In this material the history of the Aria group will be presented to your attention. You will also find photos of participants in the article. Aria is a Russian heavy metal band. She is one of the most successful rock bands in the Russian Federation. At the same time, the team managed to achieve creative and commercial success not only among fans of heavy metal. The team was awarded the Fuzz Award, as the best live group. Former participants formed other well-known groups, including "Arthur Berkut", "Artery", "Mavrin", "Kipelov", "Master". This galaxy is called the "Aria family." Most of the lyrics were written by Margarita Pushkina, and the music mainly belongs to Vitaly Dubinin.
The origins
The story of the creation of the band "Aria" began with the acquaintance of its two future member musicians Vitaly Dubinin and Vladimir Holstinin. They met while studying at MPEI. There, the guys created the amateur group "Magic Twilight", which played rock. We will briefly talk about Dubinin.
The history of the group "Aria" at the initial stage was associated with this person as a singing bass player. Soon, the place of the vocalist was taken by Arthur Berkut. In 1982, Dubinin left the group to complete his education. The Golden Eagle received an invitation to become a vocalist in the art rock band Autograph, and the Magic Twilight project ceased to exist.
Holstinin, along with Alik Granovsky, became a member of the Alpha group. During the struggle with amateur teams from 1982 to 1984. musicians were forced to look for a place in the official VIA.
Early period
The biography of such a person as Viktor Vekshtein also influenced the history of the Aria group. Between 1982 and 1983, he was director of the Singing Hearts VIA and reflected on the idea of ​​creating a new team that could play in a contemporary style.
Having no clear preferences regarding the musical style of the future association, Weckstein decided to invite young musicians, allowing them free creative search, relying on the technical capabilities of the group created earlier. So Vitaly Dubinin was invited to the new team .
A few months later he left the group to study vocals at the Gnesins Academy. After his departure, Kholstinin and Granovsky decided to join the group “Singing Hearts”. The new vocalist Valery Kipelov went there, after the collapse of the ensemble "Leysya, song".
Playing in the composition of “Singing Hearts” as accompanying musicians, in parallel, Granovsky and Holstinin created a group that was supposed to play heavy metal. Vekshtein remained the artistic director and manager in the new team. He provided a studio for musicians. Holstinin coined the name of the group.
Fans and musicians of the group subsequently thanks to the name began to be called "Aryans". Granovsky, Holstinin and Vekshtein began to select the composition of the team. During this period, Nikolai Noskov, guitarist Sergey Potemkin, keyboard player Alexander Myasnikov tried out as members of the group. In 1985, Valery Kipelov was approved as a permanent vocalist of "Aria".
The drummer was Alexander Lvov, who was a sound engineer for Singing Hearts. Kirill Pokrovsky took the place of a keyboard player and backing vocalist. The band called the birthday of the band October 31, 1985. On that day, work was completed on their debut studio album called Mania of Greatness.
The material was released on a magnetic cassette by samizdat. This work was heavy metal, similar in spirit to American and English bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. The album was recorded with one guitarist, who became Holstinin. For concert performances, they invited the second guitarist Andrei Bolshakov.
Igor Molchanov for drums replaced Lvov, who remained the sound engineer of the group. The first concert "Aria" played in 1986, February 5, in the House of Culture MAI. The group acted on their own opening act as the more famous then “Singing Hearts”. Soon the group sololy participated in Lituanika and Rock Panorama. There the team was greeted approvingly, and Aria took away several awards.
A fragment of the performance from the “Rock Panorama” with the composition “Torero” was included in the musical release of the television program “Funny Guys”. That was the first appearance of Aria on television. About six months, the concerts of "Aria" took place in a semi-underground mode. On the posters, only the performance of "Singing Hearts" was declared.
At the same time, the program “Arias” was played in one of the concert sections, in another, the musicians began to accompany Antonina Zhmakova as participants in “Singing Hearts” in the program approved by the Moscow Concert. To do this was possible only in the provinces during the tour, because there the ideological control was much weaker than in Moscow.
Such a practice could not continue for long. Vekshtein used his influence, which he had at his disposal, to ensure that the artistic advice of the metal "program was surrendered. As a result, he received permission to perform the band" Aria "under a new name in one of the concert departments.
To justify the name, the program included opera arias performed by Vitaly Usov, a vocal teacher. The authorship of the Aria compositions was attributed to the classics and members of the Union of Composers. The author of the Volunteer, in particular, was David Tukhmanov, and the lyrics to the song Torero were presented to Federico Garcia Lorca.
The efforts were successful, on September 12, 1986, after listening to the stage of the AZLK Palace of Culture, the commission of the Ministry of Culture approved a solo concert program, as well as the name of the band “Aria”.
Andrey Bolshakov, having joined the group, began to offer his own songs related to the Judas Priest style. Granovsky became interested in arrangements and, according to musical predilections, rather shared the direction of Bolshakov than Holstinin.
