Exposed Vocals Interviews Russian Duo Bloodstream

Bloodstream is a Russian electronic duo from Moscow, consisting of Vadim Mintusov (main vocals and keyboards) and Ilya Chernyavskiy (keyboards, guitar).

Exposed Vocals: How did you hear about Exposed Vocals? What made you decide to sign up?

We decided to upload our music to various internet resources, including Twitter. There we’ve found your page, subscribed and soon received an interview offer from you. 🙂

Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?

We are both from Moscow, Russia and both were interested in music since early ages. Ilya made his first composing attempts at the age of 7, Vadim started attending piano lessons when he was 8. We got acquainted in 2008 on Depeche Mode forums. For a couple of years we’d been talking only about music until we decided to try and record something together. We were both into Nine Inch Nails those times so it appeared that Ilya had a variation on one of NIN’s early songs – “Sin”. Vadim recorded the vocals for this track and it became our first experience of working together. Even though we didn’t upload this song almost anywhere, it gave us a huge inspiration boost which we used to compose our own songs. It all ended up in 2012 as our debut album – “How a Moment Becomes an Eternity”.

Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?

Even though the word Bloodstream sound more like a name for a death metal band or something of that kind, we chose this name because we think that our songs expose lots of deeper feelings and experiences that are close to anyone. In other words, things which are in almost every single person’s bloodstream. So practically that’s the meaning. :)

Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?

Well, online music sharing was a foreseeable trend in the current era of global internet-socialization and such stuff. We prefer to give our music away for free because our number one objective is to let anyone who wants to listen to our music such an opportunity. Our music is our hobby, so it’s always a pleasure to share it with someone.

Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?

Bloodstream is no huge thing yet, so we can hardly be of any competent advice. The main idea is to go for your goal, trying to achieve it as best as you can. Whenever you have something in mind – bring it to life. There are always tons of obstacles on your way to achieving something but making it through is always worth it. 🙂 You’ll have to struggle through overestimating your successes, difficulties in finding common ground with your partner, fear of criticism from public and other stuff.

Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?

We haven’t performed together yet, so the mistakes are also yet to come. 🙂 Anyway, this is no problem for sure as no one is perfect and in our opinion self-irony is the best way get over any fail. Audience also usually likes mistakes if they are presented in a funny way. 🙂 So what really matters is your own approach to it.

Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?

We are not planning any tours in the nearest future because we’re concentrated on composing songs for our next album. When we finish it, we’ll be open to any ideas as visiting other places is always fun. 🙂

Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?

Songwriting process is so unpredictable sometimes that you can never know where and when a new idea would come to your mind. In fact, anything surrounding us – people, emotions, events, art, dreams – anything can affect our music in some way. Ilya usually implements his musical ideas at hope, while Vadim sometimes gathers inspiration for our lyrics on both typical and really surprising occasions.

Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?

Well, we don’t have a website exactly, but during the last couple of years we’ve created quite a few accounts on various internet resources, where anyone can listen to our music and contact us. Here are some of our web pages:

BandCamp – https://bloodstreammusic.bandcamp.com
SoundCloud – https://soundcloud.com/bloodstream-music
Twitter – https://twitter.com/BloodstreamTwit
YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/user/Bloodstreamchannel
MySpace – https://myspace.com/bloodstream_music
ReverbNation – http://www.reverbnation.com/bloodstream7
Promo DJ – http://promodj.com/bloodstream-music
VK – https://vk.com/bloodstream_music

Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?

Ilya doesn’t listen to music via an mp3 player a lot, so there are only songs of his favourite bands. Hardly Pink Floyd discography can be called embarrassing. The most embarrassing composition on Vadim’s mp3 player is, in our opinion, a track that Vadim created while testing some recording software which is a mix of the Imperial March from Star Wars and a melody from “The Neverhood” game soundtrack. No one should ever hear it. Really.

Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?

