Leonid Vorobyev on Pursuing Your Dreams at any Age

the theme we have for

tedx dupree park is seating greatness

and it’s about wonderful things that are

happening that we have with many of the

speakers

and right now you’re going to get a

chance to experience seeding greatness

in a beautiful way through music and how

music has done that in such a beautiful

way

we’re going to be talking with leonid

who is the

founder of leonid and friends and he is

a person

that really emulates what it means to

see greatness and he is joining us right

now

from a studio over in moscow russia and

he’s accompanied by roman

laden as well leonard vorabev we’re so

glad to have you here with us today

dobro prajalabat welcome sir

hello terry thank you for

inviting us to take part in tedx it’s a

big honor

well we are really glad to have you here

because what you have done is nothing

short of amazing i mean as i look at

what you’ve done just before we went on

here i went over and checked out youtube

and your videos where you emulate the

wonderful bands like

earth wind and fire ides of march the

beatles and particularly

chicago because those of you watching

this listen to this

as of right now i looked over there

saturday in the park you remember that

chicago song

1.7 million views we look at does

anybody really know what time it is

3.2 million views so far one of my

favorite songs

25 or 6 to 4 4 million views

and coming in at 7.3 million

september by yep that’s right earth wind

and fire

and this ban emulates it so what i want

to do leonid

is want to talk to you about this how

you got the band started

what gave you the idea to do that and

also

why chicago is the band we’re glad you

did it and why that all came about

okay well it’s it all started on my

60th birthday which was already six

years ago

i was jogging in the park and recalling

people

usually saying oh when i retire i will

finally do what i love fishing or

gardening or some

other hobby well i’ve been dedicated to

music all my life and

this is my biggest passion so i didn’t

want to change that

but i still wanted to celebrate this

mark in a special way

i have remembered the song that we used

to play in a band when i was young a

trek from

one of my favorite events chicago called

brand new love affair

but we didn’t have a proper breath

section at that time

so i thought it would be cool to record

it

properly now i called my friends who are

all

highly skilled professional musicians

and i knew they

would not refuse me a favor because i

had them many times before

we got together filmed a simple studio

video as we were playing

i put it up on youtube with no

expectation at all

it was merely a gift to myself i was

even ready that american audience

especially chicago fans will

you know scorn us like those russians

who do they think they are but little

that i knew a few weeks later it was

already on chicago’s official website

and we were getting waves of

acknowledgements

and lots of positive comments and as

the saying goes the rest is history

well you’ve done a marvelous job with

that and we just love it those of us i

grew up listening to chicago

and just loved what we’ve done there but

i understand also i want to go even

deeper here

on something that’s going to be of help

to people you looked at the songs

and you not and brought in others who

didn’t necessarily speak english

and you emulated what they do almost

perfectly i mean it sounds

exactly like chicago i was listening to

growing up on that and so

how did you reverse engineer that and

how could we use some of those

principles in our own lives

to reverse engineer good practices

okay for that i have to back to the time

uh when i was growing up in a little

town in siberia behind the

iron curtain you know back in the 60s

and in the beginning of 70s there was no

such

thing as electric guitar available in

stores in the soviet union

you could find it only in some official

places

and the only way to get a guitar like

that was

do it yourself at that point i found a

popular science magazine for teenagers

that explain how to make an electric

guitar with

all drawings and sketches one important

detail was to have an electronic pickup

and they suggested to get one from an

old telephone headset

but i didn’t have any old telephones so

i looked

around on the streets and i found that

all the telephone booths

were missing handsets funnier that they

were

cut off and that seemed like

the whole town has read that magazine

before i did

and right and right after school i

entered

the polytechnic college and not because

my parents insisted but because

i knew that there was a full music set

at the college available including real

electric guitars

drums and some sound equipment like

amplifiers and so on

during the whole first year i tried to

reach those instruments

but the senior undergrads didn’t let me

so i found unoccupied instruments

at the railroad depot outside the town

and the guys who played there before had

to go to army

and the instruments became available the

guy in charge there

asked me do you have a band and i

confidently say

confidently say of course but actually

yeah he said that i have two months to

get ready to perform a real big show uh

all i could find at that point was

for guys who barely played play any

instruments

and i began to make something that

resembles a band out of them

during the next two months every morning

i left home for the university

but actually i took two transfers by bus

to go outside the town to my rehearsal

base

and during the day i was transcribing

songs breaking apart

all instrumental powers by year in the

evening my guys would come in

and i showed each one of them what to

play and sing and how to do

it and step by step

i mastered all the instrumental

instruments in the band

of voices in in harmonies and uh

my guys started sound like real bad

well you can imagine what happened when

my mother

found out from a professor at the

college that i was absent for months

oh yeah after all i did transfer myself

from the polytechnic college to the

university of culture where i started to

become a quiet conductor and now i

realize

that every skill that i have learned and

developed in my life

proved useful when i started to

transcribe and produce chicago music

because i had to take apart every

instrument voice and harmony in order to

recreate it

as a whole so i would say

do not throw away any skill that you

have learned

in any area because it still has a

meaning

and you never know where it’s going to

take you

i love that style of adapting and

reverse engineering and doing a lot of

us can use that in our lives

all of us can implement it in some form

and i think that’s brilliant

my next question i want to shift over to

you roman because you get a chance to

work with this wonderful guy who’s your

father

but also abandon you touring around the

united states touring around the world

what’s it really like being with him

we’re going put put him outside

for just a minute there tell us what

it’s really like being with them

on the band well in short uh i’m a very

lucky guy

to be a son of a rock star wow you know

yeah but also because um he’s my best

friend

and i owed him all the support he gave

me including

great taste of music that he instilled

in me

