Biography

Sergey Vyacheslavovich Lazarev (Russian: Сергей Вячеславович Лазарев), born 1 April 1983) is a vocalist, dancer and actor based 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 has since broken up, and Lazarev has carved out a successful solo career.

Sergey Lazarev started his acting and singing career before the age of 10, singing in the Lokteus Children Choir. From this point on, music has never stopped being the most important thing in his life.
When he was 14, he was already receiving his first musical award, won in several children's song contests, and ended up in the very popular Neposedi. This is the same band where Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina of t.A.T.u met each other. His cousin and former partner, Vlad Topalov was also a member. In 2000, Sergey entered Moscow's famous Mkhat Theatre School and graduated in 2004 as a professional actor.

Being a student, Sergey started playing main parts in Pushkinski Theatre's Romeo and Juliet and Karamazov. At the same time, Sergey and Vlad started a boy-duo Smash!!. Shortly after they were signed by Universal Music Russia and became one of the biggest Russian pop-wonders in 2002–2003. The duo went on to have 5 #1 hits, numerous awards and millions of copies sold in Russia, CIS and South East Asia (including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and so on) during their short career. The boys split up in 2004 only one week after the release of their second album.
Sergey began to record his solo album in 2005 and also went back to the theatre scene, which he left in 2003 because of Smash!!'s packed schedule. Together with British producer Brian Rawling, Sergey recorded most of the songs for his debut Don't Be Fake that was released in November 2005 and instantly sold more than 300,000 copies in Russia alone. As for theatre life, his part in the Broadway-style musical comedy Borrow A Tenor brought him 5 professional theater awards, making the play the biggest success of the 2005 theatre season.

Also in May 2006 Sergey received Russian national Music TV Channel's MUZ TV award as Best New Act. The 4th single from the album, title track "Fake" was released to clubs in the UK, debuting on July 30th at #28 on the commercial club chart in Music Week.
Timeline: 6-9: went in for artistic gymnastics;
9-11: years a soloist in the Locktev choir;
11-12: a singer in the Pokrovsky Theatre, played main Partis 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;
in 1997 he won the All-Russian contest the morning star;
The same year he tool part in the Jumble (Yeralash), the so-called TVJournal for children, and he recorded the soundtrack for this TV program;
In 1999 Sergey entered the Russian leading dramatic Institutw, the school-studio MAAT, and graduated from in with honors in 2003;
In 2001 Sergey entered a musical project of the label Universal Music Russia, the duet Smash!!;
In January 2002 the duet shot their first video clip for the song Should Have Loved You More;
In August 2002 Smash!! have won the contest New Wave in Urmala, Latvia in October 2002 they released the first single Belle;
The clip of the song stayed at the top list of the musical channel MTV Russia for 6 months and entered the list of top 20 clips of the past five years. And this song was a birthday gift for Vlad’s father. Vlad’s father was too happy to receive such a present and shared it with his friends. One of his friends was working in a radio station. He played this song on air. The song was surprisingly successful. It gained lots of attention and kept staying in the chart for half a year. This made the appearance of Smash!!;
The same year the Pushkin Theatre staged the play Romeo and Juliet where Sergey played the part of Romeo. Every performance with Sergey attracted the full house;
In February 2003 the band released the long-expected first album Freeway (that is sold all over the world later), that practically at once obtained the status of a gold record. Over a million of licensed discs were sold, and each single of the album was on top of hit parades both in Russian and other CIS countries;
In March 2003 Smash!! shot the third video clip for Talk To Me (also the first single plugged in Hong Kong);
In April 2003 the duet started on a concert tour to promote the album Freeway (Hong Kong was one of the promoting place and Smash!! performed with gaining lots of attentions from fans); In September 2003 Smash!! shot the forth video clip for the song Freeway;
On November 11-12, 2003 Smash!! held their first solo concerts in Moscow;
In 2003 Smash!! received many awards as the best band namely the MUZ TV awards discovery of the year, the awards Euro-hit of the Europe-plus radio station, and gold gramophone, weighty hit, love radio, and sound-track;
In 2003 Segey Lazarev played the part of Aleksey Kaeamazov in the play few days of Alesha Karamazous life in the A. Chekhow MAAT;
The same year he was nominated for the dramatic awards seagull for the best love scene in the play Romeo and Juliet and for the dramatic award debut, therefore he was listed among ten most successful young Moscow actors;
In 2004 the Smash!! duet began to record their second album;
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;
Simultaneously, the band's first album Freeway was released in the South-Eastern Asia (in Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, India, and on Philippines). The album at once occupied the top lines of musical hot parades;
The release of the album was followed by the promotion 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. Also, they shot an episode of teleplay in Hong Kong and acted as volley players from Russia;
In September, 2004 the single Obsession was released in India;
In 2004, 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.

After the releasing of 2Nite, Sergey goes solo.
At the very beginning, Sergey's life of being a soloist is not easy. Almost all the media banned him. Whatever he did cannot change this poor situation. Luckily, his fans have done a lot to back up him to return to the stage and eventually he did it.
Singles Eye Of The Storm and Lost Without Your Love were soon released. Once again, Vlad's father said that one of them were in the song list for Smash!! and had made such an embarrassing situation. And the video clips of these singles were shot in Miami and South Africa.
Album Don't Be Fake was later published in Russia, Ukraine and Poland.
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 was published. This was also promoted to some clubs in UK.
The next single, Vspominay (Вспоминай) was released and it is not included in the last album. This is the first song in Russian that he plugged. The video clip was shot in Moscow. The English version of the song, Everytime, was soon released after Shattered Dreams was plugged. The video clip for this song was similar to the Russian version. There were only a few differences in between.

Sergey re-sang a classic of Johnny Hates Jazz, Shattered Dreams, as the next single. This was the first international single on Sergey's own. The video clip was told to be shot in Canada.
For this year, Sergey won the Best Male Singer from all the others including the winner last year, Dima Bilan (Дима Билан) in RMA 2006. This admitted his hard-working for being a music performer. In the prize giving ceremony, Vlad and he reunion and sang their old song Belle together with a hug in ending. Also, he won some awards for his opera acting and the sexy award.
Sergey was once gossiped that he is the daddy of Yulia's daughter Vika. And some people thought that they were a couple. But he has stated that Yulia is his close friend. Finally, people were told that Pasha was Vika's father. The video for "Shattered Dreams" was conceptualized by UK director Andy Hylton. It was shot in Toronto Canada.
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 songs like Everytime and so on.
His single Shattered Dreams was released in the UK later and is now available on some online music stores.
In 2008, he tried to represent Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 with the song Flyer, but he got the 4th place, winning the russian pop star Dima Bilan.

He performed to capacity crowds at The Opera House in Bournemouth, England on 23 March 2008. He was supporting UK dance group Booty Luv.
Sergey wins 2008 MTV (Artist of the Year) Award and the song and video featured "Зачем придумали любовь/Almost Sorry" was written by Taryn Murphy and Chris Landon.

In 2006 Sergey took part in Dances On The Ice, the Russian version of Dancing on Ice. According to the biography on Sergey's official website, if only the judges' scores had been considered he would have won the contest but when the public vote was considered he came 2nd.