Интервью газете АиФ / AIF Newspaper Interview
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t.A.T.u. said “bye-bye”? People attacked the singers with bottles and promised to cut their tongues.
This duo was intentionally created to shock the audience. 14-year-old t.A.T.u. soloists kissed on stage, confessed they slept together, appeared in TV shows wearing «Fuck War» t-shirts.
t.A.T.u. duo became the first pop band ever from Russia, who sold over 1 million copies of their album «220 km/h in the Wrong Lane» in Europe. This year the girls had two anniversary celebrations at once. t.A.T.u. turned 10, and on 4 October one of t.A.T.u. girls, Elena Katina, is also celebrating her 25th birthday . Several days before her birthday the singer answered AIF's questions.
Lena, 10 years a big date. Why didn't you announce a big celebration?
Yul’ka and me, we had some ideas, we were going to have a party or a performance. But there was no time at all to prepare everything. Boyj me and Yulka are putting all our energy into solo projects now. I'll be staying in the US until Christmas and record new songs there. And Yulka intends to go there as well.
Newspapers were full of information that your duo broke, and you don't even talk to each other with Yulia. Is that true?
We have great relationships. We’re living almost a family life for 13 years. I mean, we’re such close people for each other… t.A.T.u. didn’t disappear. In October, for example, our latest album «Happy Smiles» should be released in Latin America (note: full info will be confirmed at tatu.ru – tatu.ru ). And while each of us is engaged with a solo project, t.A.T.u. was naturally pushed back.
Did you separate with your producer Ivan Shapovalov in a peaceful way?
Honestly, I don’t remember exactly how we separated. We performed at a party a while back, and I think Ivan came there intentionally to see us. Sure, t.A.T.u. is his creation for 100%. But after this unbelievable success not only in Russia, but in the world (which nobody expected), I guess he just didn’t know what he should do with us. Maybe this success blew his mind. When a person starts to see himself as a genius, I think, it interferes with work. He didn’t create anything cooler than t.A.T.u.
Correct orientation
When you were offered to play lesbians, weren’t you embarrassed by this role? You didn’t have homosexual love experience.
- Yul’ka did have a lesbian experience, I didn’t. So at the beginning I felt a little uncomfortable, of course. This whole thing felt strange. But I made a step because I understood the topic was very important. I’ve had a fan meeting in LA recently. Many people still thank t.A.T.u. “It’s the reason I survived,” one girl has told me. It’s terrifying after all, when at teenage you understand you aren’t like the others. All your girl friends are attracted to boys while you like girls. You feel so lonely and misunderstood… And here you see a band that tells that anything can happen in this life and you shouldn’t be afraid of yourself. When people say we have saved them from suicide, I think things done were not in vain.
And did it happen vice versa?
- Sure. People threw bottles at us during our shows, and they jumped to the stage with knives. And there were many phone calls such as, “I’ll cut your tongue to stop you sing about such things. My girlfriend left me because of you”. Of course, there was negative feedback. Older generation still blames us. If there’s love, there’s hate. It’s normal.
Did you have doubts that you did something wrong? You actually were cheating the audience when you played lesbians.
Why did we cheat? Actors, who play prostitutes or kings, aren’t the same in their real life. We were kind of actors. We invented the story of two little girls who went crazy about each other, and we’ve dramatically acted it.
Singing “double track”
At Eurovision 2003 you were the most famous participants of the contest. However you were only the third. Was it vexing?
When I returned home and listened to the recorded performance, I was really shocked! It’s not the third place, it’s 23d one. Yes, we were the “biggest”, but we sang worse than many other participants. For many years we just opened our mouths using the playback. And suddenly we need to sing live at Eurovision. We had just two rehearsals before the contest. It’s impossible to learn to sing live in this time.
And why did you use playback for so many years?
We had dancing in our performance so we used the “double track” all the time. It means you sing together with the recorded song. So sometimes you sing, sometimes you don’t. Actually there are really few artists in Russia who don’t use a playback. Generally it’s rock musicians.
Do you realize you never get there any more?
Success never lasts forever. First I felt very emotional about it, like “Oh, nobody needs us anymore”. But it was gone quite fast when we realized that – thanks God – there are still lots of our fans all over the world, who listen to us. And they wait when we create something new.
Fact File
Elena Katina was born in 1984 in Moscow. She studied at music school since she was 6 years old. At 12 she got in the “Neposedi” children’s band, where she made acquaintance with the other t.A.T.u. future vocalist - Yulia Volkova.
Vladimir Polupanov / AiF
