Two underage ambisexuals known as Tatu have turned the Russian pop world upside down. Now, led by their ex-psychiatrist manager, they’ve set their sights squarely on our unsuspecting TRL nation.
By Dorian Lynskey
In a photo studio in London, Russia’s biggest pop stars and one of Britain’s most successful photographers are having a difference of opinion. Julia Volkova and Lena Katina, the 17- and 18-year-old Moscow girls who together make up Tatu, are in no mood for a photo shoot. Fidgety and petulant, they perk up only when their new English-language single, “They’re Not Gonna Get Us” (in Russian, “Nas Ne Dogoniat”) is played at ear-splitting volume.
The photographer is not amused. “They’re acting like children,” he fumes. To be fair to Tatu, that’s pretty much what they are: children. But to be fair to the photographer, Julia and Lena — soon to be sensually spooning dollops of caviar to each other while wearing only their stage costumes of knee socks, panties and skimpy tank tops — are unlike any children he’s ever come across.
Tatu are not your sister’s teen-pop act. The video for their debut Russian single, “Ya Soshla S Uma” (“I’m Losing My Mind”), is a blush-worthy moment, like Elvis gyrating on The Ed Sullivan Show or Britney putting her school uniform to novel use in “ . . . Baby One More Time,” that makes all the sexual button-pushing that has come before seem roughly as provocative as a Star Trek convention.
The clip begins with Julia (brunette) and Lena (redhead) in their school uniforms, standing behind a fence in the driving rain as classmates and hatchet-faced elders look on disapprovingly. The source of their displeasure is revealed when the girls lock into a passionate, rain-slicked kiss, and plead (according to the English subtitles), “Mom and Daddy, please forgive me.” The girls shriek their plea, in voices more Bikini Kill than Britney, over abrasive electro-pop as jarring as the Prodigy’s. To say you’ve never seen or heard anything quite like it is a colossal understatement.
“When I first got it, I thought, ‘What the fuck’s going on in Russia?’ ” says Interscope Records A&R executive Martin Kierszenbaum, who signed Tatu for the rest of the world. “When you watch that video, you gasp. I think what’s shocking about it is that Julia and Lena are treating a certain subject in a very open way. You get this ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude.”
Clearly, it’s working. Tatu’s debut album, 200 Po Vstrechnoy (200 Kilometers an Hour in the Wrong Lane), has sold 1 million copies since its release last year — a figure that translates into several million more bootleg sales in Russia. An American release is scheduled for this July, backed by the corporate muscle of Interscope (Eminem, U2, Limp Bizkit). The architect of this remarkable rise is Tatu’s producer, manager and all-around Svengali Ivan Shapovalov, a charismatic 35-year-old former psychiatrist and advertising executive.
While Lena, Julia and the photographer take a short break to calm down, Shapovalov asks Blender what direction our interview will take. “Why are they interesting to you?” he says. “Is it the underage sex?”
Blender ponders how best to answer this. Shapovalov laughs. “Today, I ask the questions,” he says. “Tomorrow, you ask.”
On the other side of the studio, Anglo-Russian relations have been restored. Julia and Lena are merrily fondling each other’s bottoms while “They’re Not Gonna Get Us” shakes the building to its foundations.
The following morning, Tatu are preparing to record their third English-language single at Sarm Hookend, the vast manor house/studio complex of Frankie Goes to Hollywood producer Trevor Horn. Situated an hour outside London, the house was built in 1580 and was formerly owned by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. Horn says a warehouse on the grounds contains the band’s infamous inflatable pig.
Tatu, however, have no interest in rock history. They look and act like a pair of bored teenagers forced to spend a weekend in the country with their relatives. “I am so tired,” Julia laments, using one of the few English phrases she knows as she dismantles a bunch of grapes.
Shapovalov looks on indulgently. He says the girls don’t quarrel with him all that much anymore. “We had arguments a lot at the beginning,” he admits. “At first, they and their parents were angry with me, because they didn’t believe me: ‘Who is he? Maybe he’s a maniac! What does he want?’ Now, after success, they relax.” He laughs.
Julia and Lena have a surreal existence, made up almost entirely of recording, rehearsing, performing and promoting their music. Ask them about their life outside Tatu and they seem perplexed. They rarely see their friends and don’t often get harassed by fans when they walk down the street for the simple reason that they don’t have much time to walk down the street.
“Friends say, ‘Lena, Julia, How are you? When will you come?’ ” says Lena, a little ruefully. “Julia and I want to see them and say something to them, and it’s difficult.”
