the company: “Here I have a good salary, stability, and a real friendly team”. Vyacheslav admits that he does not have a favorite band – he listens to a variety of music, but his preferred style has long been established – rockabilly. This type of rock and roll, born in the southern American states and representing a synthesis of rock and roll and country music, the founder and double bass player of Zippers loves for its special style, including visual:
“Of course, sound is important, but rockabilly is also about the external. There is a saying that in rockabilly boys look like boys, girls – like girls. That is, men are quite brutal and masculine, and ladies – in skirts and with pin-up hairstyles, very feminine”.
And this is a 100 percent hit in the hearts of listeners, as practice has shown: Norilsk residents are hungry for understandable dance rhythms.
Who knows how the fate of Vyacheslav’s further participation in the group (as well as the group itself) would have turned out if not for the support of a loved one. Speaking about his wife, Ekaterina, director of the charity fund 69 Parallel, he said: “We are lucky to have each other”, perhaps not realizing that he was exactly repeating his wife in an interview given to Severny Gorod earlier:
“Katya and I support each other. On her part, I see a sincere interest in music and the style I have chosen. And the double bass: I bought it with part of the money given to us for the wedding. She did not object with a word, on the contrary, she supported me”.
It happened that Vyacheslav’s children did not inherit his passion for music: the eldest daughter Anastasia loves sports more, and the youngest daughter Maria, although a creative person, respects painting in all its manifestations.
This year, the Zippers group celebrates its 18th anniversary. And, as in the first years, the team, which has performances in Crimea and St. Petersburg behind it, several singles, dreams of the same thing as in the earlier years – to perform more:
“The only permanent place remains the bar Vzaboy. Due to the long northern holidays, we are rarely able to play together for a long time. For example, now I am on my vacation, when I return, the guitarist will leave. And recently, the drummer Alexander Klevtsov has left to defend his diploma in Kemerovo. And it is always like that”.
And yet, the team has creative plans, and very global ones connected not only with Norilsk. Vyacheslav and Ekaterina’s daughter will soon graduate from school and it is possible that the whole family will move to another city.
“It is inevitable, I would say. I do not want to give up music, I have plans about it. And you see how it works out in my life: I wanted a group, and although I did not do anything special, it suddenly appeared. The main thing is to really want it. The heavens hear us. I am not a religious person at all, but I observe such patterns”.
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Text: Maria Sokolova, Photo: from Vyacheslav Galayda’s personal archive
