Katya Ivanchikova: biography
She was born on August 18, 1987. Our heroine is a native of the small Belarusian town of Chausy. Her parents are ordinary people who have nothing to do with show business.
Katya grew up an obedient and inquisitive child. From an early age she showed interest in music. Noticing this, mom and dad sent her to a music school. For several years the girl studied piano. But that is not all. Katyusha also attended a drawing group and a dance studio. All this ensured her comprehensive development.
Music career
The IOWA group was created in 2009. One of the first members of this team was Katya Ivanchikova. The songs included in the IOWA repertoire were written by our heroine. We are talking only about texts. Other guys were responsible for creating the music.
In 2011, the group set off to conquer Moscow. Bass guitarist Vadim Kotletkin, DJ Vasya Bulanov, guitarist Lenya Tereshchenko and singer Katya Ivanchikova began with performances on the capital's streets. There was a hat next to the musical instruments. Ordinary passers-by put money in it. Of course, the talented guys from Belarus were embarrassed. But this is exactly how they promoted their creativity to the masses. And their efforts were not in vain.
One day, an unfamiliar man approached Katya and her friends. He advised the team to take part in some kind of music show. The guys from the IOWA group took advantage of this recommendation only in March 2012. They appeared in the show “Red Star” (Channel One). The musicians were able to interest the audience. However, after 2-3 weeks people forgot about them.
In April 2012, the IOWA group shot a video for the song “Mom”. The video was posted on Youtube. In a short time it was viewed by over 1 million users. After this, the band's musical career took off. Belarusian children began to be invited to various competitions and television programs.
Today, the work of the IOWA group is known and loved by Russian listeners. Such compositions as “Smile”, “Minibus”, “Simple Song”, “Beats the Beat” became real hits.
Ekaterina Ivanchikova today
It is worth noting that the group not only performed at various concerts, but also took part in numerous competitions.
So, in 2012, IOWA became a participant in two competitions at once - “Red Star” on the First and “New Wave”. And even though they didn’t manage to win, they were still able to win over their audience and receive the “Love Radio Listeners’ Choice” prize. In the spring of the same year, the video for the beloved song “Mama” collected a million views on the Internet. At the end of the year, it became one of the 20 best songs of 2012.
Katya and her group often become invited guests on various TV shows and programs. For example, in 2013, “IOWA” performed the song “Looking for a Husband” on the famous Channel One project “Let’s Get Married” as a guest of the presenters Roza Syabitova and Larisa Guzeeva.
In 2014, the team actively continues to record new hits and perform with them throughout the country. In addition, some compositions became soundtracks for popular domestic TV series. For example, the hits “The Same Thing” and “Smile” were heard in the series “Kitchen”, and “Simple Song” became the soundtrack to the beloved series “Fizruk”, in which Dmitry Nagiyev plays the main role.
IOWA - Smile
The group's songs have repeatedly taken first place in the iTunes top charts. At the end of 2014, they finally recorded their first album, “Export”.
In 2020, IOWA was repeatedly nominated for various prestigious awards, including “Best Group” at the RU.TV Awards, “Breakthrough of the Year” and “Best Song” at the Muz-TV Awards and “Best Russian Artist” at the MTV EMA Awards.
In April 2020, the musical group gave its first serious concert, which took place in Moscow, and a month later in Minsk.
Ekaterina Ivanchikova is a vocalist in the group IOWA (Iowa or Yova), born in the city of Chausy on August 18, 1987. The group IOWA was formed in 2009 in Mogilev, and Katya became its permanent vocalist, songwriter and true inspiration for incredibly expressive and emotional performances. Spectators who have attended IOWA concerts note the indescribable atmosphere of the group’s performances. At all her concerts, Katya gives her all on stage, performing every line of her songs, experiencing the emotions that were the basis of her lyrics.
Childhood of Ekaterina Ivanchikova
Katya's first performance on stage was in 1992 at a regional competition among kindergartens, then the jury awarded her first place. During her school years, she was involved in various creative activities, including drawing, dancing, music, piano and, of course, singing. Katya's teenage period was busy with songwriting and ideas about creating her own musical group. In her hometown, Katya received education as a philologist and journalist at the Belarusian State Pedagogical University named after. M. Tanka.
Personal life
Katya Ivanchikova is an attractive and confident girl. It's impossible not to fall in love with this one. There were dizzying novels in her life. But they did not lead to a serious relationship.
Many fans want to know if Katya’s heart is free. Unfortunately, we will have to disappoint them. Ivanchikova meets with the guitarist from her group, Leonid Tereshchenko. A guy and a girl are connected not only by love for each other, but also by creative activity. For example, the song “Minibus” is their joint brainchild. Katya Ivanchikova wrote the words, and Leonid composed the music.
