Interview withTaras Topolya from Antytila
Although we did this interview already in March as part of ANTYTILA’s first European tour, we were able to publish it only now. I am very grateful to Taras for this conversation and patience, because even though we exceeded the time limit allocated for our interview, he answered all my questions… an interview about war, Bakhmut Fortress, ED SHEERAN, BONO and victory.
Reflections of Darkness [RoD]: I would like to start our conversation with a very difficult question: how was the morning of February 24, 2022 for you.
Taras: We woke up at five o’clock in the morning, I woke up my wife. We started to collect things. Some of the things related to documents and all the most important stuff were already prepared by me. We started collecting children’s things, collected children’s things, woke up the children. I prepared the car, drove it out of the parking. We laid such a special area in the car so that everyone could get in and drive for a long time. We got into the car and drove to my father. In my father’s house, he lives in a private house, my father set in the car, we changed, my father went with my wife and children to the west of the country, and I got on a bicycle and came to the Territorial Defence Battalion. Serhiy Vusyk did almost exactly the same thing, the only difference is that his wife drove alone with the children. And that’s how the morning began.
RoD: You went to military paramedic, why you have chosen this direction?
Taras: Well, it happened, there were many factors and our certain experience and certain coincidence. ANTYTILA have been engaged in volunteer activities since 2014, when the Russians started the war in Donbas, but in that time, they were like this: “We are not there”. And we began to carry various necessary things for the soldiers, means of protection and medicine. From that moment we learned that there is such a bandage, there is such a haemostatic tourniquet, an occlusive sticker and so on. The equipment of a military first aid kit became known to us since the 2014 year. During the period from 2014 to 2022, we had the opportunity to meet many medics from tactical medicine, take certain courses and have not only a theoretical idea of how it actually works with this in practice, not in combat conditions, but in certain trainings. Therefore, when we joined the battalion, it somehow became so logical. We met a friend of us who was in charge of medicine in one of the companies, but she was actually dealing with the medicine of the entire battalion at that time. And she suggested - come to me, in the medical direction. So, we started.
RoD: Did you have any talisman during your military service?
Taras: No. I do not worship idols. For me, any material things are only material things.
RoD: When your tour ends and you come back to Ukraine, do you plan to return to military service, or are there plans to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine in some other way, for example with the “Offensive Guard” project.
Taras: We will definitely not enrol in the offensive guard, we cannot go there, although theoretically we can probably get in, but we are now soldiers of the 130th territorial defence battalion, although temporarily seconded to the presidential regiment, but the shooting of this video of the offensive guard is more of an agitational nature. I appeared there as a Cameo - a person who is already directly in the ranks of the armed forces and, thanks to his publicity, can influence the fact that someone will decide to join the offensive guard. Some of those who may want to transfer, are not yet mobilized, or want to participate in our victory in some way. But, if, for example, there is a command from Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhnyi, or in some other way someone decides that the ANTYTILA needs to return to the battalion instead of directly to perform their tasks as paramedics, we will do it. I have a military card and I am completely dependent on my commanders during the war.
RoD: Underneath the “Offensive Guard” video was written part 1, will there be other parts?
Taras: Yes, there will be other editions, I will not be the presenter there. But there will be other releases, and I think that other public persons may not even be from the sphere of show business, but from other spheres will be involved in order to promote this whole story.
RoD: It was not entirely clear to me whether there would be videos only about this corps or other brigades.
Taras: There are nine offensive brigades, this is a very powerful number of people, forces, and means, so there is a lot to talk about there.
RoD: Now let’s get back to more positive things, this year and last year were very busy for you. Last year you performed on the same stage with ED SHEERAN, this year with BONO. How was it for you and are there other world musicians with whom you would like to perform on stage together or collaborate?
Taras: I always note that we didn’t sit down and write a list with whom we would like to collaborate. Everything that arose during this war, it arose organically, and the sole purpose of our public and media activities during the war was to draw attention to Ukraine so that as many people as possible abroad would learn the truth. Actually, it all started with our appeal to ED SHEERAN with the offer to take part in a charity concert in Birmingham, of course we were not going to fly, go to Birmingham, we simply offered to make a telebridge from unconquered Kyiv. The ANTYTILA remained in full force in Kyiv, the three of us were definitely not going to run away, and two of us, Mykhailo Cherko and Dmytro Vodovozov, they immediately started working as volunteers, as military volunteers, helped, supported. We were all there and it is important to update that happened in that period - in that period, the capital was taken in three days, and then it was taken again in three days...
It was in March, it was important for us to show that the capital was not conquered, that we are fighting here and that they will not get Kyiv, and this was psychologically very important. And we decided to use this opportunity, and in the end, we were denied to participate in the concert. But all this caused another wave of discussion, in particular in the British society, after which ED SHEERAN approached us with an offer to do a song together. And then after that BONO took my phone number by ED SHEERAN and dialled me, we were already serving then in Kharkiv, in the north of Kharkiv region. He dialled with an offer to come and sing with him in the subway. Actually, we left the front line, because ED SHEERAN invited us to a concert in Poland at Narodowy Stadium, we came to the commanders, asked how we should be, how we should do better to go out and sing this song, because we understood that it was important. And we were told - guys it was already enough, and Valery Fyodorovych Zaluzhnyi issued an order and we were taken out of the front line already to Kyiv, so that we could do more of the work for which the ANTYTILA had once gathered.
