European quality from Belarus’s Liavony

The Belarusian band Liavony has changed its name and is going to release a video clip and a mini-album, the European Radio for Belarus has learned.

We asked Mikhail Galdzenkou, the band’s back-vocalist and the author of the texts, about the changes and why the guys disappeared right after the Eurafest contest qualification.

“We simply had no manager. Nobody dealt with us. After making success, we simply split to our homes. It sounds like our band was somewhat a hobby. Now, we have decided to make a god program and to record a video and an album.

We have found a manager who will work with us professionally. We decided to release a video and a mini-album simultaneously, the way they do in Europe.

It means that our English-language program that we have already minus the songs that are still raw will be released as a mini-album. Simultaneously, we will present our video at the First Musical Channel.

The video is probably not the most successful, but we decided to make in the style of 1960-80s, in the style of Yellow Submarine by the Beatles. It will be an animation clip for the song Strange Love. We have also modified our name. Now we are called Liavony.by. We decided that we should distinguish ourselves from Liavony that existed in 1996-1998. We first thought about the name Liaviny International, but it was funny. So, we agreed on Liavony.by, because Liavon is a Belarusian name and .by is the Belarusian Internet domain.

We also plan a series of performances in clubs and want to record another video. We simply want to display that there are musicians in Belarus who can make music for Europe. It is ridiculous to observe as our candidates for Eurovision are asking the Russian producers to help. For example, they turn to Kirkorov, who defaulted on Eurovision for three times.

This is stupid. There is no need to look for some Varangians; we need to search for our own resources. Barabanschikova makes good songs in English; they definitely differ from what she sings in Russian. There is a certain surprising point of view that even worse quality would do for Belarus, but not for Europe. We are going to make the music the way it is supposed to be made: the music for the world but here in Belarus,” he said.

The date of the video and album launch is not available yet, but the musicians hope it will be late February – early March.