In the fall of 2020, it became known that the couple was going to get married. The exact date and location of the celebration are still unknown. But Ekaterina is already looking for a wedding dress.
The IOWA group's touring schedule is scheduled several months in advance. The lovers claim that they will definitely find 2-3 free days for a magnificent wedding.
Katya IOWA - about new songs, relationships with her husband and the secret of popularity
The IOWA group has existed for ten years, and their popularity is only growing every year. This year, IOWA performed at the Scarlet Sails alumni celebration. The lead singer of the group, Katya Ivanchikova, gave a long interview to 5-tv.ru, where she talked about the difficult life at the start of her career, her first concerts, and how her celebrity friends helped her write a new song.
— How did the pandemic go for the group? Have you learned anything new?
- Cool question! We are always learning something. And during a pandemic, people notice it faster because they are deprived of something. And, of course, we also didn’t see our friends for a long time; we were left without flights or concerts. But we had a way out: we went to the studio. There were two points: our studio and our home. And so we wrote something new. And everything that worries you, that worries you very much, results in creativity.
I went live and talked to my lighthouse guys about how if you pour out your adversity into creativity, the worse it is for you, the better the song, poems, and creative solutions will be. Creating something new that doesn’t exist, which will later remain a reminder that you overcame and did not retreat into fear.
— Were there any new feelings from online concerts?
— New feelings... I don’t know, we have always participated in concerts where the artist tries to create a holiday, and online you perform in front of the camera. It’s unusual for a concert to take place at your home, on your bed. There's a concert going on, they set up a camera, I'm alone, the boys are in other rooms. It all connects, after the song there is nothing at all, not a single sound, because there are no spectators on the set. That is, you don’t understand what kind of feedback there is, there is none - it’s very strange.
We played one concert on the historic balcony of the Astoria Hotel. It was, of course, cool! We made up in an incredible room with canopies and columns. You go out onto this balcony, which Chaliapin or Stravinsky might have gone out on. You capture such moments, because there is nothing, nothing, and then there is this story.
From left to right: Vasily Bulanov (drums), Leonid Tereshchenko (guitar), Ekaterina Ivanchikova (vocals), Alexander Gavrilov (bass guitar). Photo courtesy of the IOWA group
— Can online concerts supplant the entertainment industry?
If people just needed sounds, just music, just videos, then this would have happened a long time ago, they wouldn’t go to concerts. They go to concerts to show off themselves and to see others, to walk out their dresses that have nowhere else to wear. To meet your loved one. To pass time and then remember, to get this living emotion, because you don’t get this on TV, and especially on your phone. Sitting somewhere at home, where you are constantly distracted, you pause...all the magic disappears.
We build a dialogue on stage that we will remember. A dialogue that will bring out the necessary emotions, good, bad - what was inside. And you definitely need to shout it out, declare it loudly at a concert in the crowd, be part of some big process of liberation. And we can’t even mention it while sitting on the couch. We must become participants, not just observers.
— Was there any feedback from fans who splashed out their emotions at the concert?
Completely, constantly! That’s why I’m talking about energy now, it would be my speculation. I have this experience where you sing a song, but in fact they are already part of someone's life and part of someone's energy. Men come who never express their emotions, never cry, and send messages that he cried today, cried with his soul mate. They stood, hugged and did not understand why they had such feelings, why they were dancing and crying - maybe because they were together? Maybe because they overcame a lot, met through this song, and now they are at a concert?
After all, many years have already passed; we have been on stage for ten years. And in ten years a lot has happened. Children who were ten years old are already 20 now. Of course, people say: “We met, we’ve been together for seven years, we came to your concert. Thank you for being part of our memories; your song played at our wedding.” Different things happen: sad, good, kind. But both sadness and joy - this, it seems to me, is what life gives us, allows us to move on.
Video for IOWA's song "140". YouTube/IOWA_official
I met a girl from whom I bought earrings. She was selling earrings near our studio, saw me and was dumbfounded, and began to behave very strangely. I realized that something was wrong - it wasn’t just the person who recognized me - and I started talking to her. She says: “When my husband calls me, I’ve had “140” for many years.” I say: “How great!” And she says: “But he doesn’t call me anymore, he’s no longer there, he crashed.” But he doesn’t delete the number, the song remains. And when this song plays, it's part of history. And this is some kind of responsibility: we are in the same energy field, flow, on the same wavelength, I perceive their sadness as mine, their joy as mine. And this joy doubles. We are in the same space, a lot connects us through songs.
