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Saint-Petersburg Times
Friday, February 8, 2008
Ska-punk pioneer Spitfire celebrates its fifteenth anniversary with a concert and party at Achtung Baby on Feb. 16'
By Sergey Chernov
Spitfire, with drummer Denis Kuptsov (r), who will perform at Achtung Baby next week Photo by Sara Lafleur-Vette |
'We're not little boys anymore, one has to try hard to perform in one style for that long,' said drummer Denis Kuptsov, speaking in Fidel indie bar on Wednesday. 'Many famous bands didn't even last that long'
Last year, Spitfire survived an attempted bombing when it headlined the Music of the Streets event at Roks club in September' An explosive device was discovered on stage when the Swedish punk band Blisterhead performed, and the police arrived during Spitfire's set' A month later, three suspects were arrested, who, the police said, belonged to an extreme nationalist group.
'It's not that they wanted to blow us up, they wanted to blow up the music event, because it all was discovered during the Swedish band's set, so if it exploded, the Swedes would be killed, which would've led to an international scandal,' said Kuptsov.
'But because we were the headlining act, it was us who had to say, 'We're sorry, guys, but it's time to go''' Kuptsov said the event was not political, but its promoters were somehow linked to Antifa, an anti-Nazi underground movement.
'There was no political motive behind the event, it was simply the 'Music of the Streets'' It's all clear, just street music, such as punk, ska-punk, ska ' that is, the music that can be played on the street as much as in a club,' said Kuptsov.
'So it was not political, but you don't need to be politically educated not to like fascism'.
When the band, which took its name from a type of British World War II fighter plane, made it's stage debut on Feb' 10, 1993, its musical style was different' Spitfire started out as a garage rockabilly trio featuring Kuptsov, singer and guitarist Konstantin Limonov, and bassist Igor Popugai, while the first concert was during a psychobilly event at the now-defunct Indie club.
'It was garage, rockabilly ' we even had a double bass in the beginning,' said Kuptsov' 'We got together just for the event, just to play there' But somehow we performed great, everybody liked it, so we went on and on'.
'We stepped aside from this rockabilly/psychobilly scene pretty quickly' It was the nasty crowd, the style itself was dying, it didn't develop, and there were fights at concerts all the time' We got tired of all this'. After a year, we got a new bassist and brass section and decided to play ska punk, more contemporary music'.
In the early 1990s, Spitfire mostly played at TaMtAm, the now-defunct pioneering alt-rock club' 'I'm not saying that TaMtAm was better, it was a nightmare, but it still resembled [legendary 1970s New York punk club] CBGB's, or the St' Petersburg version of it,' said Kuptsov.
'It was an outlet, it was the only place where you could be creative at that time' I went there every week, because there was nowhere else to go'.
In 2000, Spitfire headlined the Punk Ska Festival Against the War in Chechnya, featuring St' Petersburg punk band PTVP (Posledniye Tanki v Parizhe), but there has hardly been any protest concerts in the city since then.
'The thing is that, we don't organize them ourselves,' said Kuptsov.
'We don't think of ourselves as a political band, but if somebody organizes a concert against violence, fascism, imperialism or whatever, we'll always take part ' just as other similarly-minded bands such as Fishbone, The Clash, The Specials or Bob Marley did' There's nothing to explain, it's all clear'.
'When you play ska music, it's your protest' Our weapon is our songs' Because we're playing music professionally, we have no other jobs, so that is all we're capable of'.
Spitfire has undergone some lineup changes lately' As frontman Limonov quit in 2006, trumpeter Roman Parygin, who joined the band in 1998, became the full-time vocalist, while new guitarist Dmitry Vatov was recruited.
Kuptsov continues to write lyrics in English, while Russian-language material is written by Parygin' All members write the music, mostly Parygin and saxophone player Grigory Zontov, who joined Spitfire in 1994.
Originally, Spitfire wrote its songs almost entirely in English and was set to win over club audiences in Western Europe, rather than in Russia, but its Russian fandom has recently grown.
'We didn't pay too much attention to Russia, because at that time it was either you perform [in the West] or vegetate here' It was hard here, but we were pleasantly surprised when people got to know us here,' said Kuptsov.
Since 2001, Spitfire also performs as part of Leningrad, the stadium ska-punk band led by Sergei Shnurov, and the St' Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review, with singer Jennifer Davis.
'With Leningrad, I only play and arrange my parts as much as I can, [Shnurov] does all the rest,' Kupstsov said 'With the Ska-Jazz Review, I do a lot, but it's still Spitfire's spin-off project, it's not our main job'.
Spitfire performs on Feb. 16 at 10 p.m. at Achtung Baby
www.spitfire.spb.ru
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