We are really not sure at all, because dreaming of lots of money and having lots of money are two different things. Vadim would have bought a new flat and organized a home studio in it. And a white grand piano would have been a must! If there was some money and time left, he’d go for a holiday to a Greek island. Rhodes, preferably. Ilya would do some major repairs at home and then go to the countryside or abroad. Or maybe even invest into something.

Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?

Currently we are using AKG and sE Electronics microphones, a Casio XW-P1 synth, Novation Launchkey midi-keyboard and a 2001 Mexican Fender Stratocaster. Speaking of software – FL Studio, Ableton Live and Adobe Audition help us out a lot, though we are planning to switch from FL Studio to something else because it’s getting harder and harder to achieve desirable results using this program. While working on our second album we came up with an idea of getting some compact controllers, such as Launchpad or some smaller midi-keys. For example, Ilya laid an eye on a new model from Samson – Graphite M25. We also want to get some electronic drums to bring more depth to our sound.

Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?

We search the internet for resources which provide convenient access to music we upload and are easy in use. Then we choose those that we like most and make an account there. Social networks also come in handy. We are still in process of finding new ways of promoting our music and use any opportunity we can to make some more people hear about us.

Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?

Nice question. 🙂 There is hardly any chance for us to perform alongside any famous band, but playing, say, as a support-slot for Depeche Mode or Nine Inch Nails would have been great! You could even call it our dream. Moreover, Vadim’s been dreaming about meeting Trent Reznor for a long time now. 🙂 He’s a great guy, really talented and not fucked up by his own fame, compared to lots of other well-known personas.

Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?

As we’ve already mentioned, currently we’re in process of composing songs for our second full-length concept album. It won’t be released shortly, that’s for sure. We’re on an early stage of recording, experimenting with our material. It will take quite a long time to implement all the ideas we want presented in the album. We may also try rehearsing some of our new tracks live first, but it’s too early to tell.

Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?

We’re almost sure that we’d be doing the same stuff we normally do when we are not making music. 🙂 Working, studying (Vadim is on his way to becoming a Ph.D. in Economy and Ilya will graduate from his university in a couple of years), taking part in other projects and activities involving art of any kind.

Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?

Well, probably the first cassette bought by Vadim was an album of some Russian band, so hardly anyone would find it interesting. Then he bought some movie soundtracks on CD. But the most remarkable visit to the music shop happened in 2005 after Vadim heard Depeche Mode – Precious on MTV. He wrote down the names of the song and the band, ran to the closest music shop and asked for a “Depeche Mode album with song Precious in it”. He came home, inserted the CD into his recorder, heard the first sounds of the first track on the album, A Pain that I’m Used to (which were some loud noises), immediately turned it off, switched to Precious and pressed repeat to make sure this wonderful song would be the only thing he was gonna be hearing the whole evening.

First albums bought by Ilya were «Black Celebration” and «Music for the Masses” by Depeche Mode in 2008. That was the very time he had the growing interest to the band, and so it’s hard to describe how happy he was when he saw these albums while wandering aimlessly along the music shop. After that occasion he started buying all Depeche Mode stuff he could find, albums and singles, Russian and foreign releases, ordinary and collector’s editions, etc. Currently he’s changed his priorities a bit, so he’s rarely spending lots of money on physical releases, but that doesn’t mean he’s switching to the digital market (maybe he’s saving up for something huge?) 🙂

Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?

Ilya finds it quite easy to maintain a comfortable pace of life because he has lots of free time for his hobbies. But things might change when he chooses and finds a job. On the contrary, Vadim doesn’t have much free time, so he respects punctuality and good time-management in any activity to make sure he’s not putting his time and effort to waste. It’s kinda hard to keep up with your own expectations that way, but that’s the only way he can spend his time effectively, being satisfied both with how he performs at work and how he spends his weekends and holidays.

Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2015?

Currently we don’t have any plans besides working on our new album but who knows what else we might decide to do. 🙂