JINJER

Once at the very beginning of their way in their hometown somebody said behind their backs : Won't go further than local gigs! Only pathos and crabs! Today JINJER are one of the best metal bands in Ukraine with wide popularity both in the motherland, all around Europe, and even overseas. De facto the band was formed in 2009 and right of the bat they released a promo-EP. However, it isn't really clear if we can call that line-up a real JINJER band. There was a guy, Max, on vocals. He emigrated to the states right after the demo-release. And generally there is only one person remained from that line-up – a band-founder, Dmitriy Oksen. Probably the real starting point for the band was when Tatiana Shmailyuk replaced the previous vocalist. It is interesting that originally Tatiana didn't want to stay for long in the band, so to say she decided to help friends just for a while. But as it often happens the temporary turns into the permanent. Almost at the same time Roman Ibramkhalilov joined the band too, the guitarist whose talent and skills would become one of the basics of the band's sound. In 2010 JINJER recorded and released on the Internet two singles with Tatiana's vocals and the band finally started to gain first fans and popularity, though only locally yet. Same time they received their first invitations to play in the regional center of Donetsk and other towns around it. But till the summer of 2011 the band couldn't get a stable and ready-to-work line up. After Eugene Kostyuk joining the band, he also took in charge of band's management and promotion, JINJER at last began their way to “wide popularity” on the underground metal stage of Ukraine. The year 2012 started with the victory in a MUZTORG challenge (a huge international music store chain organizes a competition for all-genres bands). It's funny that JINJER won a chance to record an album for free at a studio which had never recorded anything heavier than pop, so the bad has never used that change, perhaps for the better. Also at the beginning of the year the band released on the Internet a new EP – INHALE. DO NOT BREATHE, and their first official video – Exposed as a Liar. The video blew up the Ukrainian metal stage. The live show schedule was getting tighter and tighter and the top-point of the band's concert activity was performances at Loadfest 1.0 in Lviv and in BINGO club in Novermber 2012 where JINJER filmed a new video on SCISSORS song. It must be noted that for the whole year the band was touring exceptionally for their own costs paying for transport, accommodation and catering themselves, but no obstacles could stop the musicians on their way success. At the end of 2012 a Greek label – the Leaders Rec., contacted and offered JINJER to release INHALE. DO NOT BREATHE officially. At the same time the band was found by a booking agency from Romania, Cavaleria Events, they offered JINJER a big tour around Romania and Moldova. 2013 started with the tour of 15 shows around Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. The culmination was in Kiev where JINJER shared the stage with CALIBAN from Germany. But one month before the beginning of the tour the band was to go through a hard challenge. The drummer, Aleksander Koziychuk, refused to go on the tour for some family reasons and circumstances. The tour was about to fail. Next morning, Eugene Mantulin, who had previously played with Kostyuk in other bands responded to the band's call to work as a session drummer. This undoubtedly talented musician and a wonderful person managed to learn 11 songs of JINJER in a month. The band went on the tour but came back home as an absolutely different band, with clear goals and plans. Mantulin remained in the line-up permanently. The international tour made promoters, metal audience and other Ukrainian bands take JINJER seriously. At the end of the Spring the band released a new lyric-video and single NO HOARD OF VALUE which marked out some certain stylistic changes. The band made a bet on more complicated instrumental parts and structure of songs. Stylistically JINJER moved from dogmas of metalcore to groove metal, progressive and episodically even death metal. During the summer 2013 the band performed at open-air festivals. The performance at Rock'n'Sich festival on the same stage with TIAMAT and PAIN must be noted especially. JINJER first time in their career gathered several thousands of metal fans under the stage making them slam, mosh and headbang like the last time in their life. Approximately same time JINJER got the invitation to take part in the first metal challenge in Ukraine – the Best Ukrainian Metal Act 2013, which was to take place in October 2013. According to the regulations band for the contest were chosen by a jury – the most prominent Ukrainian promoters in the sphere of heavy music, but a winner was chosen by audience