so um when i joined in as the manager

i felt it was my duty to help my father

make his you know this dream come true

and at the same time i can

hang out with some awesome musicians and

listen to my favorite music

right yes well they really are awesome

as we look at what they’re doing and how

they’re doing it

and a matter of fact for those of you

watching this you want to go over to

youtube

and type in uh leonid and by the way the

way we spell that is l-e-o-n-i-d

pronounced leo need in russian and you

want to type that in leo need

and friends put that and get ready to

smile because you’re going to enjoy it

we go through that and do it and so as

we look at it

also lenny i want to come back to you

and say you know as we look at what’s

going on you are looking at retirement

and a lot of people today on our

generation you are just a

couple years ahead of me so we’re both

in that age where we’re looking at the

retirement and some people think oh

i’m just going to relax and kick back

and all that what are your thoughts

on retirement and the idea of seeding

greatness

at any age in life okay

well first of all i’ve never

disconnected from people who

over the years kept me busy demanded

something from me

or motivated me and just kept my hands

full

even though they used to be pain in the

butt once you retire

they become your saving grace and they

will

keep you from going stale and just

slowly fade away you know

i also try to stay away from people who

tell me that i should rest more

that i have earned it and should take it

easy

in my opinion work is a game with

purpose

and leisure is again without purpose

second of all once you retire you are

probably no longer tied up

with formal job obligations and other

people’s viewpoints so you are free to

do things your way

and it’s a big freedom to have because

you can finally trust yourself with what

you feel is right

and now not listen to anybody

else now it’s your privilege in my case

with leonid and france

i broke many rules as singing in english

and russia

has no prospects same with performing

the music of chicago that is not widely

known here

and at last going on stage when you are

60 is nonsense

but you care about it and focus on

producing a product that

i will be satisfied with first of all

i love that i think that’s really

important yeah i think that’s

extraordinarily important i want to

build on top of that

to get some advice from you what would

you say a person

who’s watching this and needs to learn

about how to adapt you’ve done that

you’ve adapted you

improvise and you keep changing what

advice would you give to people

that are thinking that they would like

to do that but haven’t done it yet

okay i once read a story about

uh an english lady her name is mary

hopson

who at the age of 56 started to learn

russian

then she she then traveled and lived in

russia for a while to study and practice

it profoundly

now she is in her 94

and she makes her own translation of

famous russian authors like alexander

pushkin and gribaldo and she won

several medals as a best translator this

is a great example of how to prolong

your mental activity

and clarity of your mind by always

developing new skills

and never stop learning something new

i love it i think that’s really

important well as a final question

i’d like to ask you as we look at what

you’ve done you started a new business

at the age of 60 and you’ve become a

worldwide sensation that we listen to i

listen to it regularly the music you

have

it’s just marvelous what would you say

to people

that are watching this that say okay i’d

like to do something and how can they be

successful how can they get out at

whatever age they might be what would

you say is they’re looking into the

camera right now

looking at and watching you as you’re

saying

what they can do and how they can become

the person that they want to be

oh well first of all thank you for such

acknowledgements

it still seems a bit hard to conceive

what we have accomplished

in my experience everything worthwhile

that i have achieved in life

i did so despite all the odds and not by

virtue of circumstance

growing up in behind the iron curtain i

couldn’t simply buy rock jazz or pop

records in stores

i had to make my own guitar in order to

play overcoming the

resistance resistance from my parents

who did not approve of my music career

and wanted to see me as an

engineer and just going against the

whole community system that didn’t let

me do what i wanted to do

and it always seems it’s never the right

time to start something new

and today it’s especially true with what

is going on around the world

but the moment you give up your purpose

you become

half a life you know i have buried my

own purpose

of creating a dream band when i was

about 25

because it seemed like life demanded

something else more relevant at that

time and the

people told me not to keep my head in

the clouds

and at some point about it and it turns

out that i was wrong

when i reached 60 it was simply a

decision to revive that purpose

with no expectation attached as i could

finally afford it but

the truth of the matter i could have

afforded it

years earlier so it’s never too late to

revive your purposes

and your passion for something and i

really think it is

the best way to revive yourself and live

to the fullest

absolutely i also want to say that i am

blessed to have friends

who are extraordinary musicians and who

share this journey with me

this would not have been possible

without them yeah

it’s not for no i called the band

learning than friends

and our big achievement is that

all the friends we now have around the

globe

yes again for having us here well we

appreciate it and really appreciate what

you are doing both of you

uh leonid and uh roman we appreciate you

spasiba bolshoi

thank you very much for what you have

done yeah terry i would like to just

add a couple more words for myself you

know um

probably the most amazing thing i could

tell you of course how it

is an incredible adventure to travel and

perform and

and so forth and how the shows work but

the connection we have

with our fans is phenomenal it’s a

friendship and love

that we get is overwhelming you know

it’s our extended family now

so we try to give back as much as

possible

we try to treat everybody as our

personal friend as a special guest

anywhere we go and we hope to be you

know um

as kind of like ambassadors of peace

yeah you know

coming from the other side of the planet

and music really serves us as

the universal language i love the way

you say that because that’s what you’re

doing you’re uniting the world with zero

politics but it’s just

people getting together around the world

sharing great music

good times and being together thank you

both for what you’re doing and please

tell the band we said thank you to them

as well

thank you terry thank you and for those

of you watching this think about this

think about how you can implement that

kind of courage that kind of

uh inspiration to get going and be

creative

work yes things are going to be hard at

times look what he had to go through

but now look where he has and it doesn’t

matter what age you are

that is the message that is really about

seating greatness

i’m terry brock and thank you for

joining us for this

you