TIME LOST:

SPARTAQUE: SPAIN HAS BECOME MY SECOND HOME, THIS IS A COUNTRY THAT I LOVE.

Before starting this interview, we want to ask you, how are you? How has the summer started?

My summer started great, we went to Paris as a family where we celebrated the seventh birthday of my daughter Lisa. Visited Disneyland, spent a lot of money, stood in line for hours at attractions. But in general, it was fun and once again we were convinced how happy we are to live in Europe in Spain.

The winter has been complicated, seeing your country in very difficult times. How have you experienced all this?

These emotions are difficult to describe, it was a nightmare in which we lived … we could neither sleep nor eat. We constantly blamed ourselves for the fact that we go to sleep in a warm bed while our family, our friends, loved ones at that moment are hiding from rockets and bombs in basements and shelters. This is a terrible feeling to which we are already accustomed after 3.5 months of the war. And although the news feed in Europe is no longer so replete with events from Ukraine, nothing has ended. Russia continues to attack our cities, continues to kill Ukrainians, this is a terrible tragedy that should not happen in Europe in the 21st century and unfortunatelly can be stopped only with weapon in hands. As dilomacy does not work with Russians.

When did you leave your Ukraine? How many years have you been in Barcelona? How was the change?
I have been living in Barcelona for 4.5 years, it was a little difficult to get used to it because the way of life here is different from the way of life in Ukraine, here people live differently. In Spain, there is a certain mentality that you had to get used to, but as soon as you immerse yourself in this rhythm of life, you learn the language, you begin to understand more about local customs, ways of life, people, then you get used to it and later you start to like it madly. I am very glad that we are here.

What does Barcelona give you every day?
That’s a great question, and when I moved here I thought I'd have a lot more networking in general. And indeed a lot of people from the industry live here, there are a lot of cool parties events rooftops, but still I spend my weekdays working in the office, I actively develop my company IAMT Music and therefore, in general, I communicate with people from my working circle. On weekends I fly away and flight connection is perfect here. Also Barcelona gives me a great climate, a very cool environment, and of course the sea is something I don’t want to live without anymore.

Many artists, DJs who have stayed in Ukraine, despite the difficulty, how has it been for them to continue with music? What do you know?

Of course, I’m in contact with many artists friends their live also was devided before and after February 24th. It is much easier for girls artists now, because they can safely travel outside the country, but for guys it is much more difficult. I know that there permit issued allowing male artists to leave the country for a short period of time to
perform the shows. But then they must return, because now the country is under martial law.

Some of my friends have already taken advantage of this opportunity, this is a pretty new posibility, as far as I understand, not everyone knows it. You need a special permit from the Ministry of Culture to be able to make it.

Some of the guys that I talk to continue to produce music, many have moved to the safer western regions of the country. But then again, Russian missiles fly there too. I have no idea how they manage to keep making music under such stress, I really admire them.

The music hasn’t stopped with your track called Zyma on Codex. It was made with Ukrainian folk singer July Vitraniuk, how was the creation and launch?
When the war started, I realized that I really want to write a track with Ukrainian folk vocals. I thought it would be great to find someone who performs this kind of music, but I didn’t know anyone in this genre at all. I saw Yulia’s song by accident while scrolling through Instagram. She performed this acappella and I recorded this vocal directly on the phone screen, it was the screen recording that I inserted into the project. Having created a track from scratch, I sent Yulia to listen to it and was very happy when she agreed to release it on the Codex. Here is such a story, sometimes creative ways lead to a result in a completely non-standard way.

You have a very good relationship with national artists like Ramiro Lopez. How is it to work with him?
Yes, Spain has become my second home, this is a country that I love very much and of course I am familiar with a large number of local artists – Ramiro is one of them, and by the way he was the first great Spanish artist that I met and I am very proud that we keep warm friendly relations.

During the quarantine, Ramiro invited me to take a part in his video project Chief Lopez, that was a lovely trip, we became friends with his family and team and decided to create several joint projects, one of which became the Union Three label. We also have a cool joint business project Swinger PR with his brother Antonio, they have a wonderful family that I love very much, working with the guys is always a pleasure, as we are really on the same vibe.

 

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What other artists do you feel good working with?
I am connected with many artists not only by musical projects, but also by my company IAMT Music, which is engaged in the label management – we manage the labels of such artists like Metody Hristov, Fatima Hadji, Xeniamany more, also working on our Intense youtube channel we are in touch with many brilliant artists such as Miss Monique, Koroleva, ASYS, T78, Joyhauser and many many more.

Which artist would you like to work with in the future?
There are so many of them, and this list can be endless. I think right now is the best moment for collaborations because you can share the fans, engagement. Actually Union Three is a label for collaboration projects!

How do you think the future of Ukraine will be?
It is difficult for me to make predictions for the future, because I see that the situation is changing very fast, we have been on some kind of mental rollercoaster for four months, up and down, the situation seems to improve, then it gets worse again, then it seems to improve again and there is better hope, then it again gets worse.

What will happen to Ukraine, it’s future now directly depends on the leading democracies of the world and the support of the Western countries, we cannot stand without them.

In my mind, I see Ukraine as an important prosperous and democratic member of the Western world, and it is for Western values ​​that my compatriots are now dying, for being a democratic country that Russia does not allow us to be. I believe that we will stand tall, I believe in Ukraine and I will support it in every possible way.

 

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And the future of Spartaque? What are your plans for the coming months?

Oh! I have a lot of plans of course – I plan to visit North and South America with performances this summer, there will be a lot of gigs in Europe. Of course many releases are planned.

Our company is developing, right now we are looking for a new office in Barcelona that could accommodate more people and we have a lot of plans for the future for the development of the company, we plan to attract more big artists to our projects, organise events, just confirmed a party in Input club with which we are constantly cooperating. I think a lot of interesting cases are waiting for us, so the summer promises to be very busy.

Thank you very much!

Thank you for calling!

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