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."