INTERVIEW : SELFPLAYERS
Interview by : Benjamin Leboyer
Pictures by : DR
on Monday, January 21st 2013 - 7 770 views
World tour, continued: we leave Latvia to join its immense neighbour… The largest country in the world, Russia is a territory rich in history, traditions and culture. Moscow, its capital, is full of places for expression and discovery. Yet reggae was slow to arrive here and the reggae scene is only just beginning.
We meet the Selfplayers on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the band Skalpel, a popular ska group in the capital. A fusion of roots reggae, drum & bass, dancehall, hip hop and jungle, their latest album, "Vibrations", has been well received. Back from a tour of small venues across Europe, Daniel and his band share their impressions of reggae in Russia, their way of working and their plans for the future.
Reggaefrance / How did Selfplayers come about?
Selfplayers / Daniel: It's a mix of humour and truth. We do everything to do with our music ourselves, from composing and arranging to recording, distribution and promotion. We handle our photo shoots, our videos and even the website. And of course, we're the ones playing our songs on stage (laughs)!
Anton: There are six of us in the band: a guitarist, a keyboard player, a bass player, two drummers and Daniel, our singer. Sometimes we're joined by backing vocalists, it often changes depending on the track.
Alexander: We've been playing together for four years, and we all come from Moscow. I was making hip hop beats and I met Daniel in a kind of music community. He wanted to put a band together to play live, and his style was really reggae and dancehall. Since the two movements are close, it wasn't a problem. And the rest of Selplayers came along naturally, a friend, that friend's friend, word of mouth really…
Anton: We come from different backgrounds and that gives what we do a special touch. On the album "Vibrations", for example, no two tracks sound alike, which is what we like, varying our compositions... The style comes from Daniel but he's very open to whatever the musicians suggest.
That album, "Vibrations", came out in 2012.
Daniel: Yes, the album came out in 2012, with seventeen tracks, two of them featuring Russian reggae bands. It's really our own project, from A to Z, made in our own studio, so we're quite proud of it.
Anton: We're recording the second album at the moment, which should come out in 2013 if all goes well. "Vibrations" did well and we play it live a lot, so we hope the second one will do the same.
You recently went to Europe to introduce your music. What were your impressions?
Anton: We've just come back from that tour, we played in Amsterdam, Paris and Strasbourg and we got a good reception, I felt we really connected with the audience.
Vasily: We organised it all ourselves: we approached venues and radio stations, rented a car big enough for the band and the gear, and slept at people's homes or in hotels. We took things as they came, basically making do. The trip was full of encounters, with the audience or other musicians, it was quite intense. And we took the opportunity to do some sightseeing.
 En Russie, tout le monde s'attend à ce que tu offres ton CD ! 
Any anecdotes from that European tour?
Anton: Lots of memories! One funny thing: we brought albums with us to give to the audience, to promote the band. And in France, people wouldn't believe they were free. Some came back to return the albums with suspicious looks, or insisted on paying us before they would leave with one... That amused us: in Russia, everyone expects you to give away your CD!
Daniel: I'd like to add that it's not the first time we've left Russia to promote our music. We went to Goa, in India, to play and also to shoot a video (see below).
And in Russia, is it easy to play reggae?
Anton: We have to work on the side, of course. In Russia, if you don't do pop, you don't make much money!
Alexander: Besides, we really play more to be on stage and make music than to sell albums. Our tracks are free to download on the Internet, and we give away quite a lot of CDs... In Moscow, you have to play to get paid, so we play live as often as possible!
Daniel: Reggae and dancehall are in their early days here. There is an audience, but it's still fairly niche. You do feel that more and more people are getting interested in this kind of music, which gives us hope for good things ahead.
What are your influences?
Daniel: Marley, obviously, with whom we started discovering this music, and also Capleton, Buju Banton, Anthony B, Sizzla for the punch of the lyrics. I think Jamaican reggae is very powerful and inspired, it's positive, warm music, which changes my perception of what's around me when I listen to it. The bass and the drums make me vibrate, of course!
Vasily: Jamaica is the cradle of reggae and it's important to know the source of a music when you listen to it or play it. So Lee Perry's work at Black Ark Studio is a foundation, and the artists who passed through there are among my influences. There are the Skatalites too, Black Uhuru, Burning Spear... Even though Jamaican sounds have changed a lot over the past several years, the spirit and the original tradition are still there!
A few words about Russia?
Anton: I love Moscow, it's my home town and it's a place where something is always going on. Every day, every night, you can find a free concert, an exhibition, a corner full of life. The architecture is magnificent, there are big parks, it's very pleasant to live there even if life is more expensive than in the rest of the country.
Alexander: There are so many opportunities to seize here, new things to discover all the time, it's very interesting! But if you really want to feel Russia, you have to go outside Moscow and Saint Petersburg, which are a bit like countries within the country. You have to visit the villages, the remote places, where you'll find more of the traditional side of Russia and its diversity. It's such a vast country, with such different cultures, ways of life and ways of thinking…
Over the last 20 years, the population has gone through many changes.
Alexander: When communism fell, we had to learn to live differently. As everywhere, there were good and bad things. People tried to make money, a rather mafia-like system took hold, everything could be negotiated, bought, sold... And those who came out of that period best now hold very important positions.
Anton: But we feel free now, to travel, to start businesses, to live. The country is becoming more and more European. Anyway, we live in a globalising world, everyone has access to the Internet and television. And that isn't necessarily good, because the images they carry eat people's brains and push them to consume anything and everything. Quite a few people here, especially older ones, talk about communism with nostalgia.
The official website: www.selfplayers.com
The video shot in India:
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