I have known Ignas since my adolescence as we met on gothic.lt forum. He striked me as someone who loves music and is a very kind and interesting soul. Years went by and we reconnected when he and his lovely wife invited me to become a content writer on ManoMuzika.lt.
As I decided to start my blog, I simply knew I had to hear his story and show it to you. He wasn’t a regular guy from the suburbs of Vilnius. Ignas spent a signinficant amount of time living in New York City. He witnessed September 11, lived in Astoria among people from all over the world and therefore his story is different than any previous blog posts. I am sure you will find it very interesting and eye opening, just as I did.
I wanted to talk about your adolescence first. As far as I know, you lived in New York for quite a while. How do you remember your teenage years in New York? How old were you when you moved there? How was your life there as a teenager and how do you think it differed from the life here in Lithuania?
I was born in Vilnius at the beginning of the year 1986. In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed. Lithuania gained independence. I was 5 years old. From what I remember, my childhood was great. I spent my days with kids from the block. We had no computers and no smartphones, so we spent a whole lot of time outside getting in all sorts of trouble. I keep in touch with some of my childhood friends to this day. The summers my family and I would spend in Nida. I still consider Nida my second hometown.
But, to be quite honest, early independence in Lithuania was scary and dangerous. It seemed like the Wild West. People drank a lot. Gangsters terrorised businesses. Police was corrupt. Streets oozed with petty hooliganism.
Both of my parents are artists, graduates of the Vilnius Academy of Arts. They achieved a lot in their youth, but it seems to me, that around the turn of the millennium my parents no longer felt comfortable in Lithuania. They figured that something needed to change. My dad had gone to United States on a work visa to work for a private jewelry company in New York. After that first taste of United States, my parents filled out an application for a green card lottery without any real expectations. However, their application was successful and we got a chance to relocate to United States. During the summer of 2000 we ended up in Queens, New York. September came. My first taste of real American high school. I was thirteen years old.
Did you listen to heavier music back when you were a teenager?
I think it’s a bit strange that my parents did not find my fascination with “Foje” alarming. Their early records are very gloomy and dark. Not something that children are normally interested in at an early age.
I have been interested in music since my early childhood. My parents had a turntable at home and quite a collection of vinyl. “The Beatles”, “Pink Floyd”, “The Doors”. Mostly 70’s psychedelic rock outfits. They used to put me to sleep as a baby to “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” from “Delicate Sounds of Thunder”. The first band that I remember truly loving myself was “Foje”. I remember seeing Andrius Mamontovas on TV performing the song “Krantas” and was hooked immediately. I liked it so much, that my parents ended up buying “Foje” album “Žodžiai į tylą” on vinyl for me. Later for my birthday I got “Gali skambėti keistai“ on vinyl too. I still have both of those records in my collection. I think it’s a bit strange that my parents did not find my fascination with “Foje” alarming. Their early records are very gloomy and dark. Not something, that children are normally interested in at an early age.
Later on, I guess, I needed something a bit more extreme. The first tapes I bought with my own money was “Nirvana” album “Nevermind” and “…And Justice for All!” by “Metallica”. That satisfied me for a while. Electronic music was also booming everywhere in Europe and it felt new and exciting. “The Prodigy” was an absolute banger back then. Those early “The Prodigy” albums sound fresh to this day.
Although a metalhead at heart I also couldn’t deny the importance of hip-hop. I was already interested in hip-hop a bit while living in Lithuania, but once in New York I realized how fascinating and scary early 90’s rap music truly is. It’s so eerie and dark! “Wu-Tang Clan”, Biggie, “Mobb Deep”… The sounds and lyrics of early east coast rap is phenomenal. You know “Illmatic”? The debut album by Nas? At the beginning of the first track of that album, you can hear the subway train running above the ground. When my family moved to New York, we lived on the borderline of Astoria and Long Island City. Queensbridge projects, where Nas lived as a teenager, were close by. I used to take that very same subway train from “Illmatic” daily.
Speaking of rock and hip-hop, “Linkin Park” were huge worldwide. As far as I know, you liked them very much as a teenager, right? How did you discover them?
