Nashville.com is very excited about the Leonid Friends Show tomorrow night at Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. We became fans like many others when their videos went viral. They pay tribute to Chicago, Earth, Wind Fire and others through the amazing accuracy in each performance. The band is incredibly tight and that horn section, well, you just have to see it. They are selling out all over the country so we recommend you get tickets for this Nashville show while they are still available. Band leader, Leonid Vorobyev, took the time to answer a few questions for Nashville.com: Leonid, what inspired you to form a tribute band dedicated to Chicago’s music, and how did your musical background influence this decision? I grew up in USSR behind the iron curtain, living in a small town in Siberia but you know Chicago was very popular among our musicians. In fact, many bands in Russia at that time tried to emulate Chicago and had rhytm section and the horn section and vocal harmonies. So, of course, I was a fan of Chicago as well and musical background and training as a choir conductor and over 2 decades in studio allowed to produce my favorite Chicago songs with my friends musicians. Your initial YouTube video was a recording of “Brand New Love Affair” in 2014. Did you anticipate the overwhelming positive response it received? It all happened on my 60th Birthday which was a retirement age at the time in Russia. I decided to celebrate it with something fun and as a gift to myself I asked my friends – who are all highly skilled professional musicians – to record one of my favorite songs from 70s by Chicago and I knew they wouldn’t refuse me a favor as I helped them many times before. So we got together, played the song and recorded a simple video as well so I could share it with my friends and what do you know – it went viral and a few weeks later it was on Chicago’s official website! And the rest is history… Leonid and Friends features musicians from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus. How did you assemble such a diverse group of talented artists? I have worked with many of them in the studio in Moscow and I knew they are very talented and as we produced more songs, we needed new talents for the band so I invited each one of them to take part in this. And we have always been about unity through music and we try to examplify that in all we do. Given that you and many band members had never seen Chicago perform live, how did you manage to capture their sound so authentically? You know when I released the first video I actually thought that Chicago fans will probably give us some heat – like “these Russians – why do they try to copy Chicago?” – but actually the response was overwhelmingly positive. I guess many years in bands and many years in the studio allowed me to achieve the level of production that is shown in our videos. Your son, Roman Vorobyev, manages the band. How has this family collaboration influenced the band’s journey and success? We are a great team and we are very proud of each other and he also grew up listening to 70s music and Chicago included so he instantly became our fan and he joined us to help bring us to America and it worked out great! After gaining popularity online, Leonid and Friends embarked on tours across Russia and the United States. What challenges and rewards have you encountered while transitioning from online performances to live tours? It’s one thing you play in a studio – but it’s a whole other to be able to duplicate that same level and that same precision to the note in a live performance. And since we set the bar quite high with our YouTube videos, we had to make sure we deliver exacrtly that with live energy at our shows. So it’s been incredible amount of work for us but we take great pride that we are able to reproduce the album versions of each song in a live show and transport our audience back in time. In 2022, the band expanded its repertoire to include covers of artists like Earth, Wind Fire and Steely Dan. What motivated this diversification, and how has it been received by your audience? As we kept on making new videos of Chicago songs, we kept receiving requests to produce Earth Wind and Fire as well and at some point I decided that we need a good song for the end of the show and September is a perfect fit – and also they have toured and performed with Chicago multiple times. And after September, we did the next one and the next one and now we almost have a full album of EWF songs in our catalogue. The other thing is that when Dani and Michael joined us back in 2021 and 2022, they added a new type of talant to the band and Dani is able to sing Philip Bailey parts that no one else could and Michael does incredible job with Tower of Power songs. And, of course, Ksenia is in her own class and Superstar by Carpenters was a special addition for us. Your cover of Rufus and Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody” featuring Ksenia Buzina was added to your setlist in 2022. How do you select new songs to incorporate into your performances? I like to chose songs that give me musical challenge and that makes it really fun for us to transcribe and play. As we add new videos we play those songs for live shows as well and many of them became an integral part of the setlist. As a multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer, what is your approach to arranging and producing the complex compositions that Chicago is known for? Since there are no scores for Chicago music – at least not as thorough that I can rely on completely – I made it my job to transcribe each song myself by ear – I take each instrument on the track and break it down note by note. This also includes a precise tempo map that lays out all the changes of rhythm in each song as the rhythm really breathes in each one of them. But I will be honest – it’s one of my favorite activities – I lose track of time once dive into a song and I feel like a kid playing the most interesting game! Reflecting on your journey from recording videos in Moscow to performing internationally, what advice would you offer to musicians aspiring to gain global recognition through digital platforms? As I started this project as a gift to myself and my original goal was to enjoy the product for me and for my friends, I feel that its important that each musician strives to make something that they feel greatly proud of and they care about and keep putting it out there and share with the world and as they keep learning more and as they get better, the audience will find them and share it too – but only as long as they trust themselves in what they really want to create. Thanks to Leonid Vorobyev for this interview! See you at Fisher Center for the Performing Arts tomorrow. –Jerry Holthouse The post QA With Leonid Vorobyev Of Leonid Friends appeared first on Nashville.com. ...read more read less