КОРОЛЬ И ШУТ  Interview with Korol i Shut leader: And Then An Old Man Appears...

New album by Korol i Shut hits stores on December 1. If it is going to be as weird as this interview with the band's leader Gorshok, then the audience should consult the psychiatrist before listening to it.

Music Ru. Tell us about your new program.

Gorshok. Yeah, I need to concentrate. Yeah. We will perform here in Moscow on December 3, we will show you our new program, no moscovite has seen it yet, we've performed it only in Saint-Petersburg. Well, we will be absolutely different in this program. I will be quite a monster, me. You know, this is gonna be quite a show. And there comes an old man. Just imagine - the stage, and a dead old man, a Russian dead old man arises right from inside the stage. And so he wants to booze with me, you know. And all those graves are around us. And so we are sitting with him. And so I sit on the grave and have my drink. But years pass - many years, who cares, how many years pass, well, say, two thousand years. I arise from this grave, and so, the time has changed, you know. My grandma, my friends, they're all dead, you know. I see their graves. My house has drooped. Can you imagine? Dreadful, isn't it? We'll have a good laugh (laughs).

MR. And this is the main point of your concert? That's what will shock your audience, you think?

G. So what do you think, so you sit here and suddenly a dead man arises in front of you, and this won't be a shock for you, no? Why are you talking about "the point", what the hell is "the point"? The point is energy. The main point is when people understand you, understand what you're doing. You give them energy - they give it back to you. Like basketball or volleyball. You just play.

MR. Please say a few words about your new songs.

G. You know, we'll perform songs from our fourth album, and the only well-known song is "The yeomen were eating meat". It's about a man, he just lived with his wife, and everyone f**ked his wife, and so he invited everyone for dinner. And what did they have for dinner? They had his wife for dinner. And the first song is "An old man in the village". Listen, I'll give you the whole text. So. Imagine - a village, Russian village. Slavonic settlement. Yeah. And, you know, there's a party there. The wedding. And, you know, people are relaxing, you know, of the kind, the groom and the bride too. And so suddenly an old man appears to where they are boozing. Yeah. And so he drinks more than anyone. He drinks all their... all their food. Vodka, beer, wine - he has had it all. An old man, just an old man, he's toothless, he's got no teeth. And he sees the groom who's absolutely buzzed. And so he laughs. Well, in the morning everyone has a terrible hangover. They look into the cellar - there's nobody in there. No old man. And suddenly they realize that this old man has been dead for a long, long time. And this bastard has arisen from his grave and drunk everything...

There was a wonderful anecdote: first Red army captured the forest, than White army captured the forest, than a forester came and kicked everyone out of his forest. So let's hope that this Gorshok's "old man" will play the role of a forester.

Interview: Natalia Fokina
Anna Selezneva