Me discovering “Linkin Park” oddly coincided with September 11, 2001 attacks on World Trade Center. That tragedy transformed the whole city and everyone who lived there at the time. It was and still is an unimaginable loss. To this day, I can’t listen to “Hybrid Theory” without it sounding like a soundtrack for the time I spent at home watching television and guessing what object around us will be attacked next.
Well, as you have said, they were huge worldwide. Impossible to ignore. There were other bands creatively blending rock and hip-hop, such as “Korn”, “Rage against the Machine” and “Beastie Boys”, but what “Linkin Park” did seemed so fresh. It was fascinating. I think I was in tenth grade when “Linkin Park” peaked and I was mesmerized by “Hybrid Theory” and “Meteora”. They wrote such majestic songs.
Me discovering “Linkin Park” oddly coincided with September 11, 2001 attacks on World Trade Center. That tragedy transformed the whole city and everyone who lived there at the time. It was and still is an unimaginable loss. To this day, I can’t listen to “Hybrid Theory” without it sounding like a soundtrack for the time I spent at home watching television and guessing what object around us will be attacked next.
At one point later in life, I got to meet the musicians of “Linkin Park” through my work. I had a chance to spend some time with them and had a chance to tell them how much their early albums meant to me. They were so nice to me, too. Especially Mike. He left me an impression of being very friendly and chill.
So were you a so-called “banglas”?
I used to wear baggy jeans, ball chains, spiky bracelets, band t-shirts. So I guess, yeah, I was ☺ But then, who wasn’t? Everyone were dressing similarly. It was the style of those days.
Were your teenage years an interesting period of time for you? You lived in a colorful environment. Your neighbors were not just white people, I assume?
You know, Astoria, Queens was not a wealthy neighborhood back then. When my family relocated to Astoria, it was known for a huge Greek community. Also Bulgarian, Romanian, Eastern European. But there was many different people living in Astoria back then. A huge portion of them were second or third generation New Yorkers with Latin American roots. The families of my classmates came from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Jamaica, Honduras, etc. There were people of all colours and nationalities.
Nowadays Astoria is very hip. Today it is a very popular spot in the city where people go for late night dinners and discovering dive bars.
When did you start playing music yourself and how many projects did you have – both solo and bands?
I got an acoustic guitar when I was fourteen. Started learning to play it when I was fifteen. To tell you the truth, guitar is a very demanding and serious instrument. Young people usually want to learn to play songs, but are too lazy to put the work into learning their scales and the real craft. I was no different. To this day I know the fundamental major, minor and bar chords, can play rhythm, but once it gets more complicated than that – I am lost. Maybe I am just not a very talented musician? ☺
But that didn’t stop me from being a mediocre musician for a while. I wrote and recorded my early songs in my bedroom. Made CD’s, gave them out to my friends. Later I got a couple of my friends to play together. The band we put together in our 20’s was called “The Everlovin’ Savages”. The band was a three piece – me on guitar and vocals, my high school buddy Gabe on bass and this completely wild cat named Nick on drums and back vocals. We played punk rock inspired garage rock. I would put my acoustic-electric Fender through Boss DS-1 distortion pedal and make a lot of feedback noises. We had a few songs of our own, adapted a few covers. That was good enough for a couple of years to perform in bars and outdoor gatherings around the city. Nick had connections, knew a bunch of people in the scene. Getting us into gigs was his job and he did that very well. We had fun. But all good things come to an end. After a couple of years of playing together I went on to journalism graduate school in London. Gabe got into studying further as well and is now a very well-respected teacher. Nick had a bunch of jobs and projects to do and couldn’t devote enough time for playing music. We didn’t break up. We just stopped rehearsing at some point. We are still good friends.
You mentioned “Metallica”. What artists and bands had the biggest influence on you? Who changed or formed your personality?
This is such a huge question and it demands a long answer. When you’re young, music is vitally important to you and young people tend to lean towards what’s popular at the time. Nothing strange about that. “Youth” and “new” go very well together. Later in life, certain things stick and others do not anymore, and that is okay.
I have already spoken about some of my influences, so I’ll try not to repeat myself.
