Jinjer @ JINJER Duel North America, Portland

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The band, called JINJER, was founded in 2009 by 5 guys from a provincial town of Gorlovka 40 km far from Donetsk, Ukraine. There was no doubt about the genre of the band. Dedicated metal fans from their childhood, JINJER desired to perform only metal. What else could they play in a depressive industrial town with the population of 240 000 people surviving on the remains of the Soviet Era. Moreover there had always been a huge underground movement and a great variety of alternative bands, so there was somebody to learn from and take example of. Originally there wasn't much sense or meaning in the name of JINJER. That was simply a word easy to say and to remember, also it looked cool in written. However, in some time people started associating “JINJER” with the sound of a distorted guitar and the idea was adopted by the band too. Thus in late 2009 JINJER got to the studio, recorded a Demo-EP, some of those songs are still performed live, put it on the Internet and split up. The original vocalist – Max Fatullaev, engaged in another band went to the States looking for a better life and American dream. The other 4 simply scattered. But the one, Dmitriy Oksen, was determined enough to keep on. He managed to find a substitution for Max. That was a pretty girl with dreadlocks and an enormous talent of a vocalist. First being sceptical Tatiana agreed to stand for a vocalist until Max would get back to Ukraine. Eventually Max Fatullaev is still in America, and it is impossible to imagine JINJER without Tatiana Shmailyuk on vocals. In 2010 the band went to the studio again. They recorded and released independently two singles which made up first fans and brought first popularity at least locally. JINJER started giving gigs first in Gorlovka, then in towns around and finally in the regional centre of Donetsk. But the band didn't have a stable line-up. Musicians came and left all the time. Some had different music tastes, some were not musically-skilled enough, some were impossible to work and get on with. This way JINJER remained just a good local band having no tours and no festivals for almost a year. Though such a selection of members had a positive side too. At this time the band was joined by Roman Ibramkhalilov, the youngest of JINJERs, he turned out to be a brilliant guitarist and composer. In winter 2011 the band was left by a drummer. Dmitriy and Roman didn't hesitate a minute and invited their old friend and fellow – Alexander Koziychuk. A born-drummer, Alex had to learn at least 7 songs within a month to play live on stage and he did it more than successfully. One month later JINJER played a gig with another local band whose bassist would become the last one to make up JINJER the way we can see them now. First Eugene Kostyuk became just a good friend of the band. It is worth saying that Tati, Dmitriy, Roman and Alex, all of them form Gorlovka, had been friends since their childhood, some of them even had already played together in different young bands before JINJER. Eugene was a kind of “dark horse” from a different town 30 km far. Thus when in the summer of 2011 JINJER started looking for a new bassist, maybe the 4th one in row, there were some doubts about Eugene as a candidate. In the end there was more Yes than No. At the first rehearsal with the new bassist the band got a call from Beast Studio. They offered JINJER to take part in a new project – Beastiarium. The idea was to make live video and audio recordings of the band playing in the studio just the way they would play on stage – one take, no corrections and over-dubs. Another challenge, this time for the new bassist, but JINJER agreed and again fortunately. In August, 2011 the band made three live videos – Destroy, Waltz and Scissors, you can check them out on JINJER's official Youtube account. These three songs helped the band to break through to the national level and also gave them more confidence in their own strength. The year 2012 was a real “watershed” for JINJER. First, at the end of February the band released their debut official video - Exposed As a Liar. Originally planned as a promo-video, filmed for free by friends and edited by the band themselves Exposed As a Liar became a real hit. For one year the video got almost 200 000 views on Youtube for no promotion. It helped to find first fans from abroad. There is an interesting fact. JINJER never created their Facebook page. It was started by fans from America who wanted to widespread the band's music and later gave it under the band's administration. JINJER played 26 shows all around Ukraine and in the summer of 2012 they happened to be the only screaming metal band at the biggest Ukrainian rock festival ever – the Best City UA with Evanescence and the Rasmus as headliners. Being unsigned and having no official releases JINJER were claimed to be a real discovery of the festival. In November the band released their second official video – Scissors. It was filmed during JINJER's performance in Bingo Club, Kiev – probably the best venue for alternative gigs in Ukraine. The clip was taken very warmly by the fans.