Hey I'm Brian Hyatt and this is Rolling Stone Music Now. I have with me David Brown and David wrote an incredibly powerful piece about the music scene in Ukraine. As the headline says, Ukraine's

flourishing music scene faces an existential threat. We're going to talk about that

today. It's a really unique human angle on Russia's invasion of Ukraine

that I don't think anyone else has done,

and it really helps put a face on what's happening there.

David, how did you come up with the idea of looking into this story?

Been hearing for a few years about a Ukrainian music scene.

You know, we'd hear kind of dribs and drabs and maybe one of those bands might come over here or we'd read about it somewhere

So I was just aware that there was something going on over there. I didn't to be honest know the the range and diversity and neglecticism of the scene as much but I knew there was some kind of scene happening there especially in punk and indie and I just thought wow what impact is that having on that community?

It would seem like a good angle to explore,

especially at Rolling Stone.

We always try to make the connections between kind of music

and politics and culture, and it just seemed like a natural one to kind of explore.

So I just started reaching out to whoever I could.

I had no idea who would get back to me or what the conditions would be like, but luckily a whole bunch of people did

respond to me right away and were eager to talk about it even if they were

hiding out in their houses. Yeah and there's some intense stuff in this article and

there'll be a little bit of intense stuff in this episode as we hear a little bit from these artists.

The thing about popular music is it really is subject to the ripples of history and can sometimes illustrate what's happening in the larger history of the world.

And I thought it was so fascinating that the music scene in Ukraine really got a huge boost around 2014. Maybe you can explain what happened there.

Yeah, it's such an incredible example of the connection, I think think between the arts and sort of politics and

geopolitical changes you know 2014 was the so-called the revolution the the revolution in Ukraine where the Soviet appointed

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