Soloist Nastya Palchikova spoke about Valera Todorovsky, about music from the position of the listener and feelings.

They managed to play concerts in Chicago, Boston and New York. Recording albums in Tbilisi, the Dry group performs with enviable regularity within the Garden Ring, their tenacious songs about people and deeds, about love and its derivatives, about existence in big city and dreams of something more.

Hello guys! I would like to immediately know why "Dry"? Where did such a name come from? Yes, this is not the first time you have been asked this question, but it is interesting to hear it from you again. Do you have any story that you can come up with for such occasions?

There is no invented story, there is a real one. I actually say the same thing every time. It was the very first concert of the group. In some basement on the outskirts of Moscow. We prepared seven songs, and probably didn't know what to call ourselves yet. Two hours before the concert, we were still discussing different band names with the musicians. And then there was the soundcheck. And I was bored constantly repeating “one-one” into the microphone to rebuild my voice. The microphone there, I must say, was broken, and in general everything was broken. And I had to repeat in mik for a very long time - “one-one”, “one-one”. Tired - and I began to say other words that fit the frequency spectrum. "Devil", "sausage" all sorts. And then she began to repeat - "dry", "dry", "dry". And you have to understand that this, of course, was not the Artist Concert Hall club, where we give a concert in November. It was an old cellar where the audience drank beer right during the soundcheck and shouted at the musicians on stage. And we sang something during the check that the audience liked. So while other bands were performing before us, the people in the hall shouted - “Well, where are these dry ones? Hey, dry ones, come out already!”

So we entered the stage already as Dry ... Dry. I like this word. I like the way it sounds.

And how, exactly, did it all start?

From the fact that my pregnant mother listened to records of jazz and Vysotsky too often. Perhaps from this.

What audience is your music aimed at: what does the listener for whom you write your compositions look like?

I think it's primarily sensual people. I think so - people who feel.

Nastya, I know that you still write scripts for films. Is it easy to combine one with the other?

I don't combine. I just write scripts and songs. I play with a group. I don't think so - should I combine it or not. I just live, I live. It's quite fun.

Does it happen that working on a script inspires a song or vice versa?

There was only one time when a script inspired a song. But it's funny that that single script was never filmed and the song has never been performed on stage until now. Although, by the way, maybe make it for the next concert?

What are your plans for the future? Maybe you will reveal to our readers the secret "for such a small company"?

Plans - this one is somehow too numbers. Point one, point two. Plans are for concert directors, producers. We still think in songs and sound. So far, we are finishing our album, which is called "New" and presenting it with three concerts - in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Saratov. Jumping in the studio, making new songs. We just play all sorts of riffs.

Will we soon see the work of the talented screenwriter Nastya Palchikova on television or in cinemas?

Valera Todorovsky is now at the launch with my script for Bolshoy, but it won't be released soon, the movie is a long process. Soon there will be a film by Vladimir Mirzoev "Her name was Mumu" - also according to my script, but you will not see it in cinemas, only at festivals - there are too many forbidden things in this film. We are currently preparing several series. And I'm thinking about one full-length film, but filmmakers are superstitious, I won't tell anything yet.

How does your group stand out from others? Why you?

We share, people take. Do you know what songs mean to me? - not as a musician, as a simple listener? For example, every time I break up with a man, I lie on the floor in pain and snot and play some song on repeat. Many years ago it was The soldier of fortune, then somehow - “Sound” by Arbenina, of course, there were the Beatles with Because, Portishead, then there was Adele with her Lovesong, then there were Ordinary things Lukas Graham .. and so on. It seems to me that songs are for this. For state, for emotions. This is how I listen and how I write.

What music inspires you? What songs do you listen to most often?

As a musician, I listen to an unrealistic bunch of stuff. The bass riff in the song of an unknown African band that you accidentally heard from someone else's player on the subway can inspire. Or Ezra's cool sound can inspire. I've been listening to Anushka a lot lately.

