The Red Elvises (also known as Igor and Red Elvises, after founding member and bandleader Igor Yuzov) are a Russian-American band that performs funk rock, surf, rockabilly, reggae, folk rock, disco and traditional Russian styles of music. They were founded in California in the mid-1990s and are based in Los Angeles. Early history The Red Elvises were founded in 1995 by Igor Yuzov, Oleg Bernov, Zhenya Rock. Igor and Oleg met during a Russian-American peace walk and subsequently played together in a Russian folk-rock band called Limpopo. The band's third original member, guitarist Zhenya Rock (a.k.a. Kolykhanov), had also emigrated to America and had been the lead guitarist of the Red Elvises until 2004. For the first few months Andrey Baranov was the band's drummer, but within that year, the first American in the band, drummer Avi Sills from Austin, Texas, was added to the lineup. Band first began as an LA street Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade. 1995–2001 When they weren't playing on the road they were busy recording and self-producing their own CDs. Grooving To The Moscow Beat was the band's first release in 1996, followed by Surfing In Siberia in 1997. In 1998, the band released their breakthrough CD, I Wanna See You Bellydance. Their music filled the soundtrack of Lance Mungia's independent film released in 1998, Six-String Samurai soundtrack and episode acting. With Mungia directing, the band also produced two music videos of songs from the Six-String Samurai soundtrack, "Lovepipe" and "Boogie on the Beach", that year. A full-length concert video, Live on the Pacific Ocean, was also released, showcasing their appearance at the Santa Monica Pier's Twilight Summer Concert Series. The TV also beckoned with television show appearances, resulting in Red Elvises' guest spot in an episode of Fox television series Melrose Place (Episode #206, "Suspicion") which aired on November 9, 1998. Near the end of that year, they appeared on FX's Penn & Teller's Sin City Spectacular accompanied by Penn & Teller's show dancers, which aired in January 1999. They released three new recordings in 1999, two studio-produced and one live. The band's fourth and fifth studio albums, Better Than Sex and Russian Bellydance, a Russian-language version of their smash album I Wanna See You Bellydance from the previous year, were both released in March 1999. Later in that same month, Red Elvises' performance in San Francisco was released as the band's first live