A funny song about a real Indian became Chistyakov's hallmark. But the real life of the author is far from carefree, he had to endure many trials and hardships. How did the musician find the real path to harmony and happiness? To do this, he had to go to the bottom of his life, but let's start from the very beginning.
Difficult childhood
Fedor Chistyakov was born on December 28, 1967 in a simple family. The musician’s grandfather was a hero of the Great Patriotic War, but a boy grew up with his mother, and it was she who had the greatest influence on his life. As an adult, Chistyakov said that they lived very modestly in a communal apartment, where he was ashamed to invite friends, and his mother was a very difficult person, and he constantly wanted to leave her. But at the same time, from childhood, the child was engaged in a circle - he learns to play the button accordion, and later enters a music school. He changes schools several times, and this helped him to meet Alexei Nikolayev and Anatoly Platonov, who shared Chistyakov’s passion for rock. Together, the students create the punk band Scrap, record an album of the same name, which was highly appreciated by Andrei Tropillo, an underground sound engineer and producer of many rock bands of the time. He greatly helped the children by teaching them the basics of recording songs, arrangements and many other secrets. But most importantly, he gave them self-confidence, and the group began to actively create precisely with the light hand of Tropillo.
Zero as a way of life
Since 1986, a very stormy period begins in the life of a musician. Fedor Chistyakov and his comrades create a group, which is called "Zero". The Leningrad rock club hospitably opened the doors for a new band, and musicians begin to actively tour and record new songs. Zero differed from all the teams of that time in its unusual sound, which was greatly facilitated by the Chistyakovsky button accordion, caustic texts with social themes and the incredible stage charm of the soloist. For six years, the group traveled to half of the country and some foreign countries: Finland, the Czech Republic, Ireland and others.
Musical waste
The heyday and success of the Zero group was absolutely carnival for the musicians, the tour was accompanied by the active use of alcohol and drugs, promiscuous connections. Fedor Chistyakov speaks of that time as a gradual rapprochement with darkness. However, the musical achievements of that time cannot be denied. The group recorded in 1991 the album "Songs of Unrequited Love for the Motherland", compositions from which become hits and some of them: "Man and Cat", "Song of a Real Indian", "Going, Smoking" - still have not lost popularity . The group makes the first video clips, with such an intense life, Fedor Chistyakov continues to actively create songs, giving himself energy through doping. This mode of life is difficult to sustain for a long time, and therefore everything was rapidly heading for a denouement.
Threshold of Madness
And in 1992 a terrible thing happened. Fedor Chistyakov in a fit of insanity attacks with a knife on a neighbor in the country, he screams that he wants to kill a witch. The musician gets into the police, and then by the decision of the court sent to compulsory treatment of paranoid schizophrenia. Often the paths of musicians end tragically, but there are also wonderful deliverances, an example of this is Fedor Chistyakov. The singer’s biography has changed dramatically, reaching the very bottom of life. He knew the real madness, got to the point that he heard voices that told him what to do, the disease consumed his consciousness. Chistyakov hardly speaks of three years spent in a psychiatric hospital, only tells that adapting to a normal life after such a test is not easy at all and that he was looking for a way out through the Bible.
Way to the light
The search for the meaning of life and moral support led the musician to faith. After treatment, the updated Fedor Chistyakov returns to the world, whose photos now represent a very calm and peaceful person. He found himself and his new path in the religious community Jehovah's Witnesses, where they helped him find his reading of the Bible and find the meaning of life. Without any pathos, he says that faith saved him.
Returning to the world, Chistyakov revises all his values, he even writes a series of gospels, other music does not bother him for some time. Then gradually comes a return to the classics, he releases Bach instrumental works, then covers of Soviet songs. The musician is looking for a new path to music, not wanting to perform his old works. But little by little Fedor is gaining form and is even returning to old songs. He no longer drinks and smokes and finds other pleasure in music.
Fedor Chistyakov is real
In the 2000s, a new creator appeared in the musical space. Fedor Chistyakov, whose discography has 10 studio and 6 concert albums, as well as almost 2 dozen programs in which he participated in various capacities, tried several times to complete his stage work, but, fortunately for the audience, always returned. In 2003, he released the album "Muskrat", wrote a lot for the cinema, toured with the group "Cafe". One of his newest projects, Accordion Rock, is the performance of classical rock compositions on the button accordion.
When a person finds himself, then he finds both harmony and family, Fedor Chistyakov became an example of such a rule. The hero’s wife is the most ordinary woman who shares her husband’s religious views. Fedor always speaks about her warmly and with love, because she not only became his companion, she helped him through a very difficult period when she had to look after a seriously ill mother. Chistyakov is a rare example of how a person, having passed all the circles of the earthly hell, finds himself and leaves the test more powerful, whole and real.