Sergey Mavrin - Lineup Changes Through The Years

Lineup Changes Through The Years

• I: Sergey Mavrin (guitar, bass, keyboards), Arthur Berkut (vocals), Pavel Chinyakov (drums). This line-up recorded the album Skitaletz.
• Ia: Sergey Mavrin (guitar), Arthur Berkut (vocals), Alexander Mosinian (bass), Pavel Chinyakov (drums), Gennadiy Matveyev (keyboards). This was the line-up of the very first Mavrik gig which took place on February 20, 1999. They played some amount of club gigs that year.
• II: Sergey Mavrin (guitar, keyboards), Stanislav Vitart (vocals), Alexander Mosinian (bass), Pavel Chinyakov (drums). Berkut left the band somewhere in late 1999, during rehearsals of what ultimately became Neformat. Stanislav Vitart was brought in to record vocals (it's said that for audition he recorded Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody in full, including all choir sections). Berkut is still credited on Neformat as the co-writer of one song.
• Ib: Sergey Mavrin (guitar), Arthur Berkut (vocals), Alexander Mosinian (bass), Pavel Chinyakov (drums). Vitart quit after playing just two gigs, saying that "it wasn't really his cup of tea". Shortly after that, Berkut returns. Somewhere during 2000, Yuri Alexeev also joined the band, and the 5-piece format was never changed afterwards.
• III: Sergey Mavrin (guitar, keyboards), Artem Styrov (vocals), Yuri Alexeyev (guitar), Alexey Kharkov (bass), Alexander Karpukhin (drums). In the late 2000, during the early sessions of Himicheskiy son, Berkut quit again, taking Mosinian and Chinyakov with him to form the self-titled band, Berkut. Mavrin recruited two young students of Sergey Zadora School, Kharkov and Karpukhin, to fill the rhythm section slot, and started auditioning vocalists. According to various sources, when Artem Styrov first sent his demo, Mavrin said it was awful, but Mavrin's wife Elena persuaded Mavrin to invite Styrov down to his studio for an audition. Styrov did a good job there, and Mavrin hired him.
• IV: Sergey Mavrin (guitar, keyboards), Artem Styrov (vocals), Yuri Alexeyev (guitar), Alexey Kharkov (bass), Rinat Mukhametjanov (drums). After completion of Himicheskiy son in late 2001, Alexander Karpukhin quit Mavrik (the band changed its legal name to "Sergey Mavrin" by then, but everyone kept calling it by its initial informal name) and joined another prominent Russian metal group Master. Rinat Mukhametjanov replaced him. The band did a bit of touring in support of the album, and in 2002 they released Odinochestvo - a compilation of ballads and slow tracks from previous Mavrik and Sergey Mavrin albums, with instruments partially re-recorded by the current line-up.
• V: Sergey Mavrin (guitar, keyboards), Artem Styrov (vocals), Yuri Alexeyev (guitar), Alexey Kharkov (bass), Pavel Elkind (drums). Mukhametjanov was replaced with Elkind around Spring 2003, and Elkind made his debut on 31 May 2003. That gig was also significant due to the very first performance of the material from the upcoming album Zapreschennaya realnost.
• Va (band inactive): Sergey Mavrin (guitar, keyboards), Yuri Alexeyev (guitar), Alexey Kharkov (bass), Pavel Elkind (drums). The fifth line-up lasted only for two gigs due to Mavrin and Kharkov's commitments with Kipelov. Soon after the second one (31 January 2004) Artem Styrov was fired from the band, and an open audition for a vocalist was declared. The applicants should have had recorded a difficult track Poka bogi spyat (While Gods Are Asleep) from the new album Zapreschennaya realnost and send the recording to the band. Little else was happening - Mavrin and Kharkov were still very heavily engaged with Kipelov's band.
• VI: Sergey Mavrin (guitar, keyboards), Artem Styrov (vocals), Yuri Alexeyev (guitar), Alexander Schwetz (bass), Pavel Elkind (drums). In the Fall 2004 Mavrin parted ways with Kipelov and soon after announced the new lineup of his own band: Alexey Kharkov (who preferred to stay with Kipelov) was replaced by another Zadora student Alexander Schwetz, and, apparently dissatisfied with the demos sent to him, Mavrin invited Styrov to come back. This line-up recorded an EP Obratnaya storona realnosti and toured relatively extensively in early 2005.
• VII: Sergey Mavrin (guitar, keyboards), Andrey Lefler (vocals), Yuri Alexeyev (guitar), Alexander Schwetz (bass), Pavel Elkind (drums). The change of vocalists was surrounded with much secrecy. Unhappy with Styrov's form, Mavrin again thought of replacing him. Accidentally finding an old audition tape from 2004, Mavrin gave it a listen, thought it was good and contacted the singer - then 18 years old Andrey Lefler. They rehearsed several times in secret, and Lefler got the job. Styrov apparently was formally fired somewhere in early August, right before the Nashestviye open air festival. This line-up was the only one that released more than one album: Otkroveniye and Live, and it's overall the longest lasting line-up of the band (more than two years, from 9 August 2005 to 5 January 2008). The band mounted some very intensive Russian and Ukrainian tours during that time.
• VIII: Sergey Mavrin (guitar, keyboards), Andrey Lefler (vocals), Yuri Alexeyev (guitar), Leonid Maximov (bass), Pavel Pazon (drums). On 5 January 2008, Schwetz and Elkind unexpectedly quit the band (and soon joined the instrumental project Jin). Mavrin had to cancel a planned festival where he was going to headline, and had to seek replacements once again. His choice fell on Leonid Maximov and Pavel Pazon, two young aspiring musicians.

On June 10, 2008, Pavel Pazon announced that he's no longer the member of Mavrik. Pavl Elkind returned to the band.