From The Archives – Halleyulia!

July 3, 2010

The Yulia Interview

imagesI CONDUCTED THE FOLLOWING INTERVIEW IN THE MID-2000s ON THE REQUEST OF SOME PUBLICATION I CAN’T REMEMBER, WHO THEN DECIDED THEY DIDN’T WANT A YULIA PIECE AFTER ALL, EVEN BEFORE I DELIVERED IT. I THOUGHT THE NAKED TRANSCRIPT WAS ENTERTAINING, REVEALING, AND COULD EASILY RUN AS A STAND-ALONE PIECE, SO I HAWKED IT AROUND THE USUAL MEDIA SUSPECTS… WITHOUT SUCCESS. SO HERE IT IS, MY PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED YULIA INTERVIEW, IN ITS FULL GLORY, UNENCUMBERED BY ME – GARY STEEL

โ€œI WALKED IN to Sony-BMG this morning with black hair and everybody loved it but they were like, โ€˜Argghh! Itโ€™s going to be a bit of a challenge!โ€™ Like for my first album I had my hair down and wavy and thatโ€™s what Sony-BMG wanted to do with this album [Montage] as well, and I had this enormous beehive on the cover and everybodyโ€™s like โ€˜Oh God!โ€™ and now I have black hair and itโ€™s like โ€˜Oh God!โ€™ This record is based on drama, while the first record [In The West] was based on my personal experiences from when I first arrived in New Zealand from Russia. Montage is a dramatic record, songs like โ€˜The Actressโ€™, โ€˜The Show Must Go Onโ€™. To be honest, I have been struggling for a while with myself and with my decisions. I didnโ€™t know what I wanted to be and wanted to do and Iโ€™m 20 years old, itโ€™s fair enough. Some singers know what they want to be from the start. But I donโ€™t know, because I can, fortunately or unfortunately, do both, classical and pop. I even tried a bit of, um, rock music as well [giggles] but it didnโ€™t really work out that well. I even recorded a demo CD, and played it to [manager] Michael Glading and he said โ€˜Ah, yeah, youโ€™d better stick to what youโ€™re doing!โ€™ But I do love pop/rock, Iโ€™m really intrigued by Kelly Clarkson, youโ€™d call her pop but she does have aspects of rock and soul in her music. And I love Dave Dobbyn, amazing, the type of music I would love to do but I donโ€™t want to be bringing in another style. There are so many pop artists and it isnโ€™t me, jumping around the stage like a mad chicken, and not concentrating on what Iโ€™m 8713377singing. Eventually the record turned out to be a classical pop crossover, because the two styles theyโ€™re just inseparable for me. One of my favourite songs is โ€˜The Actressโ€™, the one that Carl Doy wrote, and the first line is โ€˜You left her on an empty stage, took the book and tore out every pageโ€™, and itโ€™s like, so me! After the first record I was left thinking, and I couldnโ€™t decide on what I was going to do. Who am I? But eventually I think Iโ€™ll graduate as a new Barbara Streisand. At least I now know who my favourite artist is and what I want to be like, and of course Barbara Streisand is retired now so I can just take over. Itโ€™s going to take a lot of effort because sheโ€™s an amazing singer and sheโ€™s my idol. I was originally marketed as a pop classical crossover singer and when I was signed it was basically to create another Charlotte Church because she was finished with Sony and they didnโ€™t have anyone like Hayley, because Hayley was with Universal, and they wanted another pop classical diva. But I think my personality is bigger than the genre. I went to Hayleyโ€™s concert in Dunedin, and Iโ€™m very happy to say our styles are drifting apart now. Sheโ€™s more of a classical Enya, and with me Iโ€™m more of a classical Barbara. Iโ€™m such an old-fashioned soul, I love all the old fashioned songs, Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, all those old stars, I love that kind of music. My influence was Russian folk music, Grandma taught me all the folk songs. If there was a gathering at our house, Grandma would start a song and I would sing along. I never did think I could sing, because my Mum used to tell me not to even try to sing, I was so bad. Grandma was nice and supportive, my Mum was the one who said โ€˜you sound like a Russian bear, youโ€™d better stick to your dancing!โ€™ And that made me feel a bit conscious about my voice. Wing! [laughs]. My boyfriend and I are constantly making fun of her because sheโ€™s just so cute and so funny and itโ€™s amazing that in three years I think she released five or six albums and she even has a website and sheโ€™s just a cute little lady. But I think sheโ€™s more of a comedian than a singer [laughs]. I have had a few singing teachers over the past year, but I find that I am my best coach. I read a lot of books on singing and listen to other singers and study them and look at them and how they perform and thatโ€™s how I study. You can go to a lot of teachers, but if you donโ€™t feel your own body yourself thereโ€™s no way anyone can teach you how to sing. So I try and read a lot of books on how the body is formed because your voice is part of your body, itโ€™s not a separate thing like a trombone which you pick up and play. When I arrived in New Zealand I felt so terribly homesick for Russia that I started writing songs on guitar and I desperately wanted to do music at school, and my music teacher asked me to do rest homes and libraries and museums, and I really enjoyed the rest homes, because theyโ€™re so starved for people to come and see them. Iโ€™m very lucky because Iโ€™m very critical of myself, and whatever I donโ€™t like I try and improve on. I think I can handle things pretty easily, but I do think that I need to prepare still. Like New Zealand Music Awards, oh God, did I talk rubbish! I donโ€™t even drink, but I got off the plane that morning from Singapore and I was so tired. I was sitting there dreaming I was so tired, and when they called my name out my manager goes โ€˜Yulia!โ€™ and I walked on that stage and Iโ€™m lucky that I can talk rubbish I guess. It always works, when you pretend to be a dumb blonde itโ€™s all good. [laughs]. It was one of the experiences that I put down in my diary: nothing like that again. As Cher says โ€˜Everything surprises me and nothing surprises meโ€™. Showbiz is not as easy as getting up on stage and singing, you have to do your homework.โ€ GARY STEEL

โ€ข Yulia received Tui awards for Highest Selling New Zealand Album [Into The West] and Best Female Singer at the 2005 New Zealand Music Awards.

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Steel has been penning his pungent prose for 40 years for publications too numerous to mention, most of them consigned to the annals of history. He is Witchdoctor's Editor-In-Chief/Music and Film Editor. He has strong opinions and remains unrepentant. Steel's full bio can be found here

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