voting. JINJER understood that they had no chances to win as the other contestants were local Kiev bands with at least 10 years experience with mush bigger fan-support in the capital of Ukraine. However the band accepted the offer and went to the capital just to play a good gig. On the way to Kiev something terrible happened. That could put a full stop not only in their career but also in the musicians' lives. One day before the contest late at night JINJER got into an awful traffic accident and fell into 4 meter-deep ditch. Only by a lucky fortune nobody hurt seriously and the band's van got only a broken radiator and bumper. Having mustered up all their will, courage and strength, and money too, the band fixed the van at the closest service station and next day arrived exactly for the soundcheck. Eventually JINJER became the Best Ukrainian Metal Act of 2013. The rest of the year spent at the studio composing and recording their first full-length album – CLOUD FACTORY. 2014 started with a release of a lead-single from the upcoming album. A video for CLOUD FACTORY repeated the success of its forerunner two years before. Then the band performed at BIG LOVE FEST where JINJER secured the status of the leaders of Ukrainian metal stage. CLOUD FACTORY album was released at the Leaders Rec. in March 2014 and to support the album JINJER set off on a one-month tour around Europe playing gigs in Poland, Germany, Czech, Belgium, France and Switzerland. In the summer of 2014 due to tragic events in native Donbass the band had to move to Lviv breaking all stereotypes about disaffection between the west and the east in Ukraine. In 2014 JINJER joined the line-up of absolutely all open-air festivals in Ukraine, including the biggest fest – Zakhid, where the band again gathered several thousands of metalheads under the stage, making EKTOMORF who played after feel nervous. After a few weeks JINJER played at Bucovina Rock Castle festival in Romania where they shared the stage with such legends as NAZARETH and DOG EAT DOG. One month later JINJER went through a tragedy which shocked not only fans and musicians of Ukrainian metal scene, but also people were not connected with either with the band or heavy music in general. JINJER were at their close friend in Kiev, having rest on their way to Russia where they were supposed to play a couple of shows. Everyone was asleep when Eugene Mantulin went to smoke in the kitchen. He sat on the widow, napped and fell off the third floor down. Only because of the unity of musicians, fans, people who were not indifferent, they managed to collect a sum necessary for an urgent operation and thus save Mantulin's life and give a chance to walk and play the drums in the Future. The band had to cancel a large tour around Europe and Great Britain. At some point the Future of JINJER was unclear and doubtful. After a while, getting off the stress the musicians decided to look for a substitution for the drums. The task itself was incredibly difficult as Mantulin was definitely one of the best young drummers in Ukraine, there weren't many people who could play his lines, and there were even less who could accept a life style of a professional musician in heavy metal. JINJER chose a young and perspective fellow whose name is Dmitriy Kim. The band knew the guy since they recorded at Beast Rec. studio in Gorlovka, where the new drummer had worked as a sound-engineer. Without any hesitations Dmitriy moved to Lviv, settled with the others at their country house and started to learn songs. Same as Mantulin he managed to take over 11 songs in a month. On November 8th JINJER were playing at LOADFEST III in Lviv and next day they set off on a 17-day tour around Ukraine, Russia and Romania. At the end of 2014 JINJER released on their official youtube channel their first official live-bootleg – the performance at FajtFest in Czech which took place in June 2014. Following this the band released an official tour video for a song «Желаю — значит получу» which summarized all concert activity for the whole year. Also on December 23rd Eugene Kostyuk, the bassist, became the first father in the band, he and his wife had a baby-son. In 2014 Ukrainian and foreign music editions gave a lot of their attention to JINJER. Thus European magazines, e.g. The Legacy, Metal Hammer and Rock Hard, reviewed and gave high scores to CLOUD FACTORY album in the same line with international stars' albums. Ukrainian editions summing up the year recognized JINJER as one of the brightest Ukrainian bands and Tatiana joined the top of 10 best young Ukrainian singers of all genres. In Ukraine CLOUD FACTORY album joined the top 20 albums of 2014, the only metal album among pop and indie bands. The current line-up: Tatiana Shmailyuk – vocals Roman Ibramkhalilov – guitars Dmitriy Oksen – guitars Eugene Abdyukhanov (a-k Kostyuk) – bass Dmitriy Kim - drums