Biography of the Lube group
Lube is a Russian rock band created with the participation of producer Igor Matvienko. The frontman of the group since its inception in 1989 is Nikolai Rastorguev. “Lube” performs patriotic songs with elements of folk music and “yard chanson”.
Group “Lube”
History of the group
In 1989, Igor Matvienko, then a novice producer at the Record studio, decided to create a musical group that would be radically different from all the popular domestic groups of that time. The basis of the repertoire of the newly minted team was to be made up of songs of military-patriotic themes and lyrical ballads with elements of the author’s song and folk motives.
Igor Matvienko and Nikolay Rastorguev in their youth
The composer nurtured this idea for several years, and during this time, in collaboration with the poet Alexander Shaganov, he accumulated a sufficient amount of musical material. But with the search for a soloist, certain problems arose. At first, the producer offered to lead the new group to his longtime friend and classmate at the music school, Sergei Mazaev, but he refused and advised his friend Nikolai Rastorguev, who had previously performed with Matvienko in the VIA “Hello, song!”, to participate in the competition for this place.
The Lube group at the beginning of their career (cover for the group’s first single)
And although at the first audition the singer did not impress Matvienko, he nevertheless took him on tour with him. Also, the first composition of Lube included bassist Alexander Nikolaev, guitarist Vyacheslav Tereshonok, drummer Rinat Bakhteev and keyboardist Alexander Davydov. However, quite quickly, changes took place in the line-up: Yuri Ripyakh took the place of the drummer, and Vitaly Loktev began playing the synthesizer instead of Davydov. Also in Lube they took the second guitarist Alexander Weinberg and backing vocalist Alexei Tarasov.
January 14, 1989 is considered the birthday of “Lyube” – on this day the first songs “Old Man Makhno” and “Lyubertsy” were recorded.
The main stages of creativity
The first compositions of the group immediately became the leaders of domestic charts. In March 1989, the team went on their first tour of Russia. The music and arrangements for the band were written by Matvienko, and Alla Pugacheva advised the musicians to wear post-war uniforms at her annual Christmas Meetings. In the same year, the guys performed at the musical break “What? Where? When?”.
The new team, which stood out sharply against the background of sugary-caramel sweet-voiced colleagues on the stage with its stern appearance and hooligan, somewhat aggressive repertoire, immediately attracted wide interest and attention of the public.
The group was named “Lyube” in honor of Lyubertsy, Rastorguev’s hometown. According to another version, the word “lube” has Ukrainian roots and means “any, anyone.” Everyone can interpret the name of the group as he wants, Rastorguev believes.
In 1990, the group appeared on television, became the laureate of the “Song of the Year”, and cassettes with their songs filled all the recording kiosks. In the same year, the pilot album “Atas” was released, and in the spring of 1991 the group gave several concerts at the “Olympic” with a new concert program “All Power – Lyube”.
The Lube group was conceived as a patriotic team
At the same time, the team began filming their first professional video clip “Don’t Play the Fool, America”, which was created using elements of computer graphics and animation. This video work was awarded a special prize at one of the prestigious international festivals.
At the end of 1991, it was decided to replenish the group with a choir. So backing vocalists Evgeny Nasibulin and Oleg Zenin appeared in the line-up (later he and Weinberg together founded the Our Business group). Instead of Ripyakh, who left the group, Alexander Erokhin, who previously played in the Gulyai Pole group, sat on the drums.
In Lyube, the line-up changed several times
By the end of 1992, Lube released another album and gave a total of about eight hundred concerts, bringing together almost three million people. 1994 was marked by the release of the film “Lube Zone”, which included new songs that compare favorably with the previous ones in sound, theme and sound quality. A special place in the work of the group was occupied by the composition “Horse”, which for decades became its hallmark. At the premiere of the song in Sevastopol, Nikolai Rastorguev could not hold back his tears on stage, and this touching moment, which was broadcast, made a huge impression on the fans of the band. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Victory, the song “Combat” was presented, which became a cult for several generations of the inhabitants of our country and was recognized as the best in 1995. A year later, the group released a disc of the same name, which included duets with Lyudmila Zykina and Rolan Bykov. The track list includes compositions that are well known even to those who are not interested in the work of “Lube”: “Samovolochka”, “The main thing is that I have you”, “Moscow streets”.
The song “Combat” has become the hallmark of “Lube”
In August 1996, bassist Alexander Nikolaev got into a fatal accident. Andrey Danilin joined the group, having lasted a year in the group. In 1997, Pavel Usanov took his place.
