Valery Lysenko

Valery Lysenko was born on 26 August 1961. Russian reports differ on where: RIA Novosti gave Belgorod, while sources quoted by TASS gave the stanitsa of Vyoshenskaya in Rostov region. As a child he studied the bayan, the Russian button accordion, at a music school in Belgorod, but it was the drums that became his real passion. According to Komsomolskaya Pravda, he went on to study for several years at the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB in Moscow.

In the summer of 1985 Lysenko met Oleg Usmanov, a language institute graduate who played double bass, and was immediately invited to join his group as drummer alongside guitarist Vadim Dorokhov. Lysenko gave the band its name, Mister Twister, after Samuil Marshak's satirical poem. After twenty days of rehearsals the trio gave its first concert on 25 December 1985, with Lysenko on drums and vocals. Its repertoire mixed classic rock and roll numbers from abroad, Soviet hits of the 1960s and its own songs.

On 1 April 1986 the band played at the April Fools' Day celebrations on the Arbat, and from that July it was the resident band at the Blue Bird cafe in Moscow. In December 1987 it played Rock Panorama 87. The state label Melodiya released its debut album in 1990 in an edition of 337,000 copies, and the band appeared on the television shows Shire Krug, Vzglyad and Utrennyaya Pochta. Its best known songs include Kanikuly lyubvi, Mister Twister and Devki, pivo i rok-n-roll.

After guitarist Vadim Dorokhov died of a heart attack in June 1991, Lysenko remained the band's constant member through many changes of line-up. Mister Twister released Devki, pivo i rok-n-roll in 1993, appeared in the 1994 film Nocturne for Drum and Motorcycle with Sergei Bezrukov, and released the compilation Pervye tvisty in 1996, Millioner in 1999, Live in Schwein in 2004 and Rocker in 2005. In October 1997 the band played with Lee Rocker of the Stray Cats, and on 25 October 2008 it performed at the Moscow presentation of the film Stilyagi in the GUM department store. The band played festivals across Russia and abroad, including Nashestvie and Sotvorenie Mira.

From 2009 Lysenko also performed in Beseda, a duo singing popular Cossack songs.

Lysenko was known throughout the Russian rock and roll scene by his nickname Yozh, the Hedgehog. Friends said he had a stroke in 2025 and recovered fully after rehabilitation. Little else about his private life was made public.

Lysenko died on 27 October 2026, aged 65. According to a source close to him quoted by TASS, he fell and hurt himself while staying at a friend's dacha, and his body was found the following morning. People close to him said an investigation into the circumstances was under way, and no exact cause of death was made public. No link between his stroke in 2025 and his death was established. His death was reported on 28 October by RIA Novosti, TASS, Kommersant, Komsomolskaya Pravda and Moskovsky Komsomolets.

Mister Twister was one of the pioneers of rockabilly in the Soviet Union and among its most popular exponents, bringing the music and style of the 1950s to late Soviet audiences at a time when rock was only beginning to be allowed on official stages. As the band's founding drummer, singer and the man who named it, Lysenko carried it for more than four decades, outlasting every other original member and keeping its songs alive at festivals and on the club circuit.