Ilya Toshinsky

It's not often that Way Cool Music gets to talk with a Grammy nominated artist, but it's nice when the right cards fall into the place and we're able to make that happen. For Ilya Toshinsky, a guitar and banjo player in the band Bering Strait, the road to Grammy was a long one, beginning in Obninsk, Russia. After being discovered playing bluegrass music in a Mexican restaurant in Moscow, Toshinsky and his band mates made the move to Nashville, Tennessee in 1998 with hopes of a record deal and fame. The record deal came, but then fell apart. In five years, four labels picked up the band, but then collapsed before they could put out a CD. They then found a home on Universal South, which led to the Grammy nomination, a profile on 60 Minutes, even an appearance in the 2004 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Now the future seems bright. Toshinsky took time out of his busy schedule to sit down with us and talk about the band, his side projects, and being at home in America.

WC:

Tell us a little bit about your background.

Ilya
Toshinsky:

Well, I started out playing classical music when I was 10 years old back in Russia. I grew up in a small town called Obninsk, which used to be a closed city. It wasn't even on the map. It was a scientific center for Russia. It's just been in the last 12 years that it appeared on the map. Actually, It's not really that small. It's about 120,000 or 130,000 people, so now It's a decent sized town. I was very fortunate to be born there because a lot of very intelligent people are there; scientists and musicians living in the same town made for a really nice community. It's way above an average Russian town. Now that I look back on it, I see that I took it for granted. When you go outside and see What's out there, you really appreciate where you're from.

My parents sent me to music school and I played classical guitar. I didn't really want to because I was bored with it. Then I heard the 5-string banjo and that, for very mysterious reasons, had a huge impact on me. There's just something about that sound that captivated me. My guitar teacher was putting together a test band and one of the guys was playing an Earl Scrugg's tune and I was just floored by the banjo. I just bugged my teacher. I said, "Look, the guy who is playing the banjo is on the way out, going to college. I need to learn how to play this!" My passion for the banjo was there from that moment. It was my toy. I played whenever I could. You never had to tell me to practice or discipline myself. It was just something I wanted to do. It was really wonderful.

WC:

Now do you consider yourself primarily a banjo player who also plays guitar or a guitar player who also plays banjo?

IT:

It's both. I feel comfortable playing both. I love two different instruments for different reasons. I can't really say. Guitar has been much more gratifying as a musician because I get a lot more gigs out of it. For writing, It's very important. But the banjo has a special place in my heart. I think I'll do something cool that hasn't been done on the banjo, but that's yet to come. I'm still trying to figure out how to apply that and do it in a different way than Bela Fleck has done because he covers so much ground. So, I don't want to go that way because It's his deal, but I want to do something "new" in the future.

But, I'm learning how to play the mandolin right now. I'm getting session calls for the mandolin.

WC:

People who can't afford Chris Thile (Nickel Creek) are looking for you!

IT:

Yeah, I'm learning to play Chris's stuff. We used to hang out quite a bit in Nashville. He's amazing and a real inspiration. I was fortunate enough to hang out with him a lot and just jam and I'd just watch his hands. Now that I'm learning to play, I'm trying to go back to those sessions and remember and figure it out. To do what Chris does, you have to do it full time and it has to be your priority. His skill is something that you have to have when you're young. The precision...It's amazing.

I'm just trying to get by. I was just playing some simple stuff, and someone liked what they heard. They called me again, so I thought I better figure out how to play it! I just sit around in my room now learning Chris Thile's songs.

WC:

What are your weaknesses as a live performer?

IT:

It's hard to tell. I don't look at it that way. It's not like sports. There's never 'the best' at music. I don't know. I don't think about it. I'm inspired by music. How I feel about playing live is like Bono once said, "If I make people feel half of the excitement that I feel when I'm playing live, I'm doing my job." That's how I look at it. If I'm genuinely excited by the music and it shows, then people are going to get into it and feel that energy. At that moment, you can make mistakes and it doesn't really matter. It's like a zone that you get into and as long as you're there, you can do whatever you want.

WC:

So, we've seen the movie "Ballad of Bering Strait" and we've heard a lot of the story behind Bering Strait. After so much turmoil with label issues, how did you guys form the relationship with Universal South?

