By Nicholas Jason Lopez
With two Russian-born vocalists at the helm, Boston’s Major Moment have a knack for intense cinematic rock with elements of electronic and are on an endless mission to inspire others to pursue their dreams and live a life of purpose.
Major Moment’s lineup currently includes Andrey Borzykin (Vocals/Synth), Sasha Razumova (Vocals/Keys), Eddie Thurmon (Lead Guitar), Dan Interrante (Rhythm Guitar) and Dave Kahn (Bass Guitar).
Their Debut EP ‘one small StEP’ was released in 2018 and won the band “Best Rock Album Of The Year” at the 2019 IMEA Awards, won “Best Rock Production” and got nominated for “Best Lyric Video” at the Independent Music Awards and in two categories at the Hollywood Music In Media Awards for “Best Rock” and “Best Production.”
They also put out an emotional tribute to the late Chester Bennington with a cover of Linkin Park’s “Leave Out All The Rest.” The music video, which was produced by the Grammy-nominated Project 2 Studios, was released as a standalone asset to support 320 Changes Direction, a suicide prevention campaign. It has accumulated over a million views throughout the band’s social media platforms.
Their follow-up EP was entitled ‘The Sequel,’ and featured their latest single “May Leave Scars,” which won The Lennon Award and “Best Rock Song” at the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and was also the semi-finalist of the International Songwriting Competition. The video premiered on Jan. 21, 2020 via New Fury Media.
The Music Bugle recently had the opportunity to talk with Borzykin about the band’s music, influences and other recent happenings.
Music Bugle – What are your overall thoughts on the recent coronavirus outbreak and its subsequent effect on the music industry?
Andrey Borzykin – It’s very unfortunate to see the music industry take another blow. A lot of events, festivals, tours are being postponed. It has affected pretty much everyone. While we understand the importance of “flattening the curve,” we think media spreading panic doesn’t help. Thankfully, we didn’t have too many gigs affected by this outbreak, as we just finished recording four new singles a couple days ago. We will be playing out more as soon as business as usual resumes, expect a couple of big show announcements before that though. As far as the rest of the industry, it’s obvious that there will be a huge shift towards live streaming in the next couple of months. We also have a couple live videos we’re about to drop. Stay tuned!
Music Bugle – How would you describe the rock scene in Boston at the moment?
Andrey Borzykin – We would say it’s struggling right now and rock as a genre does too in general. Smaller venues close doors, bigger venues care more about the money and less about helping local talent. It’s getting harder to get stage experience. There’s literally three or four venues left in Boston that have decent sound and still book bands of our level.
Music Bugle – Who would you say are some of your musical influences?
Andrey Borzykin – Linkin Park, Bring Me The Horizon, Cold, Papa Roach, Coldplay, Keane, Poets of the Fall and Billie Eilish.
Music Bugle – What has been your favorite moment while onstage/at a show?
Andrey Borzykin – Fans singing our lyrics back and requesting a song.
Music Bugle – Could you give some insight on what inspired your recent single “May Leave Scars”?
Andrey Borzykin – It’s a long story. The first demo of this song, titled “Atmosphere” was made by my friend Anton and I back in 2007, believe it or not. It had no lyrics, a very different vibe, but the synth you hear in the final version has somehow survived through many computer upgrades, hard drive crashes, etc. At some point, Anton decided not to pursue a career in music, and the demos he and I have created remained unfinished for years. Me, on the other hand, have always dreamed of finishing the work we started, but wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pull it off alone, until one day in late 2017, I decided to find those demos and bring them to life. Funny enough, lyrically “May Leave Scars” is about that exact situation – not being afraid of pursuing your dreams, not being afraid of making mistakes and just doing what you feel is right. Ironically, the song that was doomed to never see the light of day and was waiting for its moment for over 12 years has received so much positive response and recognition from fans and industry professionals and received several awards from international songwriting contests, including International Songwriting Contest, SongDoor, John Lennon Songwriting Competition and The Lennon Award.
Music Bugle – What can fans expect from your new music?
Andrey Borzykin – Well, that it won’t be out as an EP per se, but rather four singles that we’ll be releasing every couple of months. These four singles are very different from what we’ve released so far in one way and still have a very recognizable “Major Moment” sound to them. We’ve tried a couple things we haven’t done before – some on purpose, some just happened naturally. We’ve written them with our live shows in mind. We wanted to add more fun hard-hitting songs to our set, so this time, there are no ballads. Expect big choruses that you can sing along to, hot relevant topics, “in your face” drums, heavy guitars, a lot of electronic elements and some unexpected experiments with vocals. These are some of the best songs we have written to date, and we’re really proud of them. If you enjoyed “Living Your Life Like This” and “May Leave Scars,” you will absolutely love these new four songs!
Music Bugle – What do you feel is the band’s most meaningful song or set of lyrics?
Andrey Borzykin – That’s a tough one, because we try to only write meaningful songs/lyrics. Although all of our songs are influenced by personal experiences and events we’ve been a part of, we tend to think they’re universally applicable to most living breathing thinking beings. We’ll say this: we are super proud of the lyrics we’ve written for our new set of songs, but “Before It’s Too Late” is my personal favorite when it comes to meanings.
Music Bugle – What should people know about the band that they might not already?
Andrey Borzykin – We are very easily accessible, so if you want to talk to us, feel free to message us any time. We personally respond to all messages and that connection to us is very important!
Music Bugle – What are your future plans?
Andrey Borzykin – To conquer the world, of course! Release new songs, videos, gig, connect with fans, make more music, repeat!
Music Bugle – What has been your favorite music video to shoot?
Andrey Borzykin – So, we’ve had two music videos done so far: “Leave Out All The Rest”, which is a tribute to our biggest inspiration, the late Chester Bennington. We shot it with Project 2 studios and there’s “May Leave Scars” that was done by Revelry Studios. We’ll have to end this interview on a cliffhanger and say that our absolute favorite music video is the one we’re currently planning for our next single called “The Flood,” which is a brand new song. We got the concept down for the most part and not to brag about it or anything, but not only it’s the most ambitious project that both our band and Revelry Studios have ever done, it’s going to be nothing like the local scene in Boston is expecting from us. Stay tuned, follow us on social media, join our “Backstage Club,” and you’ll be the first one to hear and see our new stuff before its release!
