Jinjer Singer Tatiana Shmayluk: “I Really Think that It’s Not My Time to Write Another War Song Right Now”
War has been the point of inspiration for many a classic tune, both metal and otherwise. Protest songs, reflective songs and songs imagining the performer in war themselves are all commonplace, but, at the end of the day, war is a real thing that affects real people. In a new interview with BloodstockTV (transcribed by Blabbermouth), Tatiana Shmayluk, frontwoman for Ukrainian rockers Jinjer, said that she has not used the war between Russia and her home country of Ukraine as inspiration for new music.
“I don’t know why. Honestly, I’ve written some war songs way before Jinjer, first of all, and way before war even started in Ukraine. And I don’t know how, but it’s easy for me to write about war when it’s not happening around me. But when it started, I was absolutely devastated and paralyzed creatively. I cannot write about that. I still cannot process that. I think it’s such a great trauma that it takes years and years to process, not only for me but mostly for the citizens of Ukraine, for the victims. I really think that it’s not my time to write another war song right now.”
Bassist Eugene Abdukhanov also shared his opinion on the matter, stating his feeling that Jinjer has never released a “war song” and considers any anti-war material Jinjer released in the past to be songs for peace.
“Actually, we’ve never had war songs. We’ve never written anything which is militaristic or anything like that…we have a number of songs in our discography which are peacemaking songs, songs which call for peace, and calling them war songs can be a bit misleading because it may just make people think differently of what they really are, to be honest.”
Over the summer, Jinjer toured Europe as official cultural ambassadors of Ukraine. Prior to that, they raised over $140,000 for Ukraine via a T-shirt sales campaign. Jinjer’s most recent album, Wallflowers, was released in 2021.
