Alex

36 years old living in little town in Northwest Ohio, USA of all places
Musical interests:

• Favourite genres: Metal of all breeds, shapes and sizes, passing interest in classical music (used to play piano in my formative years)
• Favourite bands: Dark Tranquillity, old Judas Priest, Amon Amarth, After Forever, Black League, Black Sabbath with Dio and Tony Martin, Blind Guardian, late Carcass, early Dio, Dismember, anything with Dan Swano at controls, Evergrey, Hollenthon, Immortal, Lake of Tears, Opeth, Old Man's Child, Royal Hunt, Savatage, Sentenced, Therion, early In Flames, Vintersorg, Winds, Green Carnation, Yearning -- I was writing from the memory so I could have forgotten someone
• All time favourite album: Defenders of the Faith by Judas Priest, Haven and Damage Done by Dark Tranquillity, Heaven and Hell by Black Sabbath

I'm human too:

• Cool day job: being in charge of research, development and daily operations at a small chemical company
• Hobbies: outside of Metal, playing American football every weekend and soccer in the summer, watching college hockey (Falcons forever), reading anything I can get my hands on books/metal and sports magazines, trying to understand the madness of world politics, but above all being with my daughter
• Bragging about education/college degrees: Bachelor in Chemistry from one of the leading Russian chemical institutions, Ph.D. in Photochemical Science from a small specialized school in the US

How I got into Metal:

I was born in Kiev, Ukraine, a part of the former Communist Soviet Union. I listened to a whole bunch of crap until 1984 when "Defenders of the Faith" by Judas Priest crept into my life (I was only 14 at the time). Life has never been the same since. Metal fans weren't very popular in the USSR then. Instead, they had a chance to end up in jail, or at least be detained by the police. Metal music was totally underground, unbelievably expensive and dangerous to get. 3-4 LP's cost about one monthly salary of a good engineer. Even if you were willing to shell out some $ you had to jump through the hoops to get it. I became an underground trader, so I bought LPs, recorded stuff on tapes, and moved on by selling them to afford more LP’s further. I got caught by the police two times (they kicked the living daylights out of me at the station), and they barely let me graduate out of high school. Many years later I now live in the US, have a doctorate degree in chemistry and run a small company. All my life metal has been so important to me I can’t think of myself without listening to an album or two throughout the day. My personal collection has about 850 CD’s in it ranging from classic traditional metal to death, gothic and black.

My personal credo: One of my favorite bands, Sentenced, has a quote in one of the songs on Crimson album. "Sometimes I feel it would be better for us all if I ceased to exist, or was never born at all". With every passing day I live, the LESS I can say this quote applies to me the happier I feel.