Наив is russian Punk rock band. The leader of the group is Alexander "ChaCha" Ivanov (vocals), the director of the group is Dmitri "Snake" Khakimov.

::The history of the group::

1989-2004

The beginning:

NAIVE was formed in the army in the autumn of 1988 by two private soldiers Aleksander Ivanov and Maksim Kochetkov. This is already quite unusual for a punk group. The next year is considered to be the beginning of the “civillian period” in the band’s development: after the army, some members of the group “Rock-laboratory” joined NAIVE, and then in 1990 they recorded their first album “Switch-Blade Knaife on the American label “MaximumRock’N’Roll”.

Their debut album “Switch-Blade Knaife”(1991) kept its position in the charts of several national radio stations for many months and secured 6th place in record sales of punk-rock albums in the USSR.

In the summer of 1992, NAIVE performed with the group “Millions of Dead Cops” in DK Gorbunova in Moscow, Russia.

NAIVE’s second album “Piva Dlya Naiva”(Beer for NAIVE) was followed by a European tour organized by Dutch company "Subvert Productions" in 1993. They played in Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and Italy. In total they played 40 concerts (10 with the band “Coffin Break” from Seattle and one show with "Coffin Break" and "D.O.A.").

Some of Russia’s most famous punk bands such as "Mongol Shoodan", "Va-Bank", "DSK", "Nogu Svelo!" and "Matrosskaya Tishina" took part in the recording of the album “Piva Dlya Naiva”.

NAIVE’s third album “Dehumanized States of America”, recorded with the then new bass-player Pete (Denis Petukhov), was released on the independent label "S.O.S. Music" in September 1994.

The advertising and concert-presentation of this album attracted a lot of attention from alternative music radio programs (all Moscow FM radio stations and some national programs) and some television stations as well (“Post-Musical News” BIZ-TV).

1997-2000

In 1997 NAIVE released a new album called “Post-Alkogol’nye Strahi” with the new drummer Snake (Dmitriy Khakimov). NAIVE’s old friend Bill Gould (ex-"Faith No More") took part in recording the album as a sound-producer.

In 1998 NAIVE played more than 60 concerts in different local clubs throughout Moscow, Saint Petersburg and other cities of Russia. The band also participated in many great concerts such as some awesome gigs with "The Exploited" in SKK “Yubileyny”in Saint Petersburg and DK Gorbunova in Moscow, and “10 years in punk-rock”(devoted to the 10th anniversary of the group, in which such leading punk and rock forces of the country as "Va-Bank", "Tarakany!", "Ul’I" , "Distemper", etc. also took part).

In 1999 the album “Post-Alkogol’nye Strahi” was released in the USA on "Kool Arrow Records" with the title “Post Alcoholic Anxieties”.

In 2000 NAIVE’s fifth studio album “Optom I V Roznitsu” ("Wholesale and Retail") was released. This was the most commercially successful record to date and also had the most support from mass media (MTV, Muz-TV, Nashe Radio, Radio Ultra, etc). The song “Superzvezda” from the album was awarded the first prize in “Chartova Dyuzhina” ( the hit-parade of Nashe Radio) and the video for this song maintained its rotation at the top of “Russkaya Desyatka” and “Dvadtsatka samyh-samyh” on MTV.

2001

In May of 2001 the band’s sixth CD, the live album “Rock”, was released. It was recorded at the group’s 12th birthday party/concert in CDK MAI on December 2nd 2000. The album includes the studio version of the song “Rock”, for which the album was named. The video for this song was shot by the director El’dar Salovatov and was in rotation on “MTV-Russia” for more than 3 months in the hit-parade “Russkaya Desyatka”.

This song was fully supported by Nashe Radio and was in the hit-parade “Chartova Dyuzhina” for more than 2 months.

The year 2001 was a time for major changes in the band. Aleksander Golant (who used to play in "Tarakany!") joined the group, replacing Ruslan Stupin.

On August 5th, NAIVE and DDT were headliners of the final day of the Nashestvie festival in Ramenskoe. The festival gathered a crowd more than 100,000. NAIVE’s triumphal performance at the festival was broadcasted on the international TV-channel TV-6.

In December NAIVE started recording their seventh album at “Soyuz” studio, where their two previous albums were also recorded and mixed.

On February 6th NAIVE put on a successful show together with "The Offspring" in DK Luzhniki.

2002

On April 20th the presentation of the seventh album “Foreva” took place and as with the last few albums, it was also well supported by mass media. The song “Ya Ne Shuchu” rose through the “Chartova Dyuzhina” charts and the video for this song got some good rotation on MTV-Russia.

