VACUUM: BAYCONOUR WAITS FOR US (1998)

INTERVIEWER: Marina, you are bound up with Russia judging by your surname. Am I right?

MARINA: Yes, you are right. My father came from Russia. He was born in Sochi in 1907. Then after the revolution he emigrated, learned to be engineer in Germany, worked out some aircrafts and even used to be a pilot. In the beginning of 30s he came to Sweden. Before the marriage to my mother he have already been married twice. I don't speak Russian, because my mother is Swedish, so there was just Swedish language in our house.

INTERVIEWER: Didn't you want to come here to Russia?

MARINA: My father was dead in 1975. He has never wanted to return to his motherland... I don't know, probably he didn't see any point to return. But I have some relatives in Russia. My aunt lives in Sochi; she has already come to me in Sweden. We are constantly in touch with her. I understand, that it was silly to not coming here earlier. And now I will come to Russia one more time for sure.

INTERVIEWER: Your lyrics have very non-standard topics, such as cosmonautics, Nobel prizes, nuclear physics... Could you explain us why?

ALEXANDER: Yes, our first album is called "Plutonium Cathedral" and it was released just in Scandinavia and in Italy. There are lots of scientific words in this album. And it is easy to explain. We would not like to be the part of that monotony, which has taken place in all pop-music. We need Something to be in our songs. Something is to make the songs more modern. For this aim for example, we could to write songs about science, which is always very interesting. Besides this I am also some kind of science man, because I studied at the University in Sweden and specialized in economy and geography. We are interested in non-standard topics and unusual actions. Exactly through this explain we, for example, are going to invite one Russian cosmonaut to our concert in Stockholm. The point of this idea is that we are popular band, so there will be lots of teenagers on our concert, which we will introduce Russian cosmonaut to, and he will be able to tell our audience much interesting. We would like the science to return to mankind. We sing about cosmonauts and astronauts, but we are not cosmonauts ourselves. So we are inviting a real cosmonaut to our show for audience to be able to see him.

INTERVIEWER: I have more interesting suggestion. Why would you perform your concert in Baykonour?

ALEXANDER: We would do it with great pleasure. By the way, now we are looking for some Russian band, with which we will be able to work in the process of creation of our third album. We are interested to work with Russian musician much more than with English or American ones. All people go there, the whole world is takes aim at American music industry, almost everything on music is from America on England, but we are not interested in what the rest are doing and making.

INTERVIEWER: Now here is the question, which we must ask. Alexander, why did Army Of Lovers leave the music scene?

ALEXANDER: Because the members of Army of Lovers have been working together for about 7 years. We had a lot of ideas and they came true. We have been around the whole world. So actually in the end we had nothing but to leave the scene. If we stayed together, we would make something, that we had already made, but nobody of us wanted this. Then it was very to the point to find Mattias and Marina. My work in Vacuum is to write songs, Marina is the most creative and the best musician in the band, Mattias is also the best one, but in another way. I can use my talent of songwriter, Marina can use her talent of musician and Mattias helps to write songs better. Army of Lovers was just a show, but Vacuum gives the music. And at last it is more interesting to me.

INTERVIEWER: Do you know, what your former colleagues are doing now?

ALEXANDER: Yes, I don't loose the contacts with them. I communicate with Dominika and Jean-Pierre very often. Jean-Pierre works in Sweden makes the cabaret-show and besides this he works as artist. And Dominika lives in London. She has a great success there. She has her own TV-show, which is translated in 40 countries. It is one of the most popular shows in the London.