He modifies guitars for famous musicians.
Recently Tsar modified a guitar for the Armenian-American rock band System Of A Down’s (SOAD) guitarist Daron Malakian. Malakian has even used the guitar in his latest music video.
But Tsar is nowhere near stopping, he says soon he will prepare custom-made guitars for the other members of SOAD.
In an interview to ARMENPRESS, Vladimir Tsar talked about this incredible hobby, his first guitar and upcoming creations.
The beginning of an interesting hobby
I was born and raised in Moscow [Russia]. I studied architecture-construction. I moved to the United States with my family in 1991. I’ve been living in Miami in the past seven years. My main activity is very clear for residents of Florida’s coastal region, I am a real estate agent. In addition, me and my wife are also engaged in interior design and decoration. The guitar topic began a few years ago. My decorator, florist and photographer wife Katya and I began using guitars. We take a simple electric guitar and we paint it – making it another color. It becomes a piece of art, although it can be played on. At the beginning we were simply changing the color of the guitars, then imagination kicked in.
The First Guitar
I did not know Sergey Shnurov, frontman of Leningrad [rock band], composer, poet, painter, actor, producer, showman and the most famous media figure after Vladimir Putin in Russia, we didn’t even have mutual acquaintances. I opened an Instagram account about three years ago, I began following various people, and I saw photos of Sergey who was vacationing in Santa Monica. In the comments section I wrote : “Could you sign my 1983 Fender Telecaster guitar?” I had to depart for LA with my family at that time. My comment was followed by unbelievable developments. Sergey read my comment and replied, saying he is leaving for Russia in two days, he followed me back and suggested me to message him immediately. I momentarily asked my wife to clarify for me how to send a message, I messaged Sergey the contacts of a university friend of mine who lives in LA, whom in turn I quickly mailed by guitar. Shnurov contacted her, my friend took the guitar to him and Shnurov signed it.
A few months later I personally met Sergey Shnurov after his concert in Riga. We talked about literature and music for about half an hour. In the end I told him about my idea on making a vintage guitar , and he liked it. I made a Photoshop sketch upon returning to Miami. A month later the guitar was already in St. Petersburg, at Shnurov’s. And in 2016 he played on this guitar in the Ice Palace before an audience of 18,000. Shnurov has also displayed the guitar at his individual exhibition.
Guitar for System Of A Down’s Daron Malakian
Both SOAD and Leningrad were highly popular in the 2000s. I was a fan of Leningrad, my son Alexei was a fan of SOAD. Eventually it so happened that he began liking Leningrad, and I began listening to System Of A Down, in order to understand it. My wings had grown after the first guitar story, and there was no doubt on who the next guitar will be for.
I was thinking that the guitar must be image of SOAD, and especially Daron Malakian. I’ve heard somewhere that true art is born by harmoniously combining the incompatible. That’s what the guys from System Of A Down did, when they combined heavy metal and Armenian intonation. And that’s truly amazing. And this is all that I have tried to convey on the guitar. Since 1977, Paul Stanley from KISS made the Ibanez Iceman guitar popular, and I placed the map of Armenia on this type of a guitar.
It would be too simple to draw an Armenian flag or a carpet. It is another thing to engrave the map of Armenia, surrounded by neighboring coun...
Read full story