Starting in June of 2002, Chacha became one of the permanent “experts” on the program “Zemlya-Vozduh”(TVS) representing the radio station “Ultra” and later that year, his own program “Za gran’yu”, about the most extreme representatives of punk-culture appeared on radio.

In the summer of 2002, Maxim Kochetkov, one of the band’s founding members, arrived to Moscow from the USA for several days during which time NAIVE played several concerts with him, including one in the club “Svalka”, which was a festival called “Panki V Gorode 2”, which was organized by NAIVE. This festival was designed to gather almost all the best punk-bands of Moscow and the suburbs together for one big concert.

In autumn 5 new tracks were recorded at the same studio where the previous albums were recorded.

On October 4th NAIVE organized an action called “NME - Fuck Off” and even dedicated a song to the Russian representatives of the British musical publication. The press and mass media ambiguously portrayed the act, but any references to NAIVE mysteriously vanished from the magazine and instead, in the place of the band’s name the sign appeared.

On December 29th NAIVE celebrated the New Year with a 14th birthday party/concert in the club “Estakada”. Such groups as "Barrymore", "T-34", "Lumen", "Der Steinkopf", "Fantastika" and "Tri 15" played on the same stage with NAIVE as part of their birthday celebration/tribute to the band.

2003

2003 started with the already traditional festival “Panki V Gorode”.

This time the number of groups was less with only 6 of them, and the geography encorporating various punk group participants broadened by one more city to include Nizhny Novgorod. For the remaining part of the winter and the entire spring NAIVE went on tour, performing only 3 concerts in Moscow.

On June 15th the band took an active part in the final airing of the program “Zemlya-Vozduh”. Russian television had never been faced with a similar show of unrestrained drive, slamming and stage diving which all took place live on TV. Those onlookers lucky enough to witness it will never forget it!

In June the album “Optom I V Roznitsu” was re-released to include digital remastering of some songs, a new booklet, 4 bonus-tracks and 2 videos (“Superzvezda” and “Mama-Anarhiya”).

In summer of this year there was a terrorist act in Tushino and as a result of which the annual festival “Nashestvie” was held in the untraditional venue of a radio station. NAIVE took part in this festival on the first of two days by introducing 2 new songs: “Rock’n’Roll Mertv” and “Postoyanno Duyut (Kazhdy Den’)”.

Later this same summer there were several cancellations for open-air concerts in which NAIVE had intended to participate. However, the guys didn’t despair and on August 29th the fourth “Panki V Gorode” festival was held in the huge Moscow skate-park Adrenalin. A lot of people (2500 fans) came to this 6 hour punk-marathon which was the last concert held in Moscow before the release of the album “Rock’n’Roll Mertv?”, the presentation of which was held on October 18th in DK Gorbunova. It was the first solo concert of the band ever in Moscow’s most legendary DK.

The presentation of the album was extremely successful, and in all more than 3000 fans were present. Il’ya Spirin from the band “KomatozZ” was invited to participate as the second guitarist and with his participation NAIVE’s sound was enriched and transformed with additional drive and a more metal feel.

At the end of November Aleksandr Golant decided to leave NAIVE, promising to play all the concerts, which had been previously planned.

The next important event in the group’s history was their 15th Birthday. Originally planned for December 5th it was put off till December 11th due to elections that were taking place throughout the country which mean that some groups weren’t able to take part in the concert because of previous tour obligations and some fans were quite disappointed.

This concert was recorded both on audio and video and in 2004 NAIVE made some of its fans happy with the release of a live album, which will was simultaneously released on CD, VHS and DVD("Zhivoy & Nevredimiy" ("Live and Unharmed")).

2004

As perhaps predictable, this musical year began for NAIVE with the “Panki V Gorode 5” festival, which this year was a two-day festival with NAIVE headlining.

Just after the festival, the band began a tour of Siberia and Urals, which was successfully completed on February 27th in the Moscow club “CDK MAI”. Throughout the entire tour the guitarist Valera Arkadin played with NAIVE who then officially became NAIVE’s guitar-player.

2005

CD "NAIVE SONGS - A TRIBUTE TO NAIVE"

2006

CD "Obratnaya storona lyubvy" ("The Other Side of Love")

2007

Live-DVD "Alter-Ego".

2008

Now the group is in tour "20 let roka" (20 years of rock)

History - official group site http://www.naive.ru and my adds (2005-2008 years) Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.