Shock Debut -or- The Return Of "Kalinka"
"At the live gigs, ambitions don't matter - the main goal is to survive and to appeal to the audience!"
- says MIKE BREEZE, leader of the German rock band MIRROR.
On the contrary, in the studio work, he indulges in vanity, without taking care of fashion and opinions of critics as well as fans.
Be yourself and believe in what you do - a simple truth that works.
The band MIRROR is - its creator and idea inspirator MIKE BREEZE, guitarist RAMIN ANDARMANI and drummer IAN WEID: 3 totally different people who live in Hamburg and hardly communicate outside the studio and the stage, but sometimes gather to drink some beer or watch a movie.
"Growing older, we quarrel less then we used to. We realized that we cannot change each other any way. RAMIN and me have explosive tempers and IAN is a hippie, from whom you never know what to expect." - tells MIKE.
The band's leader was born in Moscow and admired QUEEN, THE BEATLES, X JAPAN and his grandma violinist, who was responsible for his growing up in musical atmosphere while he was dreaming of becoming a rock musician.
He wanted to form a rock band in the 90ies in Moscow. That was about the time when he started writing songs.
But the dream was finally fulfilled in 2002 in Germany when he met the student RAMIN with a guitar case and offered him to form a band.
RAMIN, in his turn, took MIKE as bassist in his then-active group.
"I agreed to join his band. That was where I started to play bass. Before that, I wanted to be just frontman and pianist. But soon that band split and we joined our forces with RAMIN in MIRROR. And later, in 2004, IAN came to the band. That happened a couple of days prior to a gig, so he had to learn our whole repertoire, about 8 songs, very quickly" - MIKE remembers.
Despite being ithe author of the majority of the songs, MIKE likes when everybody composes, so he frequently urges his musicians to write something, even if they don't always want it themselves. Sometimes, acts of creation happen with musicians from other groups, for example he wrote a number of songs with LEIF ASTROID of THE PLEASURES, VLADIMIR SUHOTINSKIY of EUROZIMA, and American poet/musician GREGORY SCHWARTZ, who by the way wrote some lyrics for GORKY PARK's debut album, including their hit "Bang".
MIRROR is a young and not yet very famous band, but nevertheless, they have already released the album "SHOCKING DEBUT", 3 singles ("RED DYE", "HEART OF ICE" and "VALENTINE") and a DVD that features 5 video clips and some live performances by the band.
Graphic design of the debut album and of the single "RED DYE" especially impresses - it looks decently gothic and tasteful.
All that was released on MIKE's label mirror records. The 2nd and 3rd albums are already work-in-progress.
"The 2nd album will be released on vinyl and CD. The vinyl version will probably be released on Norwegian-German lable Problem Child Records and the if we don't find a passable lable for the CD version, I will have to use mirror records for it once again" - explains MIKE.
The musician considers his joint live gig with the band RA:IN in Berlin his biggest achievement so far.
For those who are not informed, I have to explain, RA:IN is a popular Japanese rock band, whose leader PATA is also member of legendary X JAPAN. With him in the band plays another well-known Japanese musician - DIE (HIDE's Spread Beaver ex keyboarder).
"Specially for PATA, we drove a 5-liter barrell of beer that is being brewd in Kiel (Northern Germany). It is the most delicious beer in the world! When we came and saw PATA with DIE and realized that it's all real - here they are, who played for millions of fans and who are getting recognition from the best musicians in the world - they stand before us. So we did not even dare to approach them immediately, but then we had some drinks together before the gig and presented them our last single "VALENTINE", that includes our cover version of "Lemoned I Scream" - originally by HIDE with Spread Beaver." - remembers MIKE BREEZE.
As he said, he always wanted to create versatile music, yet at the same time recognizable. As for versatility, it is enough to listen to several songs and one can positively say that the plan worked: MIRROR's repertoire is a full palette of colours - from lyrical rock ballads, to the speed metal version of the Russian folk song "Kalinka" that makes you smile right from the very first notes, to hard rock compositions in best heavy metal traditions.
Through the years, the band collected a lot of unreleased material, different from Mirror's traditional format.
For example, a collaboration with PHIL SHÜRER from Germany thrash band DAMAGE[D]ONE - jazz rock song "Teenage Whore",
and many works with LEIF ASTROID of THE PLEASURES. All these songs scream for release.
Creative blackout is unknown to the guys, the songs are multiplying, yet they seldom appeal to their creators:
"I can't stand hearing our songs, I always want to do it better. I prefer remixes of our songs, created by artists COALESCENE and TWEAKERRAY: I did not really have a hand in their creation, so they don't annoy me much." - continues MIKE.
Creative people must find inspiration somewhere, and usually they find it in art itself. For MIKE it's cinema and literature.
For example, the band's debut album contained the aria "Good-Bye Valentino", written in 1997 after having watched a movie about RUDOLPHO VALENTINO. And mostly, it is life itself that gives reasons to write something every day, and female devilry.
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