Alexander Arzamastsev - Drums

Born: September 15, 1973 

Parents: Musician father; teacher mother

Influences: Chick Corea, Steve Gadd, Led Zepplin, Rush

Interests picked up since coming to America: Boxing, yoga

Musical beginnings: “My father was a musician, so I have always been around musicians. When I was six years old I started music school.

Band history: The newly formed bluegrass band’s teacher and leader looked into a cultural center where Alexander’s father was working as a place to rehearse. At the time, the band didn’t have a drummer. Alexander got the slot, but didn’t join permanently until 1996.

Favorite food: “I eat everything, but my favorite is Russian food, which is hard to get in Nashville.  So I occasionally make my own. When I recently whipped up a batch of Pelmeni, a Russian meat dumpling served with vinegar, bandmate Sasha said, ‘I was in heaven.’”

Biggest misconception about Russia: “That there is a lot of vodka and no television.”

Aside from friends and family, misses most from home: “Walking everywhere without needing a car and being able to drink beer on the street.”

Favorite TV show: Real TV, HBO Boxing and ESPN Friday Night Fights

As if watching your record label close wasn’t bad enough: Alexander moved into his first Nashville apartment, two weeks later it burned to the ground. Luckily most of his belongings weren’t there yet and he was able to save his CDs and his drums.

Bet you can’t get just one:  If there’s an artist he likes, he buys all their albums.  Has complete collections on everyone from Led Zeppelin to Bobby McFerrin. 

Natasha Borzilova - Lead vocals, acoustic guitar

Born: August 19, 1978

Parents: Nuclear scientist father, engineer mother

Influences: Patsy Cline, The Beatles, Tori Amos, Andrew Lloyd Webber

Musical beginnings: I have been singing since I was three - always participating in choir and in school theater musicals when I was seven. At ten, I started playing classical guitar.

Favorite Movie: The Piano, Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels

Favorite Actor: Angelina Jolie

Favorite TV show: Sex And The City

Favorite book or author: “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Also, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson and “I’m really really really into Carlos Castaneda.”

Addiction: Coffee.

Would love to work with: Tori Amos

First reaction to U.S.:  “It was a completely different world. It was different food that I couldn’t stand. It was a language I had just learned. I sang in the band for about four years without speaking English. Then I hired a tutor and in three months I started speaking. But it was my first experience with people who spoke only that language, where you can’t go, okay, can we take a break and speak Russian now?”

Sergei “Spooky” Olkhovsky - Bass

Born: February 15, 1978

Parents: Gas corporation executive father; shopkeeper mother

Influences: Paul McCartney, Victor Wooten, Sting, AC/DC, King Diamond and Marcus Miller

How he got the name “Spooky”: In Russia, everyone started calling me ‘Halloween’ because I was such a big fan of a German band by that name. When I joined Bering Strait in 2000, manager Mike Kinnamon heard the name and shook his head. “Too dark,” he said. “I’m calling you Spooky.”

How did you become a bass player: I started out as a guitar player and joined several different bands. Eventually I got in one that needed a bass player. They asked if I could play bass, I said yes and then learned how.

Setting the record straight about life in Russia: “People will ask if we have food in our shops. I tell them we have more in stores than you have here. People don’t understand the way of life, how we can walk everywhere and don’t need a car, or how we can use the public transportation.”

On being the last member to join Bering Strait: "It wasn’t difficult because everyone is very nice. We went to the same school and knew each other for a long time. It was more difficult being in another country.”

Career Decision: “For me it happened suddenly, when I was in my last class in school, I went to play in a bar house band and I realized what a cool thing that an independent musician could get out to play and get money for it.”

Backup plan: “I tried to learn some other stuff besides music but I didn’t like it.”

Alexander “Sasha” Ostrovsky - Dobro, steel guitar, lap steel

Born: August 11, 1980

Parents: Electronic engineer father; accountant mother

Influences: The Beatles, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Dire Straits, Jerry Douglas, Alan Jackson

Favorite Food: Pelmeni  - a Russian dish somewhat like a ravioli, - mincemeat and fried onions wrapped in dough and boiled.

Favorite Movie: Pulp Fiction

Favorite TV shows: The Sopranos, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Favorite Book: “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy  "When you look at a book like that, you say, ‘am I going to read that?’ I sort of read it in high school and I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t even really read it. I just read the paragraphs that I knew I would need to know to answer the teachers questions. Last year I dedicated three or four months to finally reading the book and it turned out to be my favorite."

Biggest misconception in US about Russia: Thinking Russians are always drunk on vodka and very rude. It’s the idea you get from television and the movies. "Deep inside every Russian person is Leo Tolstoy. The things you share in life with other people.  Love and helping friends -  friendship means everything in Russia."

Big Sis: An older sister lives in Texas, where she studies health physics at Texas A&M University.

