‎"More slowly, take it easy" ... sings Stefan Valdobrev, and this refrain has been repeated by Bulgarians in the country and abroad for several years in the hope of reducing the speed at which we turn the arrows of our daily lives...‎

Stefan Valdobrev is known for his ability to feel the pulse of the time with the lyrics he creates - direct, poetic, beautiful. He admits that he equally likes all the genres of art to which he has dedicated himself and that diversity charges him: "You have a story to tell people, to excite them - whether you will tell it with poetry, with rhymes, whether it will be through prose, or whether you will do it with your body and face, with your voice, or with a melody - it doesn't matter!" 

Therefore, in addition to graduating from the National Academy of Theater and Film Arts and acting in a number of theater and film projects, releasing nine albums with original songs and composing music for dozens of domestic films and theater productions, Valdobrev complements his much-needed diversity by creating the pop band "The Usual Suspects". 

"Beard Glue" appeared in the autumn of 2019", recalls Stefan Valdobrev in an interview for Radio Bulgaria. "I really wanted to record it in an arrangement for a symphony orchestra. At the time, I was working at the Plovdiv Opera, as together we had done an extremely successful "Po-Poleka Symphony" (More Slowly Symphony) tour, and I wanted to continue our collaboration. I wrote the lyrics for the song all summer, and its arrangement for the orchestra was made by composer Petar Kerkelov and conductor Konstantin Dobroikov. We recorded it at the First Studio of the Bulgarian National Radio's local station in Plovdiv. Then it was time to mix it, but everything went very slowly and it was not ready until a few days before Christmas. We didn't have time to shoot a video for it, nor to put it in rotation, and after a few months the pandemic started and it happened that we used the summers in which we could present our Christmas song." 

This year, "The Usual Suspects" will not betray the tradition of delighting the audience with a concert that unites all the holidays at the end of the calendar year: 

"I avoid working on Christian holidays because I am a believer and I believe that everyone should be with their family on these days. However, immediately after Christmas comes Stefanovden (Saint Stephen's Day on December 27), when I receive more congratulations than even on my birthday. We even have our so-called "ten-day holiday" of "The Usual Suspects", which starts on December 26, when it is the birthday of one of our guitarists - Miroslav Ivanov, on the 27th we celebrate our name day with Stoyan Yankulov, on January 1 is the name's day of Vesselin Vesselinov-EKO, and then it is Ivanovden (Saint John's Day), when our other guitarist Ivan Lechev celebrates. We are uniting all these occasions with a concert on December 27th, and I know that you don't need to invite people to your name's day but people always come and I am very happy."‎