Who would you like to work with? Are there among Russian performers anyone in mind? Maybe one of the foreign musicians?

Well, personally, as usual, I would like to sing a duet with Paul McCartney. We just both have quiet voices, this is my dream from my youth, and my guys have a whole list of musicians with whom they want to play on the same stage.

November 21 at the club "Artist Concert Hall" you will have a concert. Tell me, will there be any surprises?

Will. But they are surprises, so as not to know about them in advance.

The DRY group became a guest of the Second Shift program on Our Radio. The leader of the group, Anastasia Palchikova, the author of music and words, told NSN readers about how she became a professional cellist, why the director's profession seemed "terrible" to her, about the history of the appearance of the name of the group "Dry", and which team she supports in domestic football. ..

- You own all the words, music and arrangements of all the songs, right?

Well, the arrangements are, of course, loudly said. Music and words - yes, but we do the arrangements all together. We are currently working with arrangers, and with the guys in the band.

You studied at the philological faculty, and at VGIK, and at the Conservatory. What is the main thing in your life - music or active directorial work?

Of this, I graduated only from VGIK, and did not take my diploma. Well, one helps the other. I can't decide what's important. Either one or the other comes to the fore. Such a salvation. In fact, I find it hard to do just one thing. You can go crazy...

- Such multitasking was clear even in adolescence?

Since childhood, actually. It depends on the person. Of course, there are always difficulties, and “not going crazy” is always a priority.

-What happened in the beginning? Melodies or script finds?

Melodies were first. Because I went to study cello in music school. I was terribly anxious, I pulled my parents' hands all the time and asked them to give them back. In general, I wanted to go to the violin ... But it seems to me that not a single cellist came specifically to the cello. It's always kind of tragic and dramatic story. We have a keyboard player, for example, Artyom Khamzin, also a cellist in the past. He generally thought that the cello is a harp. And when he said that he wanted to play the cello, he was sure that they would give him now this huge thing with strings. And suddenly I saw some little thing with four strings ... I also really wanted to play the violin, but while I was pulling my parents' hands, I was already nine years old, and they brought me to a music school when it was too late for the violin . And since the stretch on the fingers was good, they told me: “You have a cello on you!”. I never regretted. I was bored playing all sorts of exercises on the cello, and I began to compose songs and melodies myself.

-When did you realize that it needed to be published?

In fact, it seems to me that awareness has not yet come (laughs). It just turned out at some point that we were sitting in the kitchen and, despite the fact that I studied at VGIK, I had many musician friends. And including the person with whom we started the group together. We were sitting in the kitchen, the guys were listening to something and said: “Let's play!” I say: “Yes, what are you ?!” But somehow everything went by itself. At some point, I realized that we were going on tour in America from Chicago to Boston ...

- Were there people who tried to dissuade?

Of course! But I must say that the family never dissuaded. My mom is great in that regard. I had a lot of bullshit in my life that I did, and my mother never dissuaded me from anything. She accepted any adventure with an absolute poker-face. And when I said: "I'll go to VGIK", - "Well, you'll go." But there were people who did not believe and said that the time of the bands was over.

What can you say about your directing activity? Talent - does it somehow break through, or were there people who specifically helped you find such a place?

You know, this is from the series that many people tell. Like, “I didn’t intend to at all and came with a girlfriend to stand up. And then suddenly - hop! I really just fell in love and went to Moscow and went to VGIK. Don't know. I wrote stories and didn't like movies. In fact? I watched it very little, I didn’t have a TV, and everyone laughed when I said that I was entering VGIK. Because I saw two films by Tarkovsky, and that's it. I am an absolutely literary-centric person in this sense. But somehow I did, and I immediately fell in love with my master Natalya Borisovna Ryazantseva. We had a workshop of thirteen people. It was easy to enter, everything started very gracefully, and then the difficulties began. In general, the screenwriter is a very terrible profession. Very difficult. But it's just some absolutely painful love of mine with the lyrics. It's better not to be a screenwriter.

