Interview with Slava Grigoryan

The acoustic and electric joy of guitar

A chance meeting in the UK in the mid-nineties led to a strong personal and musical bond between Australia’s premier classical guitarist and an Austrian electric bass player more ensconced in the pop/rock world of the time – it’s a long way from London to Byron Bay but this is where Slava Grigoryan and Al Slavik will find themselves in May, re-uniting for a tour celebrating the release of their third album And so, it turns.

With their wide and varied individual influences, they found common ground releasing two albums, Another Night in London and Continental Shift. They waited for the right time and place to add to their catalogue, and as it happened December 2025 in Italy seemed appropriate – Seven caught up with Slava Grigoryan last week mid-tour, on the Canberra leg of the journey to Byron.

Tell me about And So, It Turns – when and where did you record it?

We recorded in December. It was a pretty quick turnaround. We recorded it just outside of Rome.

How did you meet Al?

In London, 30 years ago, we were both there to, you know, seek our fortunes, so to speak – on paper, we’re polar opposites, from completely different musical worlds.

We had a few mutual contacts and there was a live jam at a wine bar that we used to attend every Thursday – really amazing musicians from everywhere, would gather and check things out. That’s when I met Al. The person who was coordinating that event put together a recording session, and we were both independently hired to do something with his mutual friend.

We’d seen each other playing in this little venue and within a few weeks we were in a recording studio and ‘forced’ to sit down and talk to each other. It was the beginning of a really amazing friendship.

Then Al came to Australia on his first tour, and we recorded an album back then. We had a busy few years and then he actually settled in Australia, and lived in St Kilda for about five years.

He loved being in Australia. That’s when we recorded our second album, about ten years had past since the first one.

Then he left and settled in Los Angeles. He’s been there for 17 years. When we played together a few weeks ago, they were the first live shows that we’ve done in over 18 years.

You’re like polar opposites?

Yes, but they go together in the right person’s hands with, I guess, with the right sound aesthetic. It’s brilliant!  He plays an electric bass as if it were a guitar. He sort of flies around that thing. There’s a lot of very intricate chordal work – it’s basically like having another guitar-like instrument and because of the range we really keep out of each other’s way, sonically speaking.

He doesn’t read a note of music – not that there’s anything wrong with that at all – but he uses his ears much better than most classical musicians, and he can sort of just figure things out on the fly, and it’s amazing – he has astonishing memory as well. That’s where the sort of the difference in the worlds that we come from, that’s where it’s most obvious, because we have to, we have to create on our own.

You do a lot of collaboration – what does your spirit feel about that?

It’s well, it’s very grateful. In the beginning of my career, I was just playing on my own. And I found within three or four years, I was looking for something else because I just found it a lonely experience both personally and artistically. I really missed not being able to explore things in the moment on stage. And you know, even in the sort of strict confines of classical music, with my brother (guitarist, Leonard Grigoryan), and my wife (cellist, Sharon Draper), there’s a lot of room for moving things around. Yes, crazy, changing colors and yes, things like that. I mean, obviously one can do that on your own. But you know, having no one to enjoy that with was very lonely.

Do your parents (violinists, Eduard and Irina Grigoryan) still play?

They’ve actually just recently moved to Adelaide and live very close to me, and sometimes I get to their place, knock on the door, and I can hear the two violins playing together…

It keeps them mentally sort of connected and enjoying the benefits of making music, the joy.

So I would imagine it would have been a house full of music with you all playing?

It was. And certainly from when Lenny was old enough to hold a guitar, I was always doing something with him. Yes, mum and dad – I just remember them always rehearsing and working on things. And I think, you know, from about the age of 12, I was in a trio with both mom and dad playing, doing lots of functions – weddings and parties and stuff like that, between 12 and 18.

And then when I left for London, Lenny took over, yeah.

So it’s my understanding that your parents taught you to play? Is that right?

Yes both of them taught us – Mum was instrumental in our day-to-day practice. Dad was the one that would literally sit with us every day while we were growing up and practise with us. Help us figure things out and obviously give the practise structure.

And do you know what was very unusual in our context? He didn’t play the guitar!

Did you feel from such a young age that this was going to be your career path?

You know, I reckon I felt that kind of magnetism, yes, in terms of actually registering that this could be the thing that I do for the rest of my life, yes, when I was about 12.

Has the reality of what you imagined when you were 12, matched that vision?

It’s really surpassed it – many times.

And you know the reality, and I think this is a good when I talk to students and work with people, you have to be incredibly realistic as a student. I think being humble and being realistic is so important.