Over the following years, “Lube” repeatedly became laureates of the “Golden Gramophone” and “Song of the Year”, and their heartfelt, sincere and heartfelt compositions could be heard in popular domestic TV series. For example, the series “Plot” with Sergei Bezrukov was opened by the lyrical “Birches”, and “Border. Taiga novel” by Alexander Mitta – “You carry me, river.” The songs “Call me softly by name” and “Let’s break through, opera!” became the calling card of the series “Deadly Force”.
By the tenth anniversary of the group, a new album was presented and a grandiose tour was organized, which ended with a large-scale performance at the Olimpiysky Sports Complex, which lasted about three hours.
In the fall of 2002, President Vladimir Putin and his wife Lyudmila attended a concert by the Lyube group, praised their work and invited the musicians to visit their Sochi residence. Then Rastorguev became the People’s Artist of the Russian Federation. In general, the group does not hide its conservative political views and actively supports United Russia, often giving concerts in support of it.
Lyube is called Vladimir Putin’s favorite group
In 2005, in support of the next album “Scattering”, several grandiose concerts were held in the capital, in which Sergey Mazaev, Nikolai Fomenko, Nikita Mikhalkov, the orchestra of officers of the Alpha group took part. One of the songs in a duet with Nikolai Rastorguev was performed by Igor Matvienko himself, who usually appears very rarely in public.
Concerts “Lube” are held in a big way
In 2009, Lube backing vocalist Anatoly Kuleshov tragically died in an accident.
In 2015, in Lyubertsy, a sculpture “Dusya-aggregate” was installed in honor of the group, and Rastorguev became an honorary resident of the city. In the same year, the first album “For you, Motherland” was released after 6 years of silence, timed to coincide with two dates at once: the 25th anniversary of the group and the 55th anniversary of Igor Matvienko.
Rastorguev is the permanent soloist of the band
The song “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” from the new disc, sung together with the soldiers of the special forces “Alpha”, was included in the soundtrack of the remake “The Dawns Here Are Quiet …” by Renat Davletyarova. And “Just Love” can be heard in the full-length military drama “August. Eighth “Dzhanik Faiziev.
In 2016, bassist Pavel Usanov died from a brawl in the Moscow region. He quarreled with restaurant visitors because of his position on the conflict in Donbass and was beaten to a coma, from which he never came out. By a strange coincidence, he died on the same day as Anatoly Kuleshov, 7 years later. Dmitry Streltsov became the new bassist of Lube.
Lyube bassist Pavel Usanov dies under tragic circumstances
At the end of 2017, the composition “Overboard” was nominated for the “Golden Gramophone”.
Collaborations with other artists
Scandals
In 2009, the 15-year friendship between Nikolai Rastorguev and Sergey Mazaev was overshadowed by a scandal. Friends quarreled after Mazaev, who himself had problems with drinking in the past, advised Rastorguev to be more restrained with alcohol.
Later Rastorguev and Mazaev reconciled
In 2016, Nikolai visited the TV show “Salt” by Zakhar Prilepin. The presenter asked the singer how he felt about the position of his colleagues in the workshop – Andrei Makarevich, Yuri Shevchuk, Valery Syutkin and other artists who do not support the annexation of Crimea. Rastorguev called them “stupid”.
Discography
- Atas (1989)
- Who said we were bad? (1992)
- Lube Zone (1994)
- Kombat (1996)
- Songs about people (1997)
- Half stops (2000)
- Let’s go for … (2002)
- Scattering (2005)
- Own (2009)
- For you, Motherland! (2015)
Group “Lube” now
The group continues to delight fans all over Russia with new songs and old hits, despite Rastorguev’s health problems (in the summer of 2017 he had a heart attack before a concert in Tula).
Photo from the concert “Lube” (2017)
At the moment, apart from Rastorguev, there is no one left in the group from the very first composition: Alexei Tarasov, Pavel Suchkov and Alexei Kantur sing in the choir, Dmitry Streltsov plays bass, Alexander Erokhin sits at the drums, Rastorguev and Seregy Pereguda play guitars. Keyboardist and accordion player “Lube” – Vitaly Loktev.
While the fans of the group are waiting for a full-fledged new album, Lube periodically pleases them with new songs. So, in honor of the opening of the Russia-Crimea bridge, they recorded the song “On the Bridge” and shot a video for it together with the Fabrika group. As a memory of the beginning of the blockade of Leningrad in 2019, the musicians released a video for the song “St. Petersburg, dear!”. And in 2024, they recorded the soundtrack for the film “Relatives”. The actor Sergei Burunov took part in the creation of the song “A River Flows …”.