The Cover
24 Hours with Tatu
Picture Caption- 8:00pm. The first time tatu visits Barcelona, Yulia and Lena visited the studios of a local TV Station. There they gave an interview and sang a few of their songs.
Second Page
-10:00pmMore than 500 people waited at the doors of the studio since 7pm. The girls didn't let them down.
-11:00 Coming out of the hotel, the next morning, a large number of of fans asked for their autograph.
- 11:30 Before talking with us, Julia and Lena entertained themselves while looking at our magazine.
Third Page
- 5:00pm On their way to a radio station, Julia quenches her thirst.
- 5:15pm They haven't given her time to finish her drink, so she hurries up before going on air.
- 7:00 Lena relaxes by playing pool in the hotel. It's been a hard day and a little distraction doesn't sound so bad.
Tatu-Girl's Game
It's not usual to find Russian stars in our stages. Less if they are young and provocative like the members of Tatu. Julia, brunette, and Lena, redhead, were in Barcelona to perform in the MTV Awards. We took this chance to interview them and share a whole day, during which they kept our photographer on his feet. Should we see it?
They told me they would be late, because of their make-up. They appear shortly after, at their age with little make-up they look nice. And they do, but with a rare beauty, because Julia and Lena look like they just came out of a cartoon series of Cartoon Network.
More than Friends
Any of the two would be the perfect friend for Harry Potter but, for now, they prefer to play together, on stage and offstage also. The kisses they share onstage ( You saw them in MusicaSi?) are the best presentation card, next to their first CD "200 km/h in the wrong lane", of impeccable content and more than a million copies sold in the Whole World. Their single "All the things She said", raised dust for its lyrics, in which they tell the love story of two female teenagers. Like real life.
-As far as I know you did not write the songs you are singing.
That's true, we didn't participate in the CD in any way, we didn't write it or the music. But the lyrics are written by a compositor that knows us better than anyone and it's like it was us speaking.
-What would you tell people that are sure that your relationship is a marketing strategy?
It's not. What happens onstage is our emotions and what we feel, and we express it like that. We are free and we don't want to hide anything from nobody, its a natural thing. We get very emotional while singing and thats when the kisses occur.
-Tatu was made thanks to a casting that took place in Moscow two years ago. Did you think you would make it this far?
The truth. No. In the casting there was 500 girls and they picked us. But this is what we wanted since we were little girls, we believed in ourselves and now, finally, our dream came true.
- You had been singing together already when you were little girls in a group called "Nesposedy". It looks like they threw Yulia out for bad behavior.
That's true. They threw me out for misbehaving, since I was younger I was already a little rebel.
From Russia, To the world.
- Has it been a problem for you two to sing in English?
It has been a small problem to improve our pronunciation, but we have worked a lot with our producer, Trevor Horn, who helped us a lot.
-Here we are not used to seeing Russian singers succeed like this. In fact, we know very little of the Russian music. Why do you think this happens?
We don't know, but we are very happy to be the first Russian-pop group to come out to the world. We are famous, not only here in Spain, but also all over Europe, and soon we hope to be in the United States.
-In some of your statements I've read that life in Russia is complicated. What do you mean?
Like in every country, there's bad things and good things, its not all that bad like people that don't know it think.
They Miss their Home
-What do your parents think of the Tatu success?
Since we were little girls we have been in a group, in piano school, ect. so they are already used to it. They knew we wanted to be famous, and succeed in the music industry. But its true that when we went onstage the first time and kissed they got mad.
- ?.....
Yeah... But when the other songs came out, they already knew what had happened between us, and they were happy that everything was going well.
Do you miss them?
Yes, very, we miss them and our friends. And even though it might look funny, we miss Moscow, our city, because it doesn't matter where we are we are always going to miss it. To be in Barcelona, New York, or another city its nice, but its not the same as being home.
Even though they are young- 17 Lena, younger than her friend (mistake Yulia is the youngest), they have already discovered there's no place like home. Because tatu are definetly not fools.
Love Words
We know their music, but we barely know about them, so we asked them to describe one another.
Lena about Yulia - What can you say about a person you've known for so long? She is a really nice person, as a partner and as a friend even though she has a negative side. When Julia is stressed she has mood swings, but later she goes back to being herself.
Yulia about Lena - I know that everyone has their good and bad things. She also behaves either like "this" or like "that" sometimes, but it comes to the point when she behaves bad, and I take it as something normal.
The Duet - They agree that there's not one thing they don't like about each other, and that they miss each other when they are not together: "When we are at home in Moscow, each of us in our house, we wake up in the morning and we have it bad".
- You guys are really close?
Very, more than sisters we are friends
Girlfriends or not, its obvious that Yulia and Lena get along very well. At least in public.
Translated by Trina |