IT:

It all goes back to Tim Dubois. He used to be the president of Arista Records and now he's the co-president of Universal South. He was the guy who signed us in the first place and we felt it was important for us to stick with him and he wanted to stay in touch with us. We went to Gaylord with him and then MCA. And he was our co-manager for a little bit. Then when Universal South came about, it felt like a natural place.

WC:

So when he calls, do you get nervous and wonder, "Where are we going now?!" or are you comfortable with it?

IT:

I'll be honest with you, I used to be nervous about it until three or four years ago. It was a really weird time in my life. I crashed my car and had no money or anything. It was a point in my life where I was looking at myself thinking, "People say I'm good, then why am I struggling so much?" I decided to dive into session work and writing and producing. Ever since, I've been working on that and found a way to support myself independently of what the band is doing. I never worry about the course of Bering Strait. I have something else to fall back on. You can't get caught up in the label stuff, especially with a band in the position we're in where there's nothing we can do about it anyway. If you sell millions of records, then you can have a say so, but if you're just starting out, you're at the mercy of the label. That's the sad truth. You can stress out or not. You just have to have good management that will take care of business. That's always been my philosophy. Let the management worry about it and I'll just show up and do my thing.

WC:

There are a lot of musicians who have to fall back on things that aren't music related, so at least you have that.

IT:

Exactly. I didn't have a choice, really, with our visa situation. We could only do music to make money, which was fine with me. I wouldn't take it any other way. For some of the others, It's tougher to get into sessions and stuff. I think I saw the opportunity early on. I was in Nashville and I was in the middle of all of it. In the beginning, I didn't think of applying what I do to a situation where I could make money. Once I started thinking that way, opportunities just presented themselves.

WC:

Bering Strait started out as a bluegrass band; why the switch to a primarily country band?

We've come a long way. Our first experiences with country music were pretty horrific. In reality, you really have to spend time in America to really get it, especially the accent. I think for singers, It's harder to get the drawl. For instrumentalists, It's easier to get session work since It's just your guitar and your amp. That's your language. You learn the licks and you're good if you have a general idea of What's going on. For singers, It's harder because there are so many subtleties so It's a lot harder.

WC:

There's a trend in country music to play other people's songs. How do you as a band, or you personally, handle the pressure to play other people's music.

IT:

I wouldn't call it a trend since It's always been that way. Country and pop music seem to be historically not written by artists. There are musicians who do their own thing, but not always. In the early days, when I got into country music in the 90s, I realized that there was a whole army of professional songwriters who live in Nashville. It's all they do, is craft songs. The more I realize, the more I see what they do, the more I'm amazed by their craft. I think they write some great songs! Lyrically, I think It's easier to write a good rock song. You can be vague and vibe-y and not make a lot of sense, and It's OK. Unless, you're at the level of Paul Simon. In country, there are story songs. It's amazing. When I write country, I try to team up with somebody who's an experienced lyricist and I write the melody and a lyrical hook and then really develop it.

It's always been like that and I think It's cool. It puts songwriting on a whole other level. If It's a great song, you're delivering a message, and It's helping out your career. There's nothing wrong with that! Where a song comes from doesn't really matter. If you're a rock artist and someone wrote a great song (for you), I think you'd be foolish not to do it just because you didn't write it.

In rock music, bands don't usually use outside writers. People aren't into them just because of a song. It's the whole chemistry. A lot of the times, the lyrics don't have to be great story lyrics. It's about something else. Country music hasn't been about fantastic playing, or for that matter, fantastic singing. It's about connecting with the audience through a great song. When you look at people who have made it huge, that's what they've done.

WC:

So What's the next Bering Strait album going to be like?

IT:

Acoustic guitar is going to be a lot more prominent. Carl Jackson is doing the record and Carl is a very talented guy. He's coming from a bluegrass world, but he's doing a lot producing in Nashville. I think the electric guitar is going to take a supporting role and the acoustic guitar is really going to be featured. It will have great grooves and all that.

WC:

Where does the banjo fit in?

IT:

Well, It's been used in some unusual scenarios where you wouldn't think it would be expected.