Then there’s the language problem. Julia’s English is about as good as Blender’s Russian, and Lena is far from fluent, so their answers are often filtered through an interpreter, Annie Korsetova, Universal Russia’s head of marketing. What the girls really think remains elusive, and perhaps they prefer it that way.
The pair first met in the children’s pop group Neposedi, an assembly-line outfit divided into four age categories, like classes at school. Tatu’s official online biography (taty.universalmusic.ru) claims that Julia was forced to leave the band after “molesting” the other girls. “She was provocative, and the director didn’t like the way she was acting,” the translator explains.
“He said, ‘Julia’s a bad girl, and she shouldn’t be in this band with little kids,’ ” adds Lena, hooting with laughter.
At the time, Shapovalov was looking to move from advertising into directing music videos. The quickest way to do that, he concluded, was simply to create his own pop stars.
“At first, the idea was just underage sex,” he explains with remarkable frankness. He held auditions and considered working with just Lena, but decided the project needed an extra ingredient: Lena’s friend Julia. “I find the idea which connects my product,” Shapovalov says, holding up a banana to illustrate his point, “and what the audience needs.” Another banana. “Every time, the audience needs new images — for this project, new images were lesbian teenagers.”
The nature of the girls’ relationship is hard to pinpoint. When the camera isn’t on them, they don’t kiss, hold hands or show any great affection, and they hide behind the language barrier to avoid giving precise answers.
“When a girl loves a girl or a boy loves a boy, it’s not normal for other people, and we wanted to say that it is normal,” says Lena. “It is, and it will be. We want understanding from other people.”
So are you two dating?
“A lot of people think it’s just play, it’s just image, and it doesn’t matter what people think about us. It’s just our relationship.”
Shapovalov is just as cagey.
“Julia has a lot of sexuality,” he says. “A lot. I’m not sure that she finds only boys attractive. I think she has experience, because she loves it. It’s not all that far from reality.”
Are they or are they not a couple?
He grins conspiratorially. “Let me stay hidden. OK?”
Shapovalov’s stint in advertising clearly taught him that a good story can be more enjoyable than the truth. Part of pop’s fun is speculation: Is this star gay? Is that star really a virgin?
“I like the fact that Ivan has a plan,” says producer Horn, who made his reputation with high-concept acts Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys and ABC. “Music has so many things to compete with now — you have to sell people more than a snatch of music. You have to sell them a story.”
In Russia, Tatu’s fans are the first generation of teenagers to grow up with little or no memory of communism, and they lap up the duo’s graphic libertarian message. America may not be so enthusiastic. “Can you believe Russia is now more free than America?” Shapovalov marvels. “America is too totalitarian.”
Even in Russia, however, Tatu are controversial. While the teen press has embraced them, the mainstream media have been critical of Shapovalov’s role.
“People try to protect their children from Tatu,” he says. “It’s impossible, because Tatu is a product of the street. It’s not fake. The songs’ message is real, because sex is the biggest part of a teenager’s life — more important than school, parents, family.”
What is the age of consent in Russia?
“Teenagers can have sex at any age, in my opinion.”
But what does the law say?
“I don’t know, ha ha. I didn’t read the law. I’m not interested in what it says.”
It’s no surprise to learn that Tatu’s fan base is not limited to teenagers.
“From 5 years old to 75,” says Lena. “Sometimes you see very old men, and they’re just looking at us . . . ” She imitates a pop-eyed gape. “ . . . And smiling. Ha ha. It’s so funny!”
Isn’t it creepy?
“No, it’s good, because everybody likes us.”
Of course, Tatu would not be the first teen idols to attract the wrong kind of attention, and after all, they project a genuine adolescent abrasiveness that’s far removed from the glossy titillation of most teen-pop acts. Shapovalov is confident Julia and Lena will stick with the band. He says he has the Tatu concept plotted out for the next five years, well beyond the girls’ teens, although he won’t divulge any details. He is on a mission.
“You know this book the Bible?” he asks.
We’re aware of it, yes.
“It’s a book about how to save humanity from death, yes? When people read the Bible, they’re looking for a way to escape death. Where is this way? The Bible answers not all the questions. Show business is part of looking for this way. The way to save humanity from death is to be new, and I’m part of that. I’m looking for new.” He beams. “I’m looking for another context of love.”
And if saving humanity from death involves teenage lesbians in knee socks, well, that’s just a bonus.
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