ALEX GRATA

(Vocals, Piano, Synthesizers, Loops, Electric and Acoustic Guitars)

“Progress? What the fuck’s progress that destroys our living planet? And the fact that Planet Earth is alive, I think that no one has any doubt about this. Can a human being be called rational if he behaves in relation to the world around him, like a Neanderthal man. and even worse! Birds fall on the fly and die. Whales continue to commit suicide. Bees are dying. Dry up the river. Beautiful forests are disappearing. Who are we after this? Wild, foolish, unscrupulous, soulless two-legged creatures. And if we don’t come to understand all this disaster, if we don’t open our eyes, what do we leave to our children? desert, airless space with black water of oil and imminent hunger. People, let’s change ourselves and the life around!”

It was the Voices of Babylon (VOB) project that introduced Alex to Mark from Unitopia, when Mark recorded a track for the VOB project. The song was ‘Forgive Me My Son’, and was written by Alex several years ago. The VOB and UPF versions of the song have different arrangements.

Since his childhood, Alex Grata was a big fan of rock music. His first experience in rock was listening to the bands like King Crimson and Yes, when he was 5 years old. Alex’s first performance on stage – was the graduation party of an elementary school in the city of Vorkuta. While he was growing up, every day after going to school in Vorkuta Music School in the North of Russia, he stayed at home listening to Pink Floyd, Camel, UK, trying to imitate those bands – singing and playing electric guitar for hours.

Alex began self-learning rock vocals using intuition and audio and video instructions, and at this time became the vocalist of his first rock band “Alter Ego”. For many years the group was the best at rock festivals in the northern regions of Russia.

The style of music is best described as an experimental rock with elements of hard rock and even metal rock and rock art of that time. Then followed an invitation to sing in the famous Russian rock band ‘August’. In this group, in the early 1990s, there were many shows in Europe; mostly in Germany and France.

After the disintegration of August began the implementation of solo musical ideas, songs, albums and projects in various musical directions. Today it is possible to single out several of Alex’s groups, such as Sixth Sense, playing modern melodic metal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb9RN45mdTE, G.R.A.T.A. band, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wX2meCeYcQ, and the international progressive rock project Voices of Babylon; https://www.facebook.com/VOBproject/

It is worth mentioning that for the project ‘Brothers In Arms’, the album was recorded in co-authorship with the Costa Rican rocker of Darusso (https://www.facebook.com/GrataAndDarussoBrothersInArms/), and in co-operation with prog metal band Overwind on their 2018 album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjIhsOzAO0s

For more: https://www.facebook.com/alex.grata