Songs you never get tired of hearing:  "Steam" by Peter Gabriel; "Fields of Gold" by Sting; Any Beatles song. / Would love to jam with: Mark Knopfler, Sting

Annual trek: "I go to the International Bluegrass Music Association festival every year, not as a band representative, but on my own. I meet some great players like Ricky Skaggs and Nickel Creek and get to jam with them.  Great musicianship is what makes bluegrass a very unique thing. You can really show off. I think some of the best musicians in country music come from bluegrass."

Career choice: "I always knew that I would be a musician. I just didn’t realize that until we got serious with this band, after high school you have to make a decision about what you’ll do, what to study in college. I thought, well, I’m not going to quit the band; we’d already been going to the United States, searching for a record deal and growing as a band. Why would I want to be a lawyer or doctor or anybody else? I’m already halfway there."

Lydia Salnikova - Keyboards, backup vocals

Born: August 10, 1980

Parents: Scientist/painter/musician father; engineer mother

Influences: Whitney Houston, “Jesus Christ Superstar,” Matt Rollings

Began music school: At six years old

Piano forte: “My older sister and I studied piano with the same teacher, the only difference was that my sister hated her. She would never spend the amount of hours she was supposed to practice, she’d miss classes often. I was more of a good girl. The teacher would always compare me to my sister. She’s my older sister, she doesn’t want to be told, your younger sister is so much better than you. We both had perfect pitch and she could choose music if she wanted, but I think that relationship with our teacher completely ended it for her.”

Favorite Food: “I’m a big meat eater; I could never be a vegetarian. I like Chinese food. Japanese. Mexican. Italian. American. I’m not picky at all. I don’t like beans or sweet potatoes. Oh, and I love Russian rye bread.”

Favorite Movies: The Insider, The Thomas Crown Affair

America got her hooked on: Football, especially the Tennessee Titans

Biggest misconception about Russia: We do only what we are allowed to do by the government. People here always ask, “What about the KGB?”

Miss most about home:  “My home to me is my family, but aside from friends and family, I miss the food and walking.”

Would love to work with: Sting, Bonnie Raitt, Matt Rollings, James Taylor

Favorite TV Show: Saturday Night Live, Molly Shannon was amazing when she was on the show.

Favorite Book: Flowers For Algernon, Daniel Keyes and science fiction, especially by Robert Heinlen

Making the move to America: “For some reason - we were coming and going, a couple of months here, then going back home - I didn’t really realize it might mean I’d have to move here. I don’t think I ever made a conscious decision, okay; this is what I’m doing for a career. It just kind of happened. I was just finding myself coming more and more for longer periods of time, until one day I realized that was my priority.”

If not a career in music: At one time was very serious about becoming a lawyer.

Band mate’s description of Lydia:  The most serious member of the band. Intelligent. Beautiful. Philosophical. Loyal. Very strong.

Ilya Toshinsky - Lead electric guitar, banjo, backup vocals

Born: November 28, 1977

Parents: Nuclear scientist father; engineer, housewife mother

Influences: Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, Garth Brooks, Dire Straits, Sting, Pat Metheny

Musical beginnings: “I was ten years old when my parents took me to music school to study classical guitar. To tell the truth, I didn’t find classical guitar too exciting at the time (I was just a kid).  But everything changed when I heard the sound of a five-string banjo for the first time.  I just knew that was it. To this day I’m still wondering why banjo had such an impact on me, I suspect that maybe I was Irish in my past life.”

Mom’s career plans: “My mother wanted me to be a lawyer (of course) or a scientist, because everyone in my family is a scientist.  She was worried that I wouldn’t be making a good living being a musician in Russia.  Thank God, my parents let me follow my inner voice.

Favorite Movie: Beautiful Mind, 12 Monkeys, Back To The Future, Pulp Fiction

Favorite Actor: Russell Crowe, Brad Pitt, Robert DeNiro

Favorite Author: The Strugatsky Brothers, Bob Dylan

Favorite Food: Mexican

Favorite dining experience: Breakfast at a little place called Merridee’s in Franklin, TN, because it feels like home.

Hobbies: college and pro basketball and football, jamming with great musicians (all styles of music), philosophy

Non-musical hero worship: none

Would love to jam with: Sting, U2, Bela Fleck, Branford Marsalis

Song you never get tired of hearing: “Come Together” by the Beatles, “Fields of Gold” by Sting, “In The Name of Love” by U2, “The Dance” and “The Change” by Garth Brooks, “Like A Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan, “Sunset Road” by Bela Fleck

Bumpy transitions: “Growing up, I would practice banjo 8 hours a day, because I wanted to be the best.  But when we started coming to Nashville, to my shock I found out there’s very little place for banjo in country music.  At that time the Dixie Chicks hadn’t had a record out yet and banjo wasn’t cool. I figured if I wanted to have a place in a country band I better learn how to play electric guitar.  So in 1995 I went to a guitar store in Nashville and spent all my money on a Fender Telecaster.  Since that time, electric guitar became one of my main instruments, but banjo is still my first love.”

First Impressions of America: I remember in the Nashville airport when we arrived (I was 14), I went to the bathroom and a guy told me, you don’t have to flush the toilet, it does it automatically. It was like something out of a Spielberg movie. 

I thought, “Man, this is place is incredible."