For Skryabin lead singer Kuzma, it's the journey,not the destination that matters
For Ukrainian music fans ,the name Kuzma conjures up thoughts of songs with strange, philosophical lyrics – both deep songs and light songs that mirror the person that created them.
And it’s not just fans of Skryabin who know Kuzma. Even those who don’t know the band will recognize the tall, easy-going frontman with the curly black hair and the Western Ukrainian accent. You might even say he looks like a rock star.
Kuzma laughs at the description. He says he’s just someone who came to the big city, worked hard and learned from those around him when all he had to rely on was himself.
“I come from a small country town and for a long time I’ve borne that complex of a naive, small-town boy,” Kuzma said, “but on the other hand, that helped me to achieve what I’ve achieved.”
Big city dreams for Kuzma (aka Andrei Kuzmenko) had their roots in the small town of Sambir, Lviv oblast, where he was born in 1968. His mother, a music teacher, almost ended Kuzma’s future career before it started, ironically enough, by wanting to arouse a love of music in her son. She forced him to take music lessons, but like everything he was forced to do, Kuzma hated it.
“For me, each music lesson felt like two years in prison,” Kuzma recalled.
After suffering through his early years in Sambir, the burgeoning musician spent what he describes as his crucial formative years in what he calls his true hometown, Novoyavorivsk – another small town near the Polish border where his family moved in 1981. Two years later, he first heard the band Exploited on Polish radio and fell in love with punk rock.
Later that same year he organized his own punk band at school – Lantsiugova Reaktsia (Chain Reaction). The band rehearsed in the school’s assembly hall, playing at discos and making all Novoyavorivsk teenagers fall in love with punk rock the way Kuzma did.
In time, he became carried away by a new, more romantic style of rock, notably that of English bands Depeche Mode and The Cure, whose music still has a hold on him. Again, fate almost took Kuzma down a completely different path.
His parents wanted him to have a respectable career, so upon graduating from high school in 1985, Kuzma went to study neurology in Petrozavodsk, Russia, having failed in his attempt to enter the Medical Institute in nearby Lviv.
Just one year into his studies, however, Kuzma was drafted by the Red Army, where he served as a medical officer in its neurology department, and even performed operations. Once his term of service was up, but unable to return to his studies because of a lack of money, Kuzma went to Lviv where he considered dentistry.
“I hated it from the start,” Kuzma said. “I had to count the number of rotten teeth in each person’s mouth.”
Not daring to go against his parents’ wishes, Kuzma continued studying dentistry, all the while playing with various bands: Assotsiatsia Gentelmeniv (Association of Gentlemen), Truna (Coffin), Death Time Boys and Reanimatsia (Reanimation).
Then, on June 30, 1989, the first song of a project that consisted of Kuzma and future band mates Roy and Shura was recorded, and a couple of days later “Skryabin” was born.
“In 1991, my mom and I made a bet,” Kuzma said. “If I go with my band to Chervona Ruta [music festival] and take any place there, I give up dentistry. If not, I give up music.”
Kuzma and Skryabin took to the stage, took third place, and their success has taken Andrei Kuzmenko to newer and newer heights of stardom ever since.
In 1994, after finally graduating from the institute, Kuzma married and, together with his band mates Roy and Shura, moved to Kyiv. He missed his home at first and felt uncomfortable in the big city.
“It was scary to enter the subway,” Kuzma recalled. “When you saw so many people on the escalator, you always had a sense that if they started running, they would crush you.”
Soon Kuzma got his own flat, and as the newly recorded album “Ptakhy” (The Birds) began to succeed, he also began to adjust.
In 1997 the real fame of “Skryabin” and Kuzma started with the success of their double album “Kazky” (Fairytales). The album received considerable airtime and is considered by many Skryabin’s best album to date. This December Skryabin officially released their 10th and latest album “Ozymi lyudy” (Winter Crop People). While it bears the same name as a pro-presidential political party, it should not be considered a political statement, Kuzma said. Rather, it reflects his confidence that “new blood” in the Rada would be a good thing. As with most everything in his life, Kuzma sees change as inherently good.
Whatever the success and politics of the band, the fairytale continues for Kuzma. He continues to remake his name, this time as co-host of the “Guten Morgen” morning program on the Ukrainian all-music channel, M1. Hardly a rock star’s schedule, he’s up at 5 a.m. and on air working from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.
But anyone who believes that Kuzma is serious about making a career on television is wrong.
“I’m an accidental person on television,” Kuzma claims. “This job is just a way for me to spend some energy and, besides, I won’t stay here for long.”
Still Kuzma says he feels “cool” being on TV with “Morgen” co-host Slava Frolova, and he likes communicating with the show’s interesting studio guests. On the other hand, he believes his TV appearances could potentially harm his music career.
“If people see me every day on TV, they’ll get bored and sick of me.”
Living a fast life that’s anything but boring, it’s no wonder Kuzma’s biggest hobby has always been travel.
When he was in the third grade, the young Kuzma used to skip classes and go to local oblast centers by bus. With his first car he traveled through the Carpathians and Poland, and to every corner of Ukraine.
“I like going somewhere unexpectedly,” Kuzma said. “My family [wife Svetlana and daughter] often has no idea that we’re leaving in half an hour. The thing is, I don’t need to find any additional inspiration in life. I feel a burst of energy, I have to go.”
As for his future plans, Kuzma avoids talking about them partly because of his superstitions. His only philosophy, though, is obvious: “Live to see another day.”
