User:Vx5686/Vitalex

Vitaly Alexandrovich Meshkov, (June 5, 1986), better known by his stage name Vitalex or simply V, is a Russian musician, best known for being the lead guitarist of the heavy metal band Phyre. Vitaly was born in the town of Elizovo, located on the Kamchatka peninsula, at the very east of Russia. His mom Irina took him to a guitar class when he was still in elementary school. However, he didn't express any interest in the subject at the time, for the teaching techniques at the class involved complicated for a regular kid music notation. When he turned eleven his family moved to Blagoveshchensk in the Amur region, in the east of Russia. In highschool he took acoustic guitar class, but only because every student had to pick a class out of a list on which guitar seemed an obvious choice (with other options being computer science, chess and other lame subjects). Vitaly didn't develop his guitar playing skills into anything bigger for one major reason - hip-hop culture became increasingly popular in Russia at the time, and V was no exception to being fond of such performers as Eminem, 50 cent, DMX, RUN DMC and the like. He started writing hip-hop oriented music using computer programs that allowed to create beats. Vitalex started learning English when he was just 8 years old. Most of the time he had a personal tutor, which, combined with his natural ability to learn foreign languages, resulted in his fluent English. Along with the beats he started writing lyrics in English, which developed his skills in songwriting. Vitaly's first rock influence was the band Limp Bizkit, who recently came out with their "Chocolate Starfish And Hot Dog Flavoured Water" in 2000. Being a combination of heavy metal riffs, rapping and DJ-ing, Limp Bizkit quickly became a favorite. Vitalex finished highschool in 2003, and was able to get into the Amur State University (AmSU). His major was interpreting, with English being primary language and German being secondary. After he finished his second year, he applied for a studet exchange program, and after the finals, for the very first time Vitalex visited the US. He spent the whole summer in Virginia Beach, VA, working at a pizza shop and then a bike shop. By that time hip-hop music was almost entirely substituted by heavy metal in V's preferences. Such bands as the Offspring, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath and Metallica became his favorites. Having visited the US Vitaly realized that in his views and way of life he had very much in common with American culture. When V returned to Russia, he decided that the following year he would go back to the US, this time with migrating intentions. In 2006 he returned to the US. When the summer was over he applied for a tourist visa. Having trouble finding a job without a permission to work made music go to the background in Vitaly's life. It wasn't until the spring of 2007 that V finally found spare time for having a hobby. That was when he bought his first electric guitar. It was a $300 beginners kit with a Fender Stratocaster, and a 15-watt Frontman Fender amp. Every day after work he was playing Ozzy, Sabbath and Metallica tunes, getting used to the electric guitar sound and shape. In June 2008 he got a job at Beach Bella Pizza as a delivery driver, where he met Victor Ramirez. Having similar passion for music they decided to try to make some tunes together. "Since then Vic's place was always rocking. Our friends would come over, hang out, we would make beats, record guitar and vocals. We had a whole studio going on." One of those people happened to be a guitarist by the name Jordan Daniels, who, according to Vitalex, changed his direction in songwriting entirely by introducing him to the bands such as Avenged Sevenfold (who became V's favorite band later on), All That Remains, Bullet for my Valentine and Story of the Year, who became Vitaly's major influences in the next years. Vitalex, Victor and Jordan decided that it might be a good idea to form a band influenced by hip-hop and rock. The band was named D.O.N. which stood for Drop-Out Nation due to the fact that all four (singer as well) dropped out of school at some point in their lives. A few songs were written including "Jordans Harmony", the demo of which exists to this day and can be found in the Internet. D.O.N. had only one live show on march 12th 2009 in a local bar named "Sandbar". According to every member (except for Vic - he always tried to be optimistic) the show was a total disaster - the sound wad horrible, Vitalex messed up the intro solo and Jon T (the singer) forgot the words in one of the songs - an early version of " " - and, according to him, blacked out for those few seconds. The band was done a couple of months later when drunk and angry Victor smashed Jon's 20-year-old acoustic guitar against a wall, shattering it in pieces. After the incident Vitalex moved out from Vic's place and Vic went back to New York. In the following year Vitalex moved a lot, never settling down for longer than 3 months. He tried to get a band together, but due to a lot of instabilities in his life, he couldn't get down to anything serious. The only progress made towards music was made by creating riffs, songs, writing lyrics and practicing guitar. By the fall of 2010 Vitalex had enough material written to record an album. He finally acquired the long needed stability with the most important things in life. He then decided that after he comes back from the planned vacation in California, he would get a band together and start practicing to be ready to hit the local musical scene when the spring comes.