“I had a dream to bring electronic drums to Krugloye”. Zhilkin talks about his love for music

Double European Champion Andrey Zhilkin it was a difficult season – in addition to the general suspension of international departures, there were injuries and illnesses which did not allow them to fully express themselves. But the Russian is not despairing and is building creative plans for 2023 – he wants to connect his future not only to swimming, but also to music.

– Andrey, how was the end of the season? What have you done besides sports? Perhaps you have opened a project, a company?

– Currently, you cannot open a business in my area.

– What is your theme?

— Sports, music, entertainment. Now it’s hard. For example, I have friends who are also engaged in video editing, now there is a large output of orders.

– It’s sad.

– Sad, but it is possible to reflect on the project in another topic.

– What would you like to do?

– Connecting life to music, however, I don’t quite understand how. But I’ve been doing it for eight years and I’ve found my genre. God forbid everything is in order, and at the end of this season I can work harder.

– When and how did it start?

Our whole family is musicians. Dad played guitar all the time, and so did my brother.

– Where did you study?

– Nope. He studied himself, gradually reached a certain level. I already receive orders – mixing, mastering. The group sends raw material, I mix all the pieces.

How do you balance it with swimming?

– With difficulty, because if you do this seriously, you need to communicate, to be on the move, to develop links.

– Aren’t there other music lovers in the team?

– Vlad Grinev also writes, but it’s more for himself.

– Played together?

– Has been. Choose a song and play covers. We had a democracy – everyone determined three compositions, then cut two. This is how the repertoire was chosen.

– Didn’t it come to rehearsals at the Round Circle?

– There was a dream to bring equipment here, an electronic drum…

– The base management would be delighted!

The electronics are silent.

– It’s not for me, but the direction of the base should explain itself.

– That would be great! Maybe someone else would be interested – at least some entertainment should be. Sometimes you need to take a break from the workflow.

– In terms of “distraction”, how do you deal with sad thoughts?

– I am generally optimistic. Maybe even redundant. Also, I never had a problem answering the question “what, besides swimming”. A plan, goals, new ideas always come to mind.

– There was no desire to slow down with swimming at the end of the season?

– Vice versa. I had problems with my shoulder – for a whole year I couldn’t swim on my back because of it. Half of the collection in Kabardinka before the short water season was spent on shoulder rehabilitation.

I was in the mood to recover and swim on my back, as I was a complexist from the very beginning. Klim (Kolesnikov) helped with the exercises on earth, I’m grateful to him. I had just started to recover normally when I fell ill. Maybe covid, as everything was quite difficult.

So when you go through obstacles, injuries, you want to start over even more. Besides, it’s our job.