This is media work, work on stage, including volunteer work and support of the battalion and so on. What I am leading to is that we were not specifically looking for a collaboration with anyone, this song that we did together, performances and then a performance with BONO and ED SHEERAN and with BONO and EDGE on the stage of Electric Bricks in London - this is all an organic story. First of all, it did not show respect and love for the work of the band ANTYTILA, it is 90% acts of support for the Ukrainian people, acts of solidarity with our principles, our ideas, our freedoms, which were embodied through music, through songs. If we talk about what else I would like to do, I am not talking about musical collaboration, not any songs in common, but I would like to write a soundtrack for Christopher Nolen’s future film, which I dream he will make about this war. This is my favourite film director. This is what I dream about, and not only me, I am sure also other musicians of the ANTYTILA band.
RoD: If a person dreams, he lives.
Taras: Exactly.
RoD: And now to ‘Bakhmut Fortress’, I have to admit that when I watched this video for the first time, I cried, cried the second time and the third time... There is a war going on in Ukraine, and it is clear that now songs about the war are being born. In the acoustic version you showed that this can be a song that all military can sing, which can become the anthem of this war in some way. I would like to ask how the shooting of this clip went and whether you keep in touch with the guys and girls who were filming.
Taras: Of course, our comrades from our battalion performed on the acoustic version. The battalion was withdrawn from the north of Bakhmutchyna for recovery for two months, and we had the opportunity to shoot this video together with them. The battalion is currently located in the Kyiv region. The main video was shot directly in Bakhmut - the film crew Serhiy Vusyk, with the director of the video Serhii Skorotovskyi, the operator went directly to the combat zone and worked together with the artillery team for three days, filming all this. Everything that is shown in the video is all real work, all these projectiles really flew at the targets that were determined by the sector command before hitting, and these projectiles really flew at the target, and this is the 777 howitzer, the so-called three axes, it works very accurately and powerfully. And the second part of the clip was shot in Kyiv on an unfinished ice rink.
RoD: When I asked if you keep in touch, I meant the solders from the original video.
Taras: Yesterday, not the day before yesterday, the wife and children of one of the solders, who is in the video, came to us at a concert in Berlin. Dmytro Vodovozov is a curator at the foundation, which deals with the military part of this direction, he keeps in touch with these guys. Well, I won’t say that we communicate there every day or something like that, but they are able to call us and now we are specifically helping them.
RoD: With this video, you were able to give, let’s say, a face to the abstract soldiers fighting for Bakhmut. Therefore, it is not surprising that many are concerned about their fate, want them to return alive. For everyone to come back alive...
Taras: Of course, we all want our sons, fathers, brothers and sisters, mothers to return home alive, unfortunately, this is a war, people die in it. It does not happen that everyone comes to the front and everyone leaves it alive, then it would not be a war. Therefore, those who walk on the shield, to them eternal glory and memory. Unfortunately, we have quite a lot of such children in our battalion, more than 40 children were left without their fathers, and what remains for us is to take care about these children, what we actually did together with the battalion. We help them in all directions that they need, they can turn to us, their mothers, children who are older, can turn to us for any needs, we respond. In the winter, all of them was taken to the Carpathians for a vacation.
RoD: Let’s go back to today. This is your last concert in Germany as part of this tour. How did Germany receive you? What are your impressions of this part of the tour?
Taras: Well, we seem to have sold out everywhere except Berlin, Ukrainians come.
RoD: In Hamburg, I have had a spy on your show. My good German friend, when he saw the video ‘Bachmut Fortress’, I told him that you will come to Hamburg and on the same day he bought a ticket. He said that he did not understand a single word, but such strong emotions and your charisma - he cannot remember when he saw such a strong concert.
Taras: Cool, that’s really nice. Well, that’s how it goes, mostly Ukrainians come, but Germans also come. On stage, I speak mostly in Ukrainian, from time to time I also speak in English, so that those who do not understand the Ukrainian language understand it that way. Yesterday, for example, we had Cologne and the hall was packed, we took, as it turned out, a hall too small for such concert. More than a thousand people came to us. Therefore, they pass quite well. All these concerts are by default charitable, because the funds go primarily to support our battalion, the children of our battalion, and then to other units with which we are working.
RoD: The last question is one of hope. What will you do on the first day after the victory of Ukraine?
Taras: I will probably wake up not completely sober either on Independence Square in Kyiv or somewhere on the Yalta embankment.
ANTYTILA continue to do their main media work, the band is currently on a big tour through US cities and will soon return again to Europe.
26 October 2023 Cologne Die Kantine
27 October 2023 Frankfurt Haus Sindlingen
29 October 2023 Vienna ((Szene))
30 October 2023 Munich Tonhalle
03 November 2023 Lisbon Lisboa Ao Vivo
05 November 2023 Barcelona Sala Bikini
06 November 2023 Alicante Vb Spaces
09 November 2023 Sydney Liberty Hall
12 November 2023 Melbourne Max Watts
16 November 2023 Auckland Studio The Venue
25 November 2023 Dublin Tommy Leddy Theatre
26 November 2023 Manchester Manchester Academy
27 November 2023 London The Clapaham Grand
All Pictures by Daria Tessa
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