WASHINGTON POST EXPRESS (Interview)
by Aaron Leitko

FORGET WHAT THE BEATLES said on “The White Album“: Soviet Russia was not very rock ‘n’ roll.

During the late ’80s, the West enjoyed all of the aerosol-fueled hair-metal that market capitalism could provide, but ambitious musicians in the Eastern Bloc often had to go underground, face persecution or spend their careers playing in apartments. Admittedly, there’s some romance there, and maybe that’s why Brooklyn-based, Ukraine-bred singer-songwriter Alina Simone decided to release “Everyone Is Crying Out to Me, Beware” (54-40 or Fight), an entire album devoted to covering the songs of Yanka Dyagileva.

During the late ’80s Dyagileva gained a following in Russia touring underground and releasing her eerie folk-tinged ballads via dubbed cassettes. In 1991 her career was cut short when she committed suicide.

Simone, who’s no stranger to tragic ballads herself, spoke with Express about how she discovered Dyagileva’s music and why that music isn’t as depressing as you might think.

But Simone also had a request: “Please do not use the word ‘haunting’ in this piece. We thought that maybe we could ask you not to use ‘tragic,’ too, but that might not be possible. It’s just, like, in everything — ‘the haunted hauntingness.’”

» EXPRESS: So how did you get into Yanka’s music? Why did you want to cover these songs?
» SIMONE: I’m Russian. I was born in then the Soviet Union, in what is now the Ukraine, and she’s really the only equivalent to solo indie-rock singer. She’s pretty much the only example of that kind in Soviet rock history. Right now, of course, there are a lot of women making music in Russia, but the trend is toward this very glossy pop sound.

Also, I find the whole culture of cassette-tape trading very authentic. Very pure, very punk rock in spirit. There was no financial or commercial incentive for her to make her music. When she was recording, there was only one label in the Soviet Union that was state-run. Everyone else was just off of the grid. It’s not like today with artists who are on labels, have publishing deals. In the Soviet era, what were they trying to get? Maybe they were just trying to not get beat up by the police. To me, it’s very authentic. I wanted to live in that world for a while. Inhabit that space.

» EXPRESS: But it’s such depressing music. Was it hard to hurl yourself into that?
» SIMONE: [Laughing] Listen to my versions. Her versions are totally sad. I tried. There’s definitely a little bit of levity and even humor, I think. More of a lighthearted feel. On the song “Beware” I’m playing acoustic guitar and then in the middle this flaming heavy metal guitar solo comes in.

She wrote 29 songs. I cover nine and an additional one on the vinyl version of the record. Some of them are very happy! There were songs that I really loved of hers that I could not cover: They were too scary, too harrowing. I love sad music — obviously. But some of these songs were incredibly personal and harrowing. I felt like it would be wrong to cover them.

She wrote this song “The Water Will Come, The Water Will Come” and then she drowned two months later. A lot of people — including her father — think that was her suicide note. I didn’t want to go there.

» EXPRESS: Your were born in the Ukraine. Was anybody from your family aware of her?
» SIMONE: Actually, my parents had never heard of her. I was the first to introduce her to them. We left in the ’70s. They listened to popular music.

» EXPRESS: So how did you find her?
» SIMONE: I was first introduced by some guys in Brighton Beach — some street musicians. I was there one day, spoke with them and then met up with them a little while later and they had made me a mixtape. That was the first time I heard of her. I don’t even think I listened to it for months. It was only after several other people mentioned it and then I quickly became obsessed with it. I’m very fascinated by her life story and the whole punk movement at the end of the Soviet Era.

» EXPRESS: Did she face much danger from the government? Censorship? Jail time?
» SIMONE: I never read of her being so much in danger, but when she started out she was with the lead singer from a seminal Siberian punk band called Civil Defense. He had escaped from the internal police after they tried to put him in a mental hospital. He escaped and then they went on the lam to Western Russia. Later, she died young and became a legend, but at the time she wasn’t very well known.

Toward the end she was starting to get much more acclaim and starting to get asked to open for really big bands. But that was around the time that she was getting really depressed.

» EXPRESS: What drove her to suicide?
» SIMONE: No one could really know. She didn’t give interviews on principle. There’s very little record of her life, but she was clearly somebody who struggled. Around that time her hero and role model, he killed himself. That was really troubling for her. Her companion — the Civil Defense guy — he was a very difficult man. During the last year of her life her stepbrother died due to a medical error. She was pretty close with him. The Soviet Union was falling apart and there was no oversight. He went in for a blood test in order to get a job and they literally killed him. And then they didn’t tell the family for 10 days. It was all pretty grim. Her mother died of cancer. She just had a really hard life.

» EXPRESS: Is there anywhere to get her music? Has it been formally collected and released?
» SIMONE: Yeah, go to yanka.lenin.ru. It’s all free on the Internet. That’s her memorial Web site. Everything — live videos, every concert that was ever taped, all of her albums — is online and downloadable.