My favorite band of all time is “Grateful Dead”. They’re not even a band. They are a musical phenomenon that sparked an entire psychedelic community worldwide. The community that followed the band for decades, traded bootleg tapes and survived on tours by selling grilled cheese sandwiches, handmade jewellery and acid to each other.
I started my musical journey with classic and psychedelic rock of the 70’s. Stuff that my dad liked to listen to – “The Beatles”, “The Doors”, “Pink Floyd”, “Black Sabbath” and “AC/DC”. “Metallica” was massive for me. Still is. Heavy metal in general, such bands as “Slayer” and “Sepultura”, had a huge influence on me early on. Thanks to the mighty “Black Sabbath”, I got into the whole stoner doom genre – “Electric Wizard”, “Sleep”, “Kyuss”, “Ufomammut”, “Queens of the Stone Age” and others. I’m also a big fan of instrumental post rock. I could listen to such bands as “Mogwai”, “Explosions in the Sky” and “Sigur Ros” for days.
There is, too, a whole plethora of electronic music, which is and always was very interesting to me. There was a long period in my life when I solely listened to electronic music, participated at psytrance parties till early morning hours and even took up DJ-ing as a hobby. I still own my DJ equipment and enjoy mixing music at gatherings. That, I guess, stemmed from my fascination with such artists as Richie Hawtin, Simon Posford, Moby, “The Orb” and “Deep Forest”. There are just too many artists in the electronic music scene to mention. That would require a whole separate interview.
I’m also big reggae and dub fan. There is a separate shelf in my vinyl collection at home solely dedicated to reggae and dub. This interest, I have to say, goes much, much deeper than Bob Marley and “The Wailers”. King Tubby, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Scientist, Mad Professor… The wonders those sound engineers crafted with limited equipment and unlimited creativity is inspiring to say the least.
And my favorite band… My favorite band of all time is “Grateful Dead”. They’re not even a band. They are a musical phenomenon that sparked an entire psychedelic community worldwide. The community that followed the band for decades, traded bootleg tapes and survived on tours by selling grilled cheese sandwiches, handmade jewellery and acid to each other. Some members of this community later went on to become activists, politicians, “Burning Man” freaks, breakthrough technology engineers, visual artists and so on.
The music of “Grateful Dead” is fascinating. Because of the way they played their songs live, their concerts were never the same. They improvised a lot, jammed, wrote music on the spot. They had phenomenal nights and they had terrible nights. All that is very well documented, which makes their recorded catalog nearly impossible to go through. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of Jerry Garcia’s guitar playing. Too bad that I was born too late and too far to see the “Dead” perform when they were young and when Jerry was still alive. But today I get to relive their legacy through vast recorded material, literature and the whole scene of jam bands that the “Dead” ignited. I could talk about it all for hours.
Do you know any good bands in Lithuania right now?
I like “Solo Ansamblis” a lot. They are very unique and an amazing live act. I dig “Ministry of Echology”, especially their ability to blend various styles and create something that’s heavily inspired by Jamaican reggae, and yet is very Lithuanian. But my favorite performer in Lithuania right now is probably Evaldas Azbukauskas. His main musical outfit is a dub-techno project “Girių Dvasios“, that‘s been around for fifteen years already. Evaldas also performs melodic drum‘n‘bass under a moniker “Džiunglių Dvasios“ and really dark, urbanistic techno under a moniker “Tamsis“. He‘s very prolific, always working on something new and exciting, constantly releasing new music and helping other artists release their music through his label “Cold Tear Records“.
I am really happy to see how fresh and creative bands and artists in Lithuania are today. If someone from abroad ask me for local scene recommendations, I always have trouble narrowing it all down. That says a lot.
What do you usually play to your daughters?
As a kid, you don’t have much of a choice but to listen to what your parents like to listen to. And there is always music playing at our home. I think as they will grow older, they will probably figure out what their true interests are.
But right now my eldest is a “Metallica” fan. Even asked for a t-shirt recently. That’s very endearing for me. I hope that “Metallica” will guide her when exploring the heavier side of music later on in her life. And my younger one… Well she’s growing up to be a true metalhead! No joke! She reacts to extreme kinds of music very intensely. It’s obvious that she likes that kind of organized noise, and it’s very strange and funny for me to see.
Deviant Generation 