Alternative indie band JONESER was created by Stas Verechuk barely in 2017, a couple of years back. But since, the band has already gone on to release the album "Back Two Me", with an all new single to follow that up! Stas Verechuk does the talking in this chat about the current issue at hand, music, and plans ahead.
1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
Joneser is an indie-rock band from Kiev (Ukraine) created in 2017 by myself (Stas Verechuk). Till September 2019 I was the only person in this project looking for my special sound without giving any concerts.
During 2017-2018 Joneser released single "Chas" (02.11.2017) and the album "Vilni" (06.04.2018). It was a long play of 15 songs of indie-pop music in Ukrainian. It was quite important stage of my life when I was trying to follow the lead of the world indie pop culture. To be honest, I created a fairly high-quality product. But it turned out too sweet for me.
Afterwards I decided to come back to more alternative sound but at the same time to keep melodic and sensual components of my previous music. I started working on Joneser’s second album. The work lasted for about 2 years and by the autumn of 2019 I had recorded 12 indie-rock songs in English (with my sound-engineer Yaroslav Tatarchenko).
All these 12 songs were included into the second Joneser’s album «Back Two Me» that was released on all platforms on February 2, 2020. I’m really proud of this album and I do think that the songs Miraline, June, Folie are the best of what I’ve ever created in my music reality as of today.
In September 2019 Joneser was joined by Alexey Yuriev - guitarist of Kryhitka and hasGotten bands and the drummer Andriy Bogdanov, known for his performances at Mysteries of the Third Planet, Bahroma and Youra (Ukrainian projects).
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
Joneser is the one who will stop at nothing to render whatever he is "Jonesing" for. So, I’m a Joneser. It was me who created this project, who wrote all the songs and who is jonesing for taking some tiny place under our big musical sun. First, I named this project Ttyme but a bit later I realized that Joneser matched my ambitions much more. So, I renamed the project after releasing the 1st single in November 2017.
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
We are all from Kiev, we live and work here. There is quite difficult situation in Ukraine with the music in general and especially with the alternative one. Local people don’t need such kind of music. Though the situation is slowly changing. And we’re happy to put our hands and soul into this with our music. We’d like to recommend you some local bands like Tonka, Love’n’Joy and [O]. These are quite interesting modern products, you will definitely enjoy them.
4. How would you describe your style?
I think that we play true modern indie with sensual and powerful guitars and electronic sounds, melodic vocal lines and dreamy feel of this. I believe that we make really creative product with engaging videos.
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?
On February 2, 2020 Joneser released a new album "Back Two Me" in English. All 12 songs of the album are linked by one storyline. They are all about my way, my victories and defeats as well as coming back to myself.
I really like what we’ve created: more drive, more guitars, more sincerity, English, more alternative sound, the same deep lyrics - it's all about our new music. I think that such kind of music is needed by people as air, because it helps to grow, it inspires to think and feel, it goes under the skin and makes the cells vibrate.
At the same time, we released a video for the song Miraline in the animated short film style. Please, watch it while listening Miraline. You will surely enjoy this dramatic song with appealing vocals over a slow burning instrumentation full of infectious synth lines and dreamy arrangements, with beautiful harmonies and emotional vibes.
6. Do you have any new music in the works?
Yes, we’ve just started working on the new single called "Why don’t you kill me?". It tells the story of a difficult relationships between a guy and a girl. And when the girl is about to blame this guy again in all their problems, he in response offers her to kill him, saying that in this way she will surely get rid of all these problems and she won’t need to change herself. I am also going to shoot music video for this song as a director.
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
We had our first gig on February 18, 2020, at PC "Masterskaya" in Kiev (Ukraine) where we presented our album "Back Two Me". We were planning to have gigs on different Ukrainian festivals this year but now we don’t know at all what we’ll have this year because of this terrible situation with the coronavirus.
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?In the nearest time we are going to release 2 music videos in the animated short movies style for the songs June and Going (both from the album Back Two Me). It is supposed to happen in April and June 2020. Then, 3-4 singles with some music videos are going to be released till the end of 2020. We’re looking forward for the possibility of touring but now the world has much bigger problems then our concerts. So, we are waiting and working on the new material.
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
You can listen to the album Back Two Me (2020) on all the platforms below.
Please, find all necessary links inside:
https://joneser.fanlink.to/99
And the link to "MIRALINE" video:
https://youtu.be/QYY66ve3MFU
And something from our 1st album in Ukrainian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRY3lpQK-Es&feature=youtu.be
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
Please, start listen to our music with the song "Miraline" remembering my short story about its creation:
"I wrote the song Miraline 3 years ago when I had terrible trials in my life. At that time, after some very tragic events in my life (death of my father, divorce with my wife as well as a very deep midlife crisis), I started to have panic attacks and stopped sleeping at all. Waves of anxiety rolled one after another and I could not do my business. I used to wake up at 5 in the morning, trembling under the blanket and did not understand how I could survive this day.
I realized that the only thing I could do in that state was to do what I really liked. I suspended the work for half a year, bought a motorcycle, installed Cubase 9.0 on my laptop and began to learn how to create sounds online while eating tons of cherries.
After the 2nd lesson, I made a demo recording of Miraline song, playing the guitar and singing all the vocals by myself. I was as happy as never before and hopped through the kitchen at 5 a.m. singing along to this demo record.
Within 3 weeks in the same way I wrote an album of 12 songs. I was a lawyer from Kiev and I was 38.
Now this album’s called Back Two Me".
Enjoy!
Stas Verechuk
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