Better Red than dead: Red Elvises take rockabilly for manic ride

He was hot. He was famous. He was fat. He was dead.

Such was the plight of Elvis Presley, "The Hillbilly (Fat) Cat."

Igor Yuzov and Oleg Bernov were each well-aware of Presley, his history and his plight when they separately left their homes in and around the Ukraine seven years ago and headed to America to pursue their dreams of rockabilly stardom.

"Yes, sure, even in Russia, we knew of your Elvis very well," Yuzov said, in an accent that would make Boris Badenov proud. "There was a great rockabilly movement in the Ukraine, although it was all underground. To play music and trade music was almost like selling drugs. In my hometown, all of us who love rockabilly would get together in this secret place in the park where people can exchange Western propaganda."

He laughed, something which Yuzov does almost constantly. He is one happy Ukranian.

"What I mean is that trading records was still something illegal," he said. "What was cool in music was spread mainly by word of mouth when we were young. To see our idols, like Jerry Lee Lewis or Elvis Presley or Chuck Berry, we would have to see a picture of a picture of a picture. It was degrading to us, but at the same time, it made it all very mysterious. It was like, 'Wow, these guys are cool.'"

Yuzov met Bernov at a Soviet/American peace walk. The two found that they shared an enthusiasm for rockabilly, and they headed to Venice Beach, Calif., where they played rockabilly music on the boardwalk to earn money. They originally performed under the name Limpopo, the name of an underground Ukranian band of which Yuzov had been a member. Yuzov said that, in Ukranian, "Limpopo" translates, loosely, into "elephant's butt."

"Back home, we would have a rockabilly club, where the guys would have pompadours and be jumping around to our music, which was like 1950s music, but with a little Russian pop mixed in. Our name was sort of a joke. But when Oleg and I started jamming at the beach, we started making pretty good money. America was much better than I thought it would be. Little kids were screaming, going crazy. One time, the police came, and we thought we were going to be arrested. Instead, they hired us for a party. Rockabilly is such an American thing."

American music called for an American name - but one that also paid tribute to the duo's heritage. The answer came to Yuzov in a dream. "I am not joking, it really did," he said. "Fat Elvis showed up and told us to change our name. We liked the rockabilly Elvis. Red, the color of the Soviet flag, rhymed with dead, which Elvis is. So we combined the two and called ourselves the Red Elvises."

The re-christened band - which now included guitarist Zhenya Kolykhanov, a Russian, and an American drummer, Avi Stills - had just finished its first performance as the Red Elvises when they were approached by a low-budget film director and an actor. They asked the band if it would be interested in contributing music to a movie that had started as a student project and had been finished by a producer from Hong Kong who specialized in kung-fu movies.

The result was Six-String Samurai, a movie that was so bad that it now enjoys a substantial cult following. The movie, which briefly featured the antic Elvises, helped the band build an audience.

"We still have people come to our shows dressed up like people from that movie," Yuzov said. "That is too much."

Through the years, the band has evolved into a cult of personality on its own merit. The band has released 12 albums, two of which are available in Russian, and its live show - which mixes rock acrobatics with a musical blend of rockabilly, klezmer, Afro-pop, country-punk and salsa - has become legend. It is all part of what the band calls its "Russian rockenrol revolution" - a tongue-in-cheek revolution inspired, at least in part, by Priscilla Presley, the Spice Girls and the speeches of Comrade Fidel Castro.

The Red Elvises are good players - and they are also smart and funny characters who fully understand the value of shtick in American entertainment.

Helping to propel the legend is the enormous red bass balalaika used by Bernov. "It is a real instrument," Yuzov said. "We had to smuggle the original one in. Oleg has since had several copies built, as the original is very old and fragile."

The band tours frequently; maintains a busy Web site to sell its wacky albums and merchandise; and has appeared in movies (Armageddon, Mail Order Bride) and on television (Melrose Place, VHI's Behind The Music).

"I cannot say that I have made it, but I can say that I have made all my dreams come true," Yuzov said. "We have a pretty good draw, and things are pretty all right. I love doing what I do. Some people say that Red Elvises are not serious. What is serious. I don't know.

"I just do my best, and have fun."