Biography
Alexander Vasiliev was born in Leningrad in 1969. His father, Georgy Vladimirovich Vasiliev, was an engineer; his mother was a Russian language teacher. The first five years of his childhood were spent in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where his father worked on port construction and his mother taught Russian language and literature at the Soviet embassy school.
In 1974, the Vasiliev family returned to the Soviet Union and lived until 1976 in the Lithuanian city of Zarasai, and then moved back to Leningrad.
In 1980, his sister presented Vasilyev with a tape reel with the popular Mashina Vremeni on one side and Voskreseniye on the other. At the age of 12, he went to his first-ever Mashina Vremeni concert, which impressed him greatly - he decided to devote himself completely to rock music.
In 1986 Alexander entered the Leningrad Institute of Aviation Instrumentation (GUAP) and during his student years he worked at the Krupskaya Confectionary Factory as a part-time student. After two years of studies he left the institute in 1988.
In 1987 he organized the group "Mitra", in which Oleg Kuvaev (the future creator of Masyanya) took part among others. In 1988 the band tried to enter Leningrad rock-club, but did not pass the selection (Anatoly Gunitsky from Akvarium did not let the band in). In 1988 Alexander went to the army for two years, served in the construction battalion, where he wrote songs that were later included in the album Dusty Bylle.
After returning from the army, he enrolled in the economics department of the Leningrad State Institute of Theater, Music and Cinematography named after N. K. Cherkasov. N. K. Cherkasov Leningrad State Institute of Theater, Music and Cinematography, but he did not graduate[1]. He soon found a job as a sound engineer at the N. P. Akimov St. Petersburg Comedy Theatre, and later moved to a similar position at the Bouff Theatre, where Alexander Morozov (Morris) worked as a sound engineer and who introduced Vasilyev to the future Splin keyboard player Nikolay Rostovsky.
In May of 1994 in sound studio of the theater bass-guitarist Aleksandr Morozov, keyboard player Nikolay Rostovsky and Aleksandr Vasiliev recorded an album - "Dusty Bylle" (Vasiliev was a soloist and author of lyrics of 11 of 12 songs). On May, 27th, 1994 there was a meeting devoted to the album release, this date is considered to be the foundation date of "Splin" rock-group, which permanent leader became Alexander Vasilyev.
In April, 2004 the only solo album of Alexander "Drafts" was released.
Alexander Vasilyev as a member of the band Splin recorded 15 studio albums. They include: "Gun Collector" (1996), "Pomegranate Album" (1998), "Altavista" (1999), "New People" (2003), "Reverse Chronicle of Events" (2004), "Signal from Space" (2009), "The Key to the Cipher" (2016), "Counter Stripe" (2018). The most recent to date, The Vira and the Main, was released in 2020.
In 2018, Alexander Vasilyev's collection of poems, "Spleen. All this nonsense."
Alexander Vasiliev also paints pictures. In November 2008, the first personal exhibition of Vasilyev's paintings was held at the Vrublevskaya Gallery in Moscow.
Features of creativity
The first album "Dusty Byl" lyrics which was written by Aleksandr Vasiliev were inspired by the works of such musicians as Boris Grebenschikov, Andrei Makarevich, Ilya Kormiltsev and Vyacheslav Butusov. Later the creativity of the performer shifted towards the Russian version of Brit-pop, the bright representative of this stage of the performer's creativity is the "Pomegranate Album", reminding the creativity of the bands "Oasis" or "Blur". In the middle of the 2000s the creativity of the band Splin went away in the direction of experiments with the musical form.
Theme of St. Petersburg will remain transversal for Alexander Vasiliev at all stages of his creativity and is a kind of business card of the poet and performer.
Personal life
First wife (since 1999) - Alexandra. Before the wedding they had known each other for twelve years. On October 12, 2006 they had their first son Leonid. The song "Son" from the album "Personality Bifurcation" is dedicated to this event.
The second wife is Olga, and in February 2014 Alexander had his second son Roman. In December 2018, the musician's daughter Nina was born.
Guitars
Currently at concerts he alternately plays two instruments: the Gibson Acoustic Songwriter Deluxe Studio EC electroacoustic guitar and the Fender Telecaster electric guitar.
