Sergey Lazarev

**Sergey Vyacheslavovich Lazarev** (Серге́й Вячеславович Лазарев, born 1 April 1983) is a singer, dancer and actor born in Moscow, Russia. He is most famous for his singing career, when he rose to fame as the dark-haired member of the group Smash!!. The group broke up in 2006. Since then Lazarev has pursued a solo career.

## Biography and career

### Early life and child stardom

From ages six to nine Lazarev went in for artistic gymnastics. Lazarev began his acting and singing career before the age of 10, singing in the Lokteus Children Choir. At the age of 14, he had already received his first musical award, won several children's song contests, and ended up as a member of child group Neposedi (Непоседы), the same group in which Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina of t.A.T.u. met each other. Also his friend Vlad Topalov (Влад Топалов) joined the group, who later would become the other half of the group Smash!!.

When he was eleven, he sang in the Pokrovsky Theatre, had parts in many plays. In 1995, at the age of 12, Sergey entered the fidgets band, the same year he won the TV contest of children's gold key. As a part of the fidgets group Sergey took part in famous Russian TV programs and contests, such as "Guess the Tune", "Grasp Me", "The Morning Star", "Look Out", "The Blue Light" and "The Slaconic Bazaar". In September 1996 Sergey won the first prize at the contest Bravo Bravissimo in Italy. The same year he sang with the president orchestra led by P. Ovsyannikov.

### Acting

In 2000, Sergey entered Moscow's MKHAT Theatre School and graduated in 2004 as a professional actor. In 1999 Sergey entered the Russian leading dramatic Institute, the school-studio MAAT, and graduated from in with honors in 2003. As a student, Sergey played the main parts in Pushkinski Theatre's productions of *Romeo and Juliet*, and *Karamazov*. For his role as Romeo, he was nominated for a "Seagull" dramatic debut award for the "Best Love Scene".

In 2005 he returned to the theatre scene. His part in the 2005 Broadway-style musical comedy *Lend Me A Tenor* brought him five professional theater awards, making the play the biggest success of the 2005 theatre season.

At the beginning of 2002 the duo shot their first video clip for the song "Should Have Loved You More". That August Smash!! won the 'New Wave' contest in Jūrmala and in October 2002 Smash!! released their first single "Belle". The video for "Belle" topped MTV Russia's chart for 6 months and entered the list of top 20 clips of the past five years. The story behind this song tells about the formation of the duo Smash!!, apparently Vlad and Sergey rehearsed the song as a birthday present to Vlad's father, but after he heard the song he immediately told all his friends and ended up on the radio as one of his friends started playing at a local station.

In February 2003 the band finally released their debut album, *Freeway*. Over a million discs were sold in Russia and other nations in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Smash!! subsequently toured Russia throughout 2003.

The following year *Freeway* was released in East Asian countries including; Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, India, and the Philippines. The release of the album was followed by the promotional tour in the South-Eastern Asia, during which the band shot a video clip for the cover-version of George Michael's song "Faith" in Shanghai.

In May 2004 Smash!! in cooperation with the Italian band Earphones recorded the song "Obsession". When the song entered the radio rotation, it immediately gained the top of hit parades and became the top summer hit 2004. That year Smash!! received the award of the MTV Russian Music Awards (RMA in short) 2004 as the pop-project of the year, and the award of the sound-track as the band of the year.

On December 1, 2004 Smash!! released the second album, *2Nite*. The band split up only one week after the release, resulting both Sergey Lazarev and Vlad Topalov pursuing solo careers.

### Solo career

Together with British producer Brian Rawling, Sergey recorded most of the songs for his solo debut *Don't Be Fake* that was released in November 2005 and sold more than 300,000 copies in Russia alone. In May 2006 Sergey received Russia's national Music TV Channel's MUZ TV award as Best New Act. The fourth single from the album "Fake" was released to clubs in the UK, debuting on July 30 at #28 on the commercial club chart in Music Week.

*Don't be Fake'*s first two singles, "Eye Of The Storm" and "Lost Without Your Love", were soon released. The video clips of these singles were shot in Miami and South Africa, respectively.

The third single "Daje Esli Ty Uydiosh (Даже Если Ты Уйдёшь)" ("Just Because You Walk Away" in English) became the biggest single from the album, peaking at #1 for many weeks, remaining on the charts for over six months, coming back to the charts twice more, and eventually reaching #2 in the annual airplay chart of most played songs in 2006. Due to the massive popularity of the song, the album was re-issued with bonus tracks including 3 versions of the song—the English version (which can be found on the first issue), the Russian version, and a dance remix also sung in Russian. Sergey also performed the song at the MTV Russia Awards. The single was written by U.S. songwriter Gordon Pogoda and Australian writer/artist John Stephan.

The fourth single, "Fake", was plugged and the video clip was shot in London. Meanwhile the *Fake Remixes EP* was published. This was also promoted to some clubs in UK.

After the success of his first album, Sergey went to the studio and recorded a new Album *TV Show* The video for the lead single, "Vspominay (Вспоминай)" was shot in Moscow. The English version of the song, "Everytime", was soon released along with the video clip, this one being similar to the Russian version.

Sergey did a cover of "Shattered Dreams", originally sung by Johnny Hates Jazz. This was the second single of the album and the first international single for Sergey. The video clip was said to be shot in Canada. In fact, a close examination of the video for the song reveals shots of Toronto landmarks (including Yonge-Dundas Square and the neon sign in front of the now closed-down Sam the Record Man) and even a Toronto Transit Commission bus.

The same year, Sergey won the Best Male Singer award in RMA 2006, defeating Dima Bilan. During the ceremony, Vlad and Sergey got together and sang "Belle" for the first time in years, ending the performance with a hug from the two former best friends.

TV Show (album) was published in Europe in 2007. This was a theme-album talking about TV shows and reality by mostly love ballads. "Shattered Dreams" was in this album together with 11 other tracks, including "TV or Radio" his third single and "Girlfriend" his fourth single of this album. His single Shattered Dreams was released in the UK later and currently available on some online music stores.

He performed to full-capacity crowds at The Opera House in Bournemouth, England on 23 March 2008. He was supporting UK dance group Booty Luv.

In 2008 Sergey won MTV's Artist of the Year Award. Consequently releasing the video of the Russian version of the song "Almost Sorry", (Зачем придумали любовь) this one being the fifth and last single of the album. Songwriters of the Russian version (Chris Landon, Taryn Murphy, Lara D'elia).

In 2009 Sergey collaborated with artist Timati and made a video of the song "Lazerboy". In April 2009 Sergey promoted "Stereo", the lead single for his third solo album and sang "Already Know" and "Out of Control". All four songs were expected to appear on his upcoming album, but only "Lazerboy" made the cut.

On 31 March 2010 *Electric Touch* was released in Russian music stores.

The video for "Alarm" was released on May 10.

On June 26 it was confirmed the song "Feeling High" was the new single from *Electric Touch*

In 2012, he released "Take It Off", yet another English-language song, possible hinting at another future return to attempts to break into the main European market.

## Other appearances

In 2006 Sergey took part in Russia's "Dancing on Ice", coming in 2nd. In 2008 he appeared in the reality "Circus of the Stars" winning the first place for his performance.

## Discography

### Studio albums

* Label: Style Records
 *TV Show* | * Released: 10 May 2007
* Label: Style Records
 *Electric Touch* | * Released: 16 October 2010
* Label: Self-released
 *Lazarev.* (*Лазарев.*)
* Label: Sony Music Entertainment Russia
* Formats: Digital download, CD

### Compilation albums

* Label: Sony Music Entertainment
* Formats: Digital download