IOWA Group Net Worth

Biography of the IOWA group

The Belarusian indie pop group “Iowa”, known for the hits “Mama” and “Minibus”, consists of three people: vocalist and songwriter Ekaterina Ivanchikova, guitarist Leonid Tereshenko and DJ Vasily Bulanov. The band’s style is difficult to attribute to any single genre. The musicians admit that such artists as Pink, Lady Gaga, Guano Apes, Kings of Leon and Moby had an influence on their work.

History of creation

The name of the group comes from the pseudonym of the performer – Ekaterina Ivanchikova. Iowa girl was called childhood friends. The nickname did not come about by chance: in her youth, Katya was fond of hard rock, and her idols were Slipknot, an American nu-metal band from Iowa.

And when Katya told a friend from America about her nickname, he laughed: in the USA, the abbreviation IOWA is an idiom – I (Idiots), O (Out), W (Wandering), A (Around) – which can be translated as “You can’t hide the truth” . But Katya prefers the literal translation of this phrase: “idiots walk in circles”: “We step on our rake again and again.”

Ekaterina from childhood grew up as a talented and diligent girl, she studied well, graduated from the school of music in academic singing, and studied choreography. Having received two higher educations as a philologist and a journalist, she set out to create her own group. By that time, the girl had her own collection of poems in her arsenal – read more about the creative path of a talented girl in her biography.

In 2007, Katya began to look for musicians for her group and met like-minded people: Leonid Tereshchenko and Vasily Bulanov. This is how the bright modern musical group “Iowa” was born, and a spark ran between Katya and Leonid in the very first days of their acquaintance.

The main stages of creativity

During 2008-2009, young musicians toured the cities of Belarus. Finally, they were noticed by art manager Vitaly Galushchak. In 2010, he organized several acoustic concerts for talented children in St. Petersburg and introduced them to the local music scene.

The team moved to the city on the Neva, where he soon began to collaborate with producer Oleg Baranov. At the same time, the energetic Ekaterina managed to participate in the musical “The Prophet” by Ilya Oleinikov. Also, all three worked at the factory – painted candles.

The turning point in the career of the IOWA group was 2012. In May, the video for the song “Mama” broke their personal record, gaining one million views on YouTube.

Then they had the honor to represent Russia at the New Wave music competition in Latvia, together with the W group and the singer Niloo (Nilufar Rasulmukhamedova). Although Niloo was the winner, IOWA was awarded the Love Radio Listeners’ Choice Award. It was on the air of this radio station that the song “Mama” was first heard, which became their first hit. 36% of listeners voted for the team.

In the same year, “Iowa” won the “Discovery of the Year” nomination of the Belarusian National Music Award. And on January 1, 2013, they hit Channel One as part of the Krasnaya Zvezda show, a kind of chart of the top 20 songs of the past 2012. IOWA with the song “Mama” took third place, losing only to the songs “Naked” by the group “Degrees” and “It Doesn’t Happen” by Dima Bilan.

In 2014, the musicians presented their debut album “Export”, which included 10 songs, including the hits “Mama” and “Minibus”, as well as their very first song “Spring”. In total, clips were released for 8 songs from the album, and each video invariably surprised Iowa fans: if the video for Minibus was filmed in Paris, then the video for the song “Looking for a Husband” was worked on … in a cowshed.

Native Belarus did not forget its famous countrymen. In 2015, the musicians won the Lira Belarusian Music Award in the nomination “For Popularization of National Music Abroad” in the nomination. In the same year, “Iowa” became the winner at the “Golden Gramophone” with the incendiary song “Smile!”.

The song “Smile” was included in the soundtrack of the three most popular Russian TV series: “Fizruk” with Dmitry Nagiyev, “Kitchen” and “Molodezhka”. And released back in 2011, “A Simple Song” in 2015 was adapted specifically for the fans of the St. Petersburg hockey club SKA, who also appeared in the new version of the video.

In 2016, the guys were recognized as the “Best Group” by the “RU.TV” award in 2016, and they also released their second album “Import”, which, like the previous one, included 10 songs, including the previously released singles “140”, “Beats a Bit” and “ Three days of cold.

Three victories were brought to the group in 2017: the Belarusian pop album “Import” was recognized as the best, the Higher League awarded the prize in the nomination “My poems – your guitar”, the 3rd national Russian award “IOWA” was recognized as the best pop group.

In 2016, the band’s guitarist and soloist got married. This event was marked by the release of a video for the song “My poems – your guitar.” In their work, the musicians played popular artists Alla Pugacheva and Vladimir Kuzmin, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, thus showing that creative unions can be connected with strong feelings and strong family ties. The wedding of talented artists was filmed by Ivan Troyanovsky, he later became the director of several Iowa clips.

In May 2017, the celebration of the victory of the hockey players of HC SKA, who became the owners of the Yuri Gagarin Cup, took place. Residents and guests of the city remembered the bright performance of “Iowa” in honor of Russian hockey players. In the autumn of the same year, the musicians released a video for the song “Bad to Dance”, in which the star of “Louboutins” Yulia Topolnitskaya starred.

Collaborations with other artists

• “Bubbles” – Katya Ivanchikova (IOWA) ft. Animal Jazz
• “A Fine Day to Die” – IOWA ft. Serj Tankian
• “Dolphins” – IOWA ft. Zheka Ras Tu

Discography

• Export (2014)
• Import (2016)

IOWA group now

Artists are known throughout Russia and Belarus, outside of them, they give up to 150 concerts a year, charging the audience with energy, drive, and good mood. Talented music, arrangements, a pleasant voice, accompanied to the smallest detail by a well-thought-out stage image, an enchanting show bring a lot of positive emotions to fans.

In the spring of 2018, the musicians delighted the audience with a video for the song “Fall”, which was filmed on the volcanoes of the island of Tenerife. Charity concerts and festivals in support of sick children are not complete without the participation of the group. So in May 2018, “Iowa” performed at the 4th festival “Different People – Rock Musicians Help Children”.