1. Childhood

2. Career start

3. First projects

4. Tesla Boy

5. Current activity

6. References

Anton Sevidov (11 May 1980, Minsk, Belarus) - russian musician, composer, DJ. The founer of bands «Неонавт» and Tesla Boy.

Childhood

His grandfather Alexander Alexandrovich Sevidov was a famous football coach, his uncle Yuri Sevidov is a football player. In his childhood Anton also took a great interest in sports - he played tennis at the sports school "Dynamo".

At the age of 8 he accidentally had an audition in the choir of Vesnyanka, after which he was invited to join the group. During 1 year he was engaged in tennis and singing at the same time, then his parents offered him to make a choice, and Anton chose music.

At the age of 9, he came to the experimental department at Stasov music school, where he studied jazz and rock music along with classical subjects. There was a large collection of synthesizers in a rock music room (it was called the "Rock Ensemble"), and Anton felt deep interested in them. Soon he got his own synthesizer and began to write his first compositions, while practicing vocal skills and playing the piano at the same time.

Career start

At the age of 12, Anton became apprentice of the famous Soviet jazz musician Mikhail Moiseevich Okun, who was a musician of the Orchestra of Oleg Lundstrem. At the same time, he performed at the program "Morning Star" (Russian "Утренняя звезда"), where he reached the finals with jazz and soul compositions performing songs of Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles.^[1]. He also participated at the program "Talents of Russia" (russ. Таланты России), that was organized by the former head director and founder of the Chamber Jewish Music Theater, Yuri Sherling. For the first time Anton was on tour in Japan and Poland with this programm.

At the age of 14, enrolled the State Musical College of pop and jazz art (it was established on the basis of the variety department of the Gnessin Musical College) in piano class. Anton assembled his first group, which after a year of its existence was named Citric Acid. The team performed at jazz festivals, played in Moscow clubs. Also Anton play for a short time in Alexei Kozlov’s band "Arsenal". Kozlov was an owner of one of the most progressive home sound recording studios at that time, he taught Sevidov how to work with brand-new music programs. From that moment on, Anton has been interested in electronics and later he recorded his first acid jazz tracks inspired by Jamiroquai, Freak Power and Norman Cook.

At 15, he got into drum’n’base and recorded several tracks impressed by Goldie's "Timeless" album. That tracks appeared in the Storm Crew program on the radio Station 106.8 FM.

At the age of 16, Anton’s father, who had greatly contributed to his musical undertaking, died and from that moment Anton had to do a lot of DJing, played jazz in restaurants, and also made arrangements for other musicians in order to earn some money for his family, because his mother did not work.

In 1997, he received a Grand Prix at the "Crystal Note" competition, all the prize money of $10,000 was spent on equipment: Technics vinyl players for DJs and a sampler.

At the age of 18, he became a resident of the Moscow Youth Palace and started to perform actively in Moscow clubs as a DJ, recorded several songs in collaboration with Dmitry Ponomarev (DJ FeelGood). Together they created the project Da Funk, the tracks birome hits at Station 106,8 FM.

In 1998 Anton graduated college with honors and received a grand prix at the competition "Crystal tuning fork" (Russian “Хрустальный камертон”) in the nomination "Best Jazz Composition." Then he entered the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music, and studied in a class by Igor Bril. At the same time he joined Andrei Bochko's Studio, which was completely analog, where he studied vintage synthesizers and started to record material that will never be released.

First projects

In 1998-2002, he played at the ensemble of jazz saxophonist Anatoly Gerasimov, who was the soloist of the Duke Ellinton orchestra, also known for a soundtrack to the film "Liquid Sky" and played with band «Аукцыон» and Alexei Khvostenko. In 2001, he played the piano while recording the «25 кадр» album by Splin at the Andrei Bochko Studio, where he recorded the version of the song "Fellini" on an electric piano, and also collaborated with BI-2 in the remix project.

For years Anton has collected a lot of songs, so that in 2002 he formed a new band called "Неонавт" along with Boris Lifshits and Nikolai Sarabyanov and started touring Russia. The style of this band was not very similar to previous projects: it was not electronic, but guitar music inspired by the songs of Radiohead and Muse. In 2003 the guitarist Ilya Shapovalov joined the band. The team performed at various festivals, including the festival "Нашествие".

In 2003 Anton's mother died, which was a great personal tragedy for him. His feelings were expressed in the song "My Tear".

In 2004 Anton changed the style and sound of the band, returned to electronics, to the style of eighties and a new wave. "Неонавт" signed a contract with Universal Music (Russia) and in 2005 went to Berlin to record an album with Chris Corner, but due to the change in management the studio did not want to release it, so Anton posted it and the project was closed. Nevertheless, the song "Случилась" became a hit on radio stations in the Baltics.