Through your creativity, you declare yourself to the Universe, and the Universe declares you. Your desires are fulfilled through your choice, and your people are attracted who speak the same language with you. People feel this way too, you understand how many people are on the same wavelength. Even if you have your own vision.
— Can this be considered the secret of success?
— In fact, there are so many moments when you realize that life is so varied, so interesting - there are ups and downs, you can’t always be on the wave, like everyone. And from this you go away in quality. When you want to please everyone, you try to do what is fashionable, what will definitely suit everyone, this loses the meaning. You understand that you can’t please everyone and you need to be honest with yourself and continue to do your work honestly so that you like it. And then it will resonate with other people.
You change, you grow. Someone falls off - there are a lot of guys who are used to “surfing the wave.” Something new appears, they move there. Just to be in some modern field. And here it no longer matters who it will be: these are just some new guys, this is Tik Tok, fresh blood that appears and does something of its own. And a large number of people, young people, follow them. And you realize that suddenly you begin to see your audience. You understand: someone may leave, someone may come again, grow up, remember the songs he listened to, and he will want to do it again. How excitedly I listened to Zemfira at the age of 15 is simply incredible. Then I didn’t listen to anything for several years and forgot. After 10 years I started listening to her again. It's great that we are growing, looking for ourselves, our music.
I have reached a certain stage when I like the way my people behave. If they don't like it, they just leave and don't write anything negative. They are looking for a new direction, their own paths, if they want, they return. And this is how I see relationships in general.
— What advice can you give to young performers who want to move to a big city?
- You need to try not to compare yourself with anyone. You need to be inspired: yes, indeed, someone has moved somewhere, big cities... Many famous artists and writers moved from small towns to create. You have the exact feeling that you love your city, your country, but you are going to a big city to realize your potential.
“Simple Song” is one of the first IOWA songs that brought the group popularity. YouTube/IOWA_official
The girls with whom we later lived came to the first concert. They just came up to us and said: “If you want, stay with us for a week.” We agreed. They gave me clothes from their closet for concerts and made us the first posters for free.
Our friend came to the second concert, he gave us money to live in an apartment for several months, because we were on the verge of breaking down and leaving. We had no money at all. And one concert cost 500 rubles. And, of course, there were few concerts. We performed at one rehearsal location and were paid with free rehearsal hours there. This was a great gift for us. We announced a casting call, and a bass player came to us and gave Lena a guitar - he worked in a warehouse and gave him some kind of decommissioned guitar. But the fact remains that it sounded, and for two or three years he played this guitar.
Many people gave us something: Peter supported us for several months. A person just came to the concert and helped us survive the first three months, during which we needed to catch on. And then a job appeared at a candle factory, we were able to pay for housing ourselves. Students appeared: we taught guitar and vocals and were able to support ourselves.
Second: you need to find your own business. It's the most important. People cannot find their own business for the rest of their lives; they always do something temporarily and put something off for later. If you constantly put off your implementation until later, then the best people who would become your friends and give you inspiration and help will also leave for later. And life is also for later. When you choose your business, you choose people. And as you know, the first rule of a good actor is to always work with actors who are cooler than you in the frame. By choosing your business, you attract people who pull you out energetically - they double you, make you bigger and help you jump higher into your head.
— Your mother was very supportive of you and once even took her wedding ring to a pawn shop to give you money. Did you take him?
- In the last minutes. A car arrived and took all this gold to another place. The car is parked, I'm running in the last minutes! So she took my mother’s engagement ring. There was also a chain that belonged to her deceased sister, this is the only memory of her. Mom took all these valuable relics to the pawnshop so that we could eat.
Katya IOWA with her mother Nina. Photo: Instagram @katya_iowa
I just spent my whole life preparing everyone that this would be a scene, but I didn’t talk about it. I knew myself inside and went to music school, to all these orphanages of creativity, houses of culture. She used everything we had and disappeared there after school. And I could not be influenced. They could have suppressed me, crushed me with some weight, but that would only have depressed me. And I was able to escape from enslavement; I would not change my point of view for anything. But inside there is simply a certain understanding. It’s like a given, it’s as if you were born with it - you just understand that you will sing. All. Therefore, my mother felt that she could not put pressure on me, that she could not punish me, that she needed to talk to me and explain why she needed to do this or that way.
— How can children deal with “breaking off their wings”?
- Fight, search and at the right moment make only your choice. In fact, I also graduated from college for my mother’s sake - she needed me to have a higher education diploma, which they never asked me for. I graduated, but I didn't like college. Or rather, the institute is excellent, but I did not fit into it, into its charters and framework. I didn't like myself in him. I tried to try on something that was not my profession, not my “clothes.” But this is also experience.