When I asked myself that question at the end of high school, Mum and Dad were actually much more forceful in terms of academic work, they didn’t want me to be a professional musician, but they obviously wanted music to be with me forever.

I deferred for a year, got into an arts engineering degree. That was my sort of focus. Get into a double degree, where you can basically keep on exploring everything and get an engineering degree at the same time.

By that stage, I was already playing and performing quite a bit. I recorded my first album, and I deferred for a year. The question that I asked myself was, ‘If you do this, if all you can get out of it is weekly gigs in little cafes or bars or whatever, if you could do ‘this’ and play music and just have enough to survive, is that enough?

And for me it was always a resounding ‘yes!’ I didn’t want anything else. If I could concentrate on music, to play the things that I loved, that was enough.

What is your current earworm?

Well, probably, because my seven-year-old son is obsessed with AC/DC – he is a very enthusiastic drummer and is obsessed with Acca Dacca and there’s always something being streamed on his little iPad – so it’s that!

What’s inspiring you now each day to get out of bed and keep going?

I think the older I get, the more appreciative I am about this opportunity. For me everything is kind of project based – a particular collaboration with someone, or a group, or whether it’s a recording project that needs to find its feet. I just really love always working on something, so even on a tour like this, and when I am getting ready for a recording – I really like that momentum.

The wonderful thing about music is that the time frames are really skewed. What I’m doing with Al right now is a really great example. Obviously, we’re playing some of the new music that we just recorded, but we’re also playing music that we recorded 30 years ago and 20 years ago, and you know, back then, I remember focusing that energy that we had into writing those pieces, and performing, and then it sort of disappears, and it goes away, and you don’t even think about it for decades. Yet, now you’re on stage playing that same stuff.

Going from project to project, there isn’t a sort of cold reality of, ‘well, that’s gone, and I’m moving on to the next thing’. You know, this stuff will continue to live if you allow it to, if you like the music, it’ll definitely keep on.

There’s so many things that I find inspiring, different guitars, playing, electric guitar, playing, experimenting with sounds I’d love to be more proficient in a studio, you know, actually have a bit of technical skill as well.

You’ll turn 50 later this year, is there something you haven’t done yet?

Honestly, I really don’t know. It depends on how you look at it. Because, you know, on the one hand, like I’m really happy with the balance of things that I’m doing right now. I never want that to stop. I don’t want to retire. Just keep on doing these things.

But of course, that also means, I haven’t done everything that I want to do. To give you an example: with what Lenny and I do together, we’ve probably got about three or four albums of material just sort of sitting there that’s going to take the next, realistically, with everything else in between, the next ten years. Ten years at least!

And by that stage, I’m sure there’s going to be more. And all of these things are projects that are quite different and meaningful in their own way. And so there’s this kind of ‘forever’ list of things to do, but at the same time, I don’t feel like I need to reinvent what I’m doing in any particular way.

I’m imagining you have a vast collection of guitars. Just for my curiosity, do you have any electric guitars?

Yes! I love playing electric – I love the sound.

What is the one that you’re loving playing at the moment?

Just before Covid, Lenny and I had started working on a project of all original music. We were commissioned by the National Museum of Australia to come up with a big project, and we wanted to use a whole lot of different guitars. And in the back of my mind I wanted to pull out the electric again, in the context with him, which we hadn’t done before.

So just before the lockdowns began, I was looking around for a nice electric guitar.

I found a 1974 Fender Telecaster which is a couple of years older than me, and it’s the fanciest electric guitar that I’ve acquired. It’s beautiful. During that recording I played that a lot and used it on other projects as well. So that’s a favourite. And actually, believe it or not, there’s a ‘family guitar’, an electric guitar, which Dad bought within a few years of us arriving in Australia. We were at some trash and treasure market and his eyes spotted an electric guitar, which he quickly snapped up. And it was a 1970s Gibson E345. Back then it was a lot of money – about $100 – but we’ve still got it. It’s still beautiful.

And you know, that was one of those lovely moments for us, because we never, as a family, with no money, would have been able to acquire an instrument.

Slava, are you having enough fun?

I am. I am having enough fun. It feels like, in general, it’s a very joyful ride and I feel really lucky to have been given the sort of opportunities that I’ve had in terms of my personal life and professional life. And you know, of course, everyone has ups and downs, but in general, I’m incredibly grateful. That’s lovely.

Tickets for this exceptional show are on sale now at: www.byroncentre.com.au