Yevhen Halych

Yevhen Halych Євген Галич
Yevhen Halych at the 2018 MRPL City Festival
Background information
Born	(1984-04-29) 29 April 1984 Bila Tserkva, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine
Origin	Ukraine
Genres	pop rock, pop punk
Occupation(s)	musician, tv host, dj
Instrument(s)	vocal, electric guitar, acoustic guitar
Years active	1999–present
Website	o-torvald.com

Yevhen Halych (born 29 April 1984; Template:Lang-uk, Yevhen Andriyovitch Halych) is a Ukrainian rock musician, TV host, DJ and the frontman of Ukrainian rock band O.Torvald.

Biography

Yevhen Halych was born in Bila Tserkva, Kiev Oblast on 29 April 1984, but the first eight years of his life he spent in Kazakhstan, where his father served in the Soviet Army. In 1992 his family, including his brother Andriy, moved to Poltava, where he has lived long since. Yevhen started attending musical classes when he was five years old. In 1994 he met Denys Miziuk, who was his neighbour and who would later become the guitarist of O.Torvald and the best friend of Yevhen Halych. From 1999 to 2005 they played together in the band "Kruty! Pedali", then they started the band O.Torvald.

Yevhen Halych studied in Poltava Institute of Military Telecommunications (now he is a lieutenant of reserve, engineer of telecommunication systems and networks). During his last years in the institute he worked on the radio station. While working there he understood that the music is the only thing he wants to do in his life. Soon after graduating from the institute in 2006, he and all his band moved to Kiev, where they rented a house. From 2006 to 2010 they lived in this house all together, and it also acted as their studio. At the beginning music did not give them much money, so everyone got a job, leaving not much time for music. In 2008 they recorded their first album "O.Torvald" and the popularity of their band started to increase, especially since 2011. In the past Yevhen Halych was the only composer and lyrics writer, but now Mykola "DJ Polyarnyk" Rayda, who is a friend and former groupmate of Yevhen, is helping him. Apart from O.Torvald, Yevhen Halych also participates in the band "NUDLY" with rapper Andriy Shostakov.

While living in Kiev Yevhen at the invitation of Oleksandr Asaulyuk worked on the music TV-channel M1, entertainment TV-channel NLO TV and on the radio station "Prosto Radi.O". He stated about his work on radio stations:

I worked on radio yet back in Poltava. Being a radio host was considered extremely cool, so cool, that even all problems in institute, with traffic policemen and with city administration were resolved by passing greetings to a wife or mother-in-law on the radio. Airing in the morning means waking up early, which can seem hell for much people. But I am a lark, so such regime is OK for me.

Yevhen Halych has a wife Valeriya, who gave birth to a daughter in 2013. Yevhen dedicated a song "Нас двоє" ("Two of us") to his wife. She also took part in several videos of O.Torvald.

Participation in Eurovision

On 25 February 2017, O.Torvald won national selection for Eurovision, so Yevhen Halych represented Ukraine with the song "Time" on Eurovision Song Contest 2017 as a member of O.Torvald.

Quotes

I was born to a Russian-speaking family and studied in Russian-language school. I did not have much opportunity to speak Ukrainian. But now I am trying to speak the language of the country I am living in and am proud of. It is important. Although I think mostly in Russian.

In a country there must be its language: Ukrainian in Ukraine, Russian in Russian, English in Great Britain. There can not be two state languages, this is nonsense. Thit is just proffitable fore some assholes. They are not able to learn the language. And the country will not develop without language. No way. This is my radical position. Although I did not speak Ukrainian for a long time in my life, could not connect two words together. But now it is easier for me to write in Ukrainian, because it is more melodious. So singing in that language is easier for me. That is why most of our songs are in Ukrainian.

During 10-year we have been trying to attract attention of some media to promote our music. And every time we hit the closed door, because we were not interesting. I remember all of you. I have a blacklist of TV-channels, radio stations and other media, which refused us. But the next day [after the victory on the national selection to Eurovision Song Contest 2017] they called us and proposed cooperation. Guys, that is not done this way – this is not right and this is unfair. You will be punished [laughs]. So, do not behave with the next nonwinners of Eurovision the same way, please. Ukrainian music needs your support. The future of Ukrainian music depends on you.

When we were growing up we listened to Tartak, TNMK, Druha Rika, Dymna Sumish, Krykhitka Tsakhes, Okean Elzy, BoomBox. If talking about examples to follow, Andriy Hlyvniuk was no doubt an authority for us. And we strongly respect his as an author, musician and frontman. Svyatoslav Vakarchuk shows on his example that this is possible to remain popular for 20 years. That is very wonderful. I like the band SINOPTIK, which on its example also shows that they keep in step with the world music.
...
The biggest authority and mentor, a man, with whom I wanted to keep on working, listen to the advices and always talk to, was Andriy Kuzmenko from the band Skryabin.