— You recently released a song #stuffyblowing, which you sang with your husband Lenya. How does it feel to sing a duet with someone?
— We already had a duet with Serj Tankian, System of a Down, and here’s another duet, I sang with my husband. It was spontaneous: he just stood at the microphone and began to improvise. Just three years ago, he was embarrassed when people approached the bathroom door where he was singing. He realized that someone had approached and fell silent. And then he began to sing loudly on stage, into a microphone! I remember Lenya said: “I will never sing on stage, it’s difficult to both act and sing...”. And he found a way out: he threw the guitar and began to sing. He wants his own solo song, and I will help him with pleasure.
— He won’t leave the group?
- He is the group, he cannot leave himself.
Ekaterina and her husband Leonid, band member and songwriter. Photo courtesy of the IOWA group
— Leonid Agutin, Dasha Charusha and Anya Tsukanova worked on the song. How exactly did they participate?
— They came up with a line for this song. I had some kind of difficult moment, I sat for five days on the second verse and nothing worked. I didn't follow the directions of the book that inspires me, The Right to Write by Julia Cameron. She just writes about the need to switch correctly. And as soon as you switch to relaxation, when you return to business, you create something even cooler than it was before. It seemed to me that I had to sit without looking up from the page and under no circumstances rest. I didn't have time to rest because we were close to release.
And I’m sitting, composing a text, Anya Tsukanova calls me and invites me to her birthday. I say: “I can’t, I have a song, I won’t have time to do anything.” And she tells me: “Come, we’ll make a song, we can handle it.” I ignored it. But we finally arrived, and there were only our own people there - it was the coolest evening! And we got together, at one in the morning we called Lena Agutin, Vova Kristovsky from Uma2rman and together we thought three lines!
The first one was invented by Dasha Charusha: as a person striving for balance, she wrote the line “Fears are all on retreat.” Anya Tsukanova, as the creator of the “Eat art” project, is looking for unusual forms, this was a strange line in the song “Retro is my rap rapid”, that is, retro removes my rap into the background. Everything I say now is not important, but what was important was that it was retro, classic. This line has such a complex meaning. And Lenya came up with the line “Say no a minute ago,” that is, you could say “no” a minute ago, but now you can’t, let’s go ahead and do it.
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Publication from Katya Ivanchikova - IOWA (@katya_iowa) July 23, 2020 at 9:02 PDT
— Are you inspired by working outside the group with friends?
— With friends and those you surround yourself with, you can create things spontaneously without planning. And it fills you, inspires you and gives birth to something new.
— Are the feelings today different from those you experienced at your first concerts?
- Of course they are different. A different perception of myself on stage, a little aggressive energy. Back then it was a collection of different genres. The first concerts are like a bundle of energy. I didn’t know where to direct it, whether it was possible to control this force so that it would unite people through songs. That is, it was such a long journey. And now it’s a completely different perception of concerts, yourself, people and even songs.
I don't know what is expected of me. Time is changing, now everything has accelerated very much: songs began to be released for two minutes, videos have become simpler. Everything is updated like an Instagram feed. The songs became lighter and lost their meaning. We reach a certain absurdity by mutual agreement. When young performers give plasticity to the language through wordplay, puns, and the introduction of new words from the English language like “crash” - rather, this is interesting now. It all started from the moment when people stopped paying attention to spelling on the Internet, when they began to merge everything into hashtags, when they began to shorten and distort words to give emotion in the letter. They stopped using commas and stopped paying attention to the rules.
The Internet has greatly influenced songs and artists, we are moving away from correctness into new forms. And I think that this is temporary, you have your own platform and audience that can accept you like that. When everyone can explode from scratch and find their audience in a few days. This gives rise to a different attitude towards songs, language, culture, and oneself. All this is interesting to observe and all this will certainly change. The point is uniqueness: when we want to repeat these videos, we stick to the scheme to hit the jackpot, get results quickly. This cannot be called implementation. But we also see personalities in these social networks, and they are noticeable. They simply do something better than others.
—Which of these individuals can you identify?
“You can count them on one hand; I am friends with many of them and value this friendship. Anya Tsukanova, for example, creates unique content. I like Ira Gorbacheva - she is unique in everything, her voice, presentation and point of view cannot be confused with anyone else. If we talk about humor, I like Anton Lapenko. I am friends with Lesha from the trio “Smirnov, Ivanov, Sobolev”. Lesha Smirnov makes projects with Anton Lapenko. Basta, Max Korzh is a unique person with his ball lightning and powerful delivery, a charge of genius. And when you understand from the inside what it is like for people to search and create projects, to be in constant search, to experience painful processes, you also need to find this path.