Composition with Mavrin
Since 1987, Vitaliy Dubinin has been featured in the history of the Aria group as a bass player. He was invited to the team by Vladimir Kholstinin and Valery Kipelov. Also in the group come guitarist Sergey Mavrin and drummer Maxim Udalov.
At this stage, in the history of the Aria group, the problem of choosing a repertoire arises. Musicians begin to reflect on the album. The record appears in 1987 at the firm "Melody".
Time of Troubles
In 1994, a striking event took place in the history of the Aria group - a tour of Germany. The musicians performed in seven cities in two weeks, among other things, gave a concert in Berlin's Hard Rock Cafe. Through the fault of the organizers, the trip took place in terrible conditions; it also did not bring any income. The scandal with the organizers escalated into an internal conflict in the team.
Composition with Terentyev
For some time the history of the rock band "Aria" was associated with the name of Sergei Terentyev. Initially, he replaced Mavrin, but soon became entrenched in the team as a regular participant and took up the active writing of songs.
In 1998, "Aria" released the album "Evil Generator", which was attended by songs of Sergei Terentyev. The tour in support of this work almost fell through due to an accident in which drummer Manyakin became a participant. He was replaced by Maxim Udalov for six months.
Judgment Day
The history of the group "Aria" was going through hard times during the recording of the album "Chimera". Valery Kipelov noted that during the work on this disc an unhealthy atmosphere reigned, and each author recorded songs separately.
In 2001, tension grew into an open conflict between the musicians. In 2002, Kipelov suggested that Holstinin and Dubinin temporarily suspend the group's activities in order to engage in solo projects.
Contribution to music
Aria is the first nationally known and commercially successful metal band in Russia. Surveys indicate that Aria is in the top 10 most famous rock bands in the Russian Federation. The success of the team contributed to the development of the direction of "heavy" music in Russia. "Aria" is actively touring not only in the CIS, but also in distant foreign countries.
Style
The main genre of "Arias" was the traditional heavy metal with its English school: long guitar solos, high piercing vocals, galloping guitar riffs. Critics accused the group of lack of originality, as well as borrowing some musical moves from other teams.
Vitaly Dubinin noted that the melody and melody of “Aria” distinguishes the team’s music from Iron Maiden. The group was also influenced by classical music. In some songs, for example, “In the Service of the Power of Evil” and “Playing with Fire”, fragments of classical works by Paganini, Borodin and other composers are cited. Later, the style of the group becomes more independent.
Former guitarist of the group Bolshakov believes that “Aria” owes its success to the talent of Vitaly Dubinin as a composer. Aria has a penchant for lyrics in her rock ballads. “Ice Shard”, “Calm”, “Lost Paradise” were broadcast by radio stations, when more rigid works remained unformatted.
After the change of composition and vocalist, heavy compositions began to prevail in the repertoire of the group, in addition, power metal elements appeared. However, musicians do not belong to this genre.
Members
In the history of the Aria group, the composition has changed quite often. First, present the current team members. Mikhail Zhitnyakov is a vocalist, Vladimir Kholstinin plays solo and rhythm guitar, Vitaly Dubinin took on the bass guitar, keyboards, guitar, backing vocals, Sergey Popov is also the guitarist, Maxim Udalov is responsible for percussion instruments.
Former members of the group: Alik Granovsky, Kirill Pokrovsky, Igor Molchanov, Andrey Bolshakov, Sergey Mavrin, Valery Kipelov, Alexander Manyakin, Sergey Terentyev, Arthur Berkut. Among the touring musicians of the group are Alexey Bulkin, Dmitry Gorbatikov, Alexander Tsvetkov, Mikhail Bugaev. Session musicians include Alexander Lvov and Alexey Bulgakov.
Behind the scenes
Discussing the history of the group "Aria", the personal life of musicians should also mention the following. Mikhail Zhitnyakov has a wife, Anna, and a daughter, Sophia. Vladimir Holstinin loves classical music, in particular, Beethoven and Wagner. Holstinin is an agnostic, skeptical of religion, prefers Nietzsche's philosophy. He has a daughter, whose name is Nick.
Vitaly Dubinin's first wife was producer Marta Mogilevskaya. In this marriage, son Andrei was born. The musician’s second wife is Larisa. From her, the musician has two sons - Alexander and Alexey. Sergey Popov is married, his wife's name is Svetlana.
Discography
There are many albums in the history of the Aria group. The first record "Mania of Greatness" was released in 1985. The group also released the following albums: “With whom are you”, “Hero of the asphalt”, “Playing with fire”, “Blood for blood”, “The night is shorter than the day”, “Generator of evil”, “Chimera”, “Baptism of fire”, “ Armageddon ”,“ Phoenix ”,“ Through All Times ”,“ Curse of the Seas ”.