Jinjer: Alive and Kicking

JINJER bassist Eugene Abdukhanov echoes what most musicians have felt for the majority of 2020. Sure, he’s been able to spend a lot of time with his family, but the want to go back out and play shows again is becoming unbearable – something compounded by the fact that his band’s new live album, Alive In Melbourne, was recorded in early March right before the world completely shut down.

“It’s just the perfect thing to release at this time,” he says over the phone from his native Ukraine. “I’m pretty confident when I say that there are no ‘real shows’ any more on this planet and, just having one of the last shows on Earth recorded before the pandemic, it’s just precious. People can put this on, listen to it and remember exactly how things were.”

The album also represents a huge milestone for JINJER. Captured in Melbourne on their first tour of Australia, every date was sold out and that particular show was one of the biggest, with around 1000 people in attendance – not bad for a band who couldn’t be taken seriously for years back home in Eastern Europe. “Unfortunately, Ukraine is not the place where music is considered to be some kind of job,” explains Eugene. “For most people, music is just a hobby. I was never supported by my parents and my father didn’t understand what I was doing up until a few years ago. Every time he met me, he was pushing on me leaving this behind, giving up music, going and searching for a proper full-time job in an office somewhere.”

Eugene cites his family’s acceptance of his chosen career as a personal highlight, a testament to the work he and his band have put in since their 2009 inception. From humble beginnings, they’ve risen to become one of the most exciting metal bands in the world today and Alive in Melbourne showcases a band at their destructive best. Although, as Eugene admits, it was never supposed to be given an official release. “We were doing soundcheck in Melbourne and got a call that someone was planning to film the show; we looked at each other and thought ‘if someone’s filming the show, it makes sense to record the audio’ and we did so. We had initially planned to show the whole concert as a livestream via Knotfest but, on the day in question, YouTube’s algorithms blocked the stream so nobody could watch – it was such a huge failure. Then, our label showed up and said ‘okay guys, if you have the whole show in such good quality and the whole stream failed, why not just release it officially?’ and that was such a breath of fresh air. So, up until the middle of the summer we hadn’t been planning on releasing it at all.”

Releasing a live album is such a gamble for any band – if things aren’t right in the mix, the mastering or the band have an off night when they’re meant to be recorded, it can really damage the overall release. Alive in Melbourne, however, saw the stars align perfectly in JINJER’s favour. “You can’t always be on top of your performance, but on that night we played maybe one of our best shows ever,” Eugene confirms enthusiastically. “Everything came together – we played well, we performed well, Tatiana [Shmayliuk, vocals] sang well. It was a perfect match and that’s one of the other reasons why we decided to release it officially.”

A third reason is so JINJER can give something to their fans that will tie them over until the next studio album – which might not be long in coming. “Even though it’s only just been over a year since Macro [2019] we actually have been working on new songs and it’s been very fruitful because we have five or six songs already made,” confirms Eugene. “We’re definitely going in the direction of having a new record in our hands next year and actually releasing it next year as well, so very soon you’ll have something!”

JINJER aren’t the only band to have used the pandemic to write new material, of course, but the news will surely excite their ever-expanding global audience. They’ve had to jump through more hoops than others given their home country’s snobby approach to musicians and the difficulties in travel logistics for Ukrainian nationals, but their success speaks for itself and it’s only going to get bigger. “We will face such obstacles again in the future once touring resumes, but we’ve always been ready for it and are ready,” affirms Eugene. “They make us stronger and more eager to push forward, and that’s what we’ll do.”

Alive In Melbourne is set for release on November 20th via Napalm Records. 

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