Biography:
The history of the well-known Russian hard-n-heavy bands, ANGELS &
DEMONS and TOLERANCE, is actually the history of one person, gifted
composer and musician, the history of his life and creation. Alexey
Nelidov was born 23 February 1966 in Kazan, the ancient Russian city
and the capitol of Tatarstan. He started to sing when he was only three
years old. But when he was 14, his voice was broken and he could not
sing some years. When he was 16 he finished musical school as pianist
and started to play guitar. Three years later he continued his vocal
exercising. His first band was called MUSICAL MAGAZINE, he played there
since 1983 when he was a first-year student of Institute Of Chemical
Technology. Their music was hard rock, and the guys naively tried to
mix it with jazz-rock, blues and so on. In that period Alexey Nelidov,
hot hesitating a long, chose guitar as his favourite instrument. And
since 1986 he was vocalist/guitarist of ORDEN, a hard-rock band. In
1988 he was invited in the band BROTHERS to play guitar. Later this
band was renamed into ANGELS & DEMONS. Beside Nelidov, the line-up was:
Victor Zheludyakov (vocal, guitar), his brother Alexey Zheludyakov (bass
guitar) and Innokenty Mineev (drums). One day Victor hurt his throat
copula, he took a cure but without result. So Alexey Nelidov was forced
to become a frontman of the band. In that time guys made a correct decision:
they started to sing English, not Russian. The music became more perfect.
In 1989 Alexey Zheludyakov left the band, his place were occupied by
Eugeny Vaskov. And soon the first recording was made. In 1990 the first
LP was released, it called "Outlaw". The music was a sort of combination
of hard-rock, lyrical songs and aggressive heavy metal. This album was
recorded at SNC Studio (Stas Namin Center), the best Russian record
studio. "Outlaw" was being sold well, not only in the huge territory
of the USSR but also in Eastern Europe countries. It got good reviews
of the main Russian rock magazines. It was a good step towards professionalism.
As a result, a contract with a well-known American booking agency was
signed. That agency dealt with R.E.M., AC/DC, METALLICA and others.
The members of the agency thought that Russian rock movement was getting
more powerful, and they wanted to be on the top of it. So, there was
very successful tour across Baltic countries of former USSR; the band,
as headliner performed with an American musicians, visited Minsk (Byelorussia),
St.-Petersburg with the final show in Moscow. Then foreign managers
gone to USA and relations between them and the band become more cold
and finally stopped. During all that period (1991-1993), the band prepared
their new material, rehearsed a lot, played many shows, took part in
fests. The skill of the musicians was growing up step by step. Their
music, though it was the same hard'n'heavy, become more complex and
more interesting, their lyrics were full of soul and feelings. In 1992
Eugeny Vaskov, the bass guitar player, left the band. It was an unexpected
event. At that moment, the guys were ready to start a record session
but they lost a very good musician. The guys could not find a replacement,
and they decided to play as trio. This line-up was in the next album
"Melting Ice": Alexey Nelidov (vocal, guitar, bass), Victor Zheludyakov
(guitar, bass) and Innokenty Mineyev (drums). The album was recorded
at SNC Studio in 1993, released in 1994 by "Soyuz". In spite of the
fact that it was a real gift for all the patriots of native heavy music,
the band was fell apart. Since 1994 Alexey Nelidov worked in many commercial
and non-commercial company that was not connected with music, but he
also created his new material for his solo musical project simultaneously.
When the material was ready, he start to find musicians for the realization
of his project. The musicians were: Alexander Makin (drums), Leonid
Kominer (keyboards) and the Alexey's good old friend Eugeny Vaskov,
who played bass guitar in the first line-up of ANGELS & DEMONS. In 1996-1997
the new material was recorded at the same SNC Studio. The name of the
material was TOLERANCE. It was released by "Soyuz" and "MetalAgen" together.
And though Russian economic crisis of 1998 upset the selling of the
album, the music of TOLERANCE got good reviews of all the Russian musical
press, and German "Hammer" gave point 6 of 7 and marked high skill of
rhythm section. In early 2000 Alexander Marshall, the vocalist of most
well-known Russian band GORKY PARK, decided to start his own project.
He thought to leave the band. And the leader of GORKY PARK invited Alexey
Nelidov, who was forced to learn bass guitar playing and Russian style
of singing in a short period. As you remember, he played bass, but the
Russian singing was a new work. Anyway, Nelidov was included in GORKY
PARK. Soon drummer Alexander Lvov left the band too. The winner of the
competition to replace him was Alexander Makin, the drummer of TOLERANCE.
At the moment GORKY PARK recorded their first album on Russian. The
name and the date of release are the secret now. Since the first days
of October 2001, is disposable the reprinting of the Tolerance album
with a new cover (by Eugeny Smorodinov a Russian illustrator) and new
graphic made by the Italian label Midnight Records (a division of Northwind
Records) label specialized in hard rock/Aor. . But TOLERANCE exists
still too. Alexey Nelidov wrote a lot of new good materials, he is occupied
with arrangement and lyrics now.
Line up:
Alexey Nelidov - Vocal, Back Vocal; acoustic & Lead guitar
Leonid Kominer - Keyboards
Eugeny Vaskov - Bass guitar
Alexander Makin - Drums
|