I just finished a project called Stewart Mayfield Project from Birmingham, AL. I did the whole record. Through the Internet, labels are starting to find them and the record. The cool thing about them is that when I met them, they really sounded like a Dave Matthews cover band. They're really talented guys, but the whole style was Dave Matthews, dead-on! There were four or five key elements that were just like them. I talked to their manager and said, "With them being so talented, there's no reason they shouldn't have their own sound!" The guys started to respect what I had to say and I started writing some songs with them. After a while, we had three or five songs that didn't sound anything like Dave Matthews and it was great. It was different and exciting and it had a good catchy sound to it. We went to the studio and started to record and, soon enough, we start getting calls from labels! I'm proud to say that I helped them along with their sound. They made a live DVD that we just finished mixing and it looks amazing. That's just another valuable tool. They're really young and have great potential. They've gotten better and better in the past few months.

WC:

And you've also work with our friend Eliot (Morris). How did you guys meet and start working together?

IT:

We met through a mutual friend. The way it all started was through the Pat McGee Band. A long time ago, Pat was writing with one of the guys, Mark Selby, from a publishing company. I was just hanging out and someone had told Pat that I play the guitar and banjo. Pat asked me to play the next day at some fraternity party. I said, "Sure!" I was new in town and it was fun and I ended up playing with Pat that night. A guy who was working with Eliot at the time was in the audience and we started hanging out and jamming. He played me a tape of Eliot singing and I dug his voice. I asked what he was doing, and he was in Houston selling real estate! I said, "No! That's wrong!" He's such a talented guy who can do so many things.

I remember talking to Eliot on the phone and saying, "Look, you need to come to Nashville and get into the studio and do some stuff." So, that's what he did. I remember those first few jam sessions we had. A lot of the songs, like 'Infancy of Us' and 'No One Has to Know,' were written in those sessions in his living room. That was three or four years ago. That was the first time I went into the studio wearing the producer's hat, with Eliot and Chris (Seaver). We dove into the recording process and did the best we could. And It's those songs that got him the attention from Gary Gersh (Strummer Recordings). He ended up with Gary and It's great. He's just a good guy and a good friend of mine, so I'm very proud that, finally, after a few false starts, that he's in a place where he's really happy.

WC:

Did you get a chance to co-write on any of the new stuff?

IT:

Yeah, we wrote a lot of songs over the years. I think he said that they cut four songs that I'm a writer on, so It's turned out really well.

WC:

You've also appeared on a lot of other albums. How did those experiences come about?

IT:

It's part of living in Nashville. It's a small community where everyone knows everybody. You never know who's going to be in the audience and what they might ask you to play on their next record. Some of the sessions I got from word of mouth and people being in the audience. You could be playing the smallest gig somewhere and if you're really into it and doing the best you can, someone may notice. Maybe I'm playing some odd gig, and It's not my stuff, but I'm still thinking, "Man, I'm from Russia. And now I'm in America playing music and making money at it!" That's incredible and warms me up a lot. When you look at it, a lot of being happy comes from putting things into perspective. You can have everything in the world and be unhappy. But, if I look back and think about getting up early and getting on that train to Moscow and playing jazz, and now here I am, playing music here. That makes me happy.

WC:

So was the first question, "Does it have a sound-proofed room?"

IT:

Oddly enough, I don't really play at my house. I do so much during the day, the last thing I want to do when I get home is play. My day is always music, which is why I don't have the studio at my house. I need a place to get away from it because It's such a big part of me that sometimes I have to stop to keep it fresh.

WC:

What do you like to do on your off times?

IT:

I like watching sports and ESPN. It's so mindless for me. It's such a change and all the people are so excited about the game. It's pretty contagious. It's a comfort zone for me. It's like watching Good Morning America with a good cup of coffee. I like basketball and football. And I liked watching the Olympics. It made me feel worldly. I like the Lakers. I don't watch a lot of sports, but I catch it when I can. I see those guys and think about all the money they make, millions of dollars, and I think, "I've got to go to work!"

WC:

It's so interesting that so many musicians admire sports stars and so many sports stars admire musicians.

IT:

I think there is a correlation. If you're great at what you do, there's a sort of respect and appreciation that develops. It doesn't have to be sports or music; it can be a mechanic. If he's great and has a passion for what he does, It's an art. You can watch him and get a great pleasure from it. Anybody who has a passion for what they do is fascinating. At a certain level, it all comes from the same place. But with sports, It's so exciting to watch them play!