Oleg from Piranha
This is a short talk with someone truly important for Bulgarian underground music. Oleg plays drums in a skate punk band called Piranha and he also runs one of the best venues in the country – Grindhouse Skateclub. The interview itself happened over two sessions – the first one was while he was having a shit; at one point we had to stop, cause his ass got stiff from sitting too long; the second part was the day after he played a totally wasted set on his birthday gig. What I mean with all this is that Oleg is a very busy man. To be honest, even though he doesn’t take himself too seriously sometimes, he’s one of the few people around that have their head screwed on straight and I am glad he agreed to do this. So here it is:
LC: How was Piranha born?
Oleg: I think it was somewhere around 2011. I was out skating with SDB (Alexander Parvanov) and Kubinetsa, and at some point SDB asked me if I could play drums fast… I thought I could! So we went to a rehearsal room to see what’s going to happen. We didn’t have any expectations and it wasn’t the best thing ever at the beginning but we had fun and that’s what matters. Kubinetsa was into Exodus then and on the way back he suggested Piranha as the name of our band… we thought it would be cool to sort of steal that from Exodus so we stuck with it. That’s how it happened, we were out skating and having fun.
LC: What is the biggest sacrifice you personally had to make to be where you’re at now?
Oleg: I don’t think I’ve ever sacrificed anything for this band… Maybe my health has worsened because of all the alcohol during our shows, but I’ve never sacrificed anything else to make music and play shows. Piranha has only given me good moments so far.
LC: What would you say is Piranha’s strongest tooth?
Oleg: The best thing about Piranha is that we do what we want… there are no limitations, no rules to observe, we’re not perfectionists by any means… We’re all buddies, we don’t have those ego fights that many other bands have.
LC: Has the band had any tough moments?
Oleg: The only thing that comes close to a tough time is probably all the line-up changes we’ve had. We’ve always played with good friends, we started with Kubinetsa and Geleto, then came Pavel (Last Hope) and Drago… we did lots of shows with them, we put out albums, but they had to go their own way too and now we have Shushko and Marto who are good friends as well. But even so, I wouldn’t say those were hard times for us. We’re having a blast!
LC: What keeps you going?
Oleg: Just alcohol, please!
LC: What do you like and dislike about the underground scene in Bulgaria? Would you change anything?
Oleg: I probably wouldn’t change anything, I’d leave it like it is – it evolves on its own. There’s live gigs every other day, there are clubs and places you can go to and perform. Nowadays everyone’s got their own rehearsal space, it’s not like it used to be anymore… remember that in the whole city there were just 2 rehearsal spaces you could rent? That was stupid, you had to book time slots to rent the place and play. So yeah, I wouldn’t bother changing the scene here, it changes itself when it has to.
LC: Generally speaking, music fans around the world prefer big arena shows, festivals and special stage effects. Why are underground shows better?
Oleg: I am not sure if they are better! Take for example the Big 4 show in Sofia – Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer and Metallica all sharing a stage? There’s nothing wrong with that in my book. How often can you see that happen here at Grindhouse?
These bands used to play clubs like this a 100 years ago, but they had the right conditions to grow and become what they are today – a part of the mainstream. When bands play those big shows, they play in front of a sea of people; they can’t see your ugly face in the crowd and think Damn, that dude is fucking ridiculous… what I mean is that in small venues like ours you can feel all of it, the atmosphere is much better because the direct connection between artists and fans.
Anyway, to enjoy a healthy musical life you need both types of shows. You can’t just rely on underground gigs. I love big shows and there’s not nearly as enough of them around here in Bulgaria as there should be. We had one really good festival – Spirit of Burgas - that had just started happening and they killed it. I watched Suicidal Tendencies on the beach, right by the sea there! We even played there once, at 3AM after Kontrol, in front of 3, 000 people! It’s insane, I was dead drunk and I threw up as I was playing… last night, same reasons, I fell asleep as I was playing…
LC: If you could choose to play in any other local band, which one would you choose?
Oleg: JFT straight away. I want to replace Daniel but your stuff’s too difficult, that shit’s not for me.
I generally think that the people who play in the bands I like are the right people for the job and I wouldn’t replace them… but to answer your question, leaving JFT aside, I’d probably enjoy playing in Shturtsite. I am a big fan of Kiril Marichkov!