Tesla Boy

Anton began to record new songs, not knowing for what particular project. They became many  by 2007. Among them there was a song called Tesla Boy. In those years Anton lived in an old house build in 30’s on the 2nd floor above a transformer booth. A friend who came to visit him once joked that Anton has a special relationship with electricity and this affects his music, and also likened him to Nikola Tesla. So the song got this name. He recorded a demo of this song, as well as songs “Fire” and “Electric Lady”.

A year later bassist Dmitry Gubnitsky joined him; they performed as a duet at a party on the ship, where they were invited by Anton's friend and asked to perform their live compositions. For the performance it was necessary to have a name, so Anton and Dmitry decided to choose the name "Tesla Boy". That summer they performed at the exhibition of photographer Jabah Kahado. In autumn, Boris Lifshits joined the team, with whom Anton played together in «Неонавт». First, the band gave a few small concerts, and in 2009 the club "Mio" hosted their first open concert, after which many people learned about "Tesla Boy" and the western blog Valerie wrote about them^[2]. The band received an offer from the British label Mullet Records to release an EP of five tracks, which appeared on the Internet in winter, and the official release took place in September, also a remix record was released in autumn. The band performed at major festivals: Afisha picnic, Solyanka club, STEREOLETO, their songs were played on the BBC radio as representatives of a new Russian English-speaking indie scene. In addition, in 2009 "Tesla Boy" was awarded as the best group in the opinion of Lookatme.ru.

In 2010 guitarist Konstantin Pokhvalin and drummer Mikhail Studnitsyn joined the band. The album Modern Thrills was released, the presentation of which took place on the embankment. The band again performed at the Picnic Afisha and EXIT festivals in Serbia together with Midnight Juggernauts, where listeners already knew their songs by heart. After that the band went on their first tour to Barcelona, performed at the festival Insomnia in Tromsø, Norway. The songs "Spirit of the Night" and "Fire" were played on the radio MAXIMUM.

In 2011, "Tesla Boy" went on a tour to Scandinavia (Sweden, Finland), the track "In your eyes" was released by the French label Kitsuné. They performed together with Hurts during their tour in Russia.

In 2012, the band went on tour to New York, performed at the Webster Hall during the Full Moon festival. VICE magazine presented their single and video "Fantasy", which promoted a wide response in blogs. In the same year, the single and the clip "Split" were released.

May 21, 2013: the release of the album "The Universe Made Of Darkness" took place, immediately firmly reaching the tops of iTunes in Russia, the US, Mexico and Europe. Three presentation concerts in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev brought together a total of more than 15 thousand fans of the group. Anton with the band went on tour to Mexico twice a year, because there were many fans of theirs in this country, as well as on a big tour of the US in September. The released video for the song "Undetected" is presented on the website of Jay-Z^[3][4]. They went on a joint tour in Russia with the band "Cut Copy" from Australia.

In 2014, on the radio station Megapolis FM, the weekly Tesla Boy Radio Show started, in which Anton Sevidov and Leonid Zatagin shared their favorite music and their releases with listeners. They released two singles, two video clips and a remix album for the last album The Universe Made of Darkness, which was supported by the performance of Tesla Boy at Night Tour in 11 cities, each of which was full of halls.

In addition to regular performances in Russia, Tesla Boy was a frequent guest of various foreign festivals such as Escapemusicfest, Mysteryland in the USA, AIM Festival in Canada and others.

In 2015, Anton erased the album which was almost fully recorded, the band began working on new material with a new sound. The single "Nothing"^[5] came out, which marked the beginning of a new era in band’s history. At the end of that year, the band went on a mini-tour to four cities in the USA (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle).

In 2016 the band gave a big concert at Gogol Center on March 20, presenting a new program^[6]. Around the same time, the band presented the clip "Nothing", which entered the festival program SXSW in Austin and the Berlin Music Video Awards. In summer, the band released their new EP - "Moses" with five new songs and the clip "Circles" (directed by Ryan Patrick)^[7]

Current activity

At the end of 2016, Anton received an invitation from the Gogol Center and wrote music for the play "The Sea of Trees" based on the play by Lyuba Strizhak, which was premiered in 2017. He played the role of Ninja of Destiny.

In 2018, Anton started preparing the release of the first solo album, which was presented at Tallinn Music Week 2018 and Esquire Weekend 2018; the release is scheduled for the autumn.

References

• Carine ou la jeune fille folle de son âme
• Carine Quadros
• Carine Russo
• Carin Fock
• Caring and killing
• Caringbah high
• Caringbah South, New South Wales
• Caring for Carcinoid Foundation
• Caring for Climate
• Caring for people with dementia
• Caring in Ireland
• Caring in ireland
• Carin Goetblad
• Carin Goring
• Carin Gotblad
• Carinhana
• Carinhanha
• Carinhanha River
• Carinigera haussknechti
• Carinigera megdova
• Carinispora
• Carinispora nypae
• Carin Jaemtin
• Carin Malmlöf-Forssling
• Carin Mon Earn