- Why is the group called "DRY"?

In fact, just when we were sound-checking and I was adjusting my voice, I got tired of constantly saying the same thing, and I began to repeat the word “dry”. And we started talking like that at one concert, and the audience picked it up. Like, “where are these dry ones”? And they became "DRY".

- What kind of literature is close to you especially?

I can very calmly answer this question and say that my favorite writer is Thomas Mann.

Who do the musicians listen to? What were you listening to when you started writing your songs, and what are you listening to now?

We actually listen to everything. Because musicians listen to music in a special way. Even when background music is turned on in a cafe, at some point you realize that the background music becomes the main one, and the conversation that is being held at the table becomes the background one. You start listening and thinking, “Oh, great bass line” or “funny keyboard sound”. In general, my parents listened to the classics, jazz and Vysotsky. So that's where it all started. By the way, one of my landmarks is a classical musician, composer, violist. And he, when we discussed classical music, once said to me: “No, why, I also like to listen to all kinds of pop music there: Zemfira, Rachmaninov, for example” (laughs).

-What about Russian bands?

I like the group "Resurrection". And I have Portishead and Resurrection in a row in my playlist.

- How was the 2012 US tour? And in general, with what suddenly they began.

We've been on tour twice now. And, in fact, all of a sudden. We only have one English song and we rarely play it. The first time we went when they called me. I was just speaking somewhere in Romania and an American writer accidentally overheard me and invited me to speak. We played acoustic. We came with two guitars, drove around California and played in New York. In New York, we met and became friends with journalist Tanya Rhodes, and already she and her husband organized a second tour with the group for us. There were three cities - Chicago, New York and Boston. And there was already everything in an adult way. When we went for the first time, there were a lot of English-speaking people. I had to conduct a concert in two languages. And the Americans were the first to come and buy discs. The second time was overwhelmingly an immigrant audience. It is very different from English. I had very conflicting feelings about the immigrant hangout.

-What about the plate?

We now have one album. The very first one, which is in Dodo and Jabberwocky stores, and we also sell at concerts. In general, we are now recording another album in Tbilisi. And I think that on big concert In the autumn we will present the EP for sure, and by the New Year it will all be out. There are awesome studios in Tbilisi, "Bravo Records". We actually came there with a solo album. We performed at the big charity concert together with the Georgian group. And we were offered to record one song at the studio at the same time. I imagined a smoky basement where an old Georgian sits, twisting something on a crooked finger ... And suddenly, when we entered, it turned out that it was a huge stuffed studio, and there was a wonderful sound engineer. But for sound production, they are too lazy, I think. They even snack between records with white tablecloths, wine and meat.

- Can we hope for tour?

Yes, you can hope. We are now just discussing that we, apparently, will have a Russian tour in the spring. There are no details yet, but we always have a poster on our website where we update everything. All the information, I think, will "hang" there long before the tour.

Your performance at the INVASTION will not be the first experience at the festival, will it?

No, we played last year. To be honest, I don’t like festivals because there is a crazy “hodgepodge” and you can’t really rebuild the sound ... But I liked it, oddly enough. Somehow we had fun going there, and the planes were flying in front of us. Unfortunately, we did not have time to listen to anyone there. We just performed, and after our performance there was a reshuffle on the main stage.

- Do you watch the World Cup?

I look. I used to be a hell of a fan, I watched a lot of football.

-Who are you rooting for?

For Zenith. By the way, I can tell you why. I was just in St. Petersburg, Zenit won the match, and I was so struck by the unity of the fans who went out into the street and jumped on the cars, and it was somehow not destructive, but warm. I started watching games after that, and I just liked it. At that moment, Zenit was doing very well, and I liked them the most. And Vova, by the way, is a professional footballer in the past. He was a goalkeeper, and will tell better.