Pop tsars
FOR TWO YOUNG Russian pop stars nearing the end of a gruelling whistle-stop promotional tour across Southeast Asia, being asked to play some beach volleyball, surrounded by squealing fans, might sound like a welcome break.
Except that the volleyball game is part of a Hong Kong soap, and Sergey Lazarev and Vlad Topalov (the cousins who make up pretty-boy band Smash!!) find themselves playing the same shots over and over and over ... in the heat of a Hong Kong summer.
The pair have been cast as sporty students from an international school competing against the TVB series' local stars on Tuen Mun's Cafeteria Beach. It all starts well enough. Lazarev and Topalov go at it with plenty of zeal, thumping the ball about, to the approval of their ever-present manager - Topalov's father, Mikhail - and the amusement of fans and paparazzi.
But as the session drags on, the enthusiasm wanes. Two hours into the shooting, with the press pack largely gone and even their most loyal fans sitting in the shade, Topalov has clearly had enough.
Having failed several times to smash the ball just right, he stomps off. 'I'm not a volleyball player and I don't want to be one,' he snaps, as he skulks back under an awning set up for them. The TVB crew is stunned into silence. Despite the entreaties of publicists, the shoot is over.
'It's not the best exposure we can have,' Topalov says, as the Smash!! gang heads towards the car park.
Smash!! have ample reasons to be acutely aware of how they're seen by the public. Pop combos live and die by reputation, and Smash!! have a particularly difficult task in carving out theirs.
Detractors say Smash!! are nothing more than a male version of Tatu: the manufactured Russian pop cherubs who sell bubblegum pop. Even with their debut album, Freeway, becoming a best-seller, Smash!! hit the headlines only when the tabloids reported on an alleged romance between Topalov and Tatu's Julia Volkova.
There's a certain logic in the comparisons. Lazarev, 21, and Topalov, 18, are childhood friends of Volkova and Tatu's other half, Lena Katina, All were members of Neposedi, the Russian equivalent of the Mickey Mouse Club in the US, which gave a start to the likes of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Joining the troupe at tender ages - Lazarev was eight, and Topalov five - they spent their childhood years singing and dancing across the vast expanse of Russia with their 50 'bandmates'.
It was only three years ago that Lazarev and Topalov evolved into the screamers' fodder they are today. Having left Neposedi - at the same time as Volkova and Katina - they recorded a version of Belle from the musical Notre Dame de Paris supposedly as a birthday gift for Topalov's father. A lawyer turned musician with myriad connections in showbiz, Topalov Snr managed to get the song on Russian radio station play lists. Universal picked up the hype and, sensing the revenue potential of the pair if they could break the Russian market, swiftly signed them.
Tatu's fame has a lot to do with Trevor Horn, whose deft production made the song All the Things She Said such a memorable pop anthem. Smash!! also have a Briton to thank for their success. Simon Napier-Bell - the man who introduced Wham! and the excessive use of exclamation marks to the pop world - was the initial force behind the two young Russians. The 'New Wham!' label lingered even after Napier-Bell's departure. The Asian release of Freeway included a cover version of George Michael's first post-Wham! hit, Faith.
Smash!! are all too conscious of the implications of being seen as a producers' plaything. Comfortably settled in their hotel room a day before the beach volleyball fiasco, Lazarev and Topalov are keen to talk about their career without bluster or bloom. At the top of their agenda seems to be the aim of not wanting to be seen as a boy band.
'We're a Russian duo doing pop music,' Topalov says. 'On this first album, we were feeling great and having fun, so it was pop we wanted to make. Who knows, on the next album it could be something different.'
Whether the duo will be doing experimental jazz for their follow-up to Freeway remains to be seen. What makes Smash!! different to other cheesy teeny-boppers, however, is what they do when they're not being pop stars. Lazarev works with the Moscow Pushkin Theatre. Topalov is doing a law degree. 'It's not a typical student's life,' Topalov says, with some understatement. 'I study on tour, then I go in just to take the exams. I'm focusing on civil law. I find it interesting and it will also probably be useful working in the record business.'
Such meticulous calculations are also manifest in their musical output. However much they claim their work is about self-expression and fun, Smash!! are all about a squeaky-clean image that appeals to teenagers, without antagonising their parents too much - in contrast to their friends in Tatu, whose every career move has been controversial.
Although admitting to being 'very good friends still', Lazarev and Topalov see themselves dancing to a different beat from the girl band. 'We've certainly learnt a lot from Tatu,' Lazarev says. 'We've seen where they've done good things and maybe where they've made mistakes.' The decision to launch the group in Asia first also reflects a different marketing strategy behind their success. By targeting markets where even less attractive and less talented pop idols are wildly received - as long as they're of European or American origin - Smash!! seem to think they have the potential to whip up enough momentum to eventually conquer the US or Britain.
This explains the group's exhausting trek across the region - a month-long tour that also took in South Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the mainland.
Lazarev says the group wants to show the world that Russian music can compete on the international stage - and they say they're willing to do whatever it takes.
'You have to like the hard parts in this job,' Lazarev says.
Topalov agrees: 'It's hard not seeing your family for so long and being away from home. Sometimes the schedule is tiring, although we love doing it and it's better than anything else.'
A burnt back from too much beach volleyball, and the odd tantrum, it seems, are a small enough price to pay for fame and fortune.