FHM MAGAZINE
		ALSOU
		Ice is quite right seen as the perfect complement to a drink or a medically sound way of soothing painful wounds. Not so for Siberian-born songstress, Alsou, who incredibly spent her childhood convinced its billions of tiny crystals were, bizarrely, wallpaper. "I lived in Siberia for eight years and obviously the biggest problem was the extreme cold," the 17-year-old recalls rom he confines of a pleasantly warm studio. "I shared a room with my elder brother, the heating rarely worked, so we had a permanent layer of ice on the inside of the wall. It was so freezing we'd usualy have to sleep in our clothes!"
		Alsou survived those poverty striken early years in Siberia and thanks to her folks making a mint in the oil business, was soon globetrotting from Siberia to Moscow and on to New York, Denmak and eventually London - where she set up camp with her brother's family. The very same family, it should be noted, who actually helped her to start thinking about a career in music.
		"I sang Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" at my brother's wedding when I was 15," she reveals. "A friend of my mum's rushed over really excited and was like, 'Oh my God, you've got to meet this manager I know.' I went and sang for him, and he stopped me mid-song and gave me a deal."
		Just two years on, Alsou has impressively flogged over 100,000 copies of her debut single in Russia, making her the country's biggest selling artist, and she's finally begun her onslaught on European shore with debut UK R'n'B number "Before You Love Me", But while such hard graft has brought deserved success, it's also delivered a perplexing irritant. "Loads of random Russians are calling my mobile at the moment," she says, utterly bewildered. "I don't even know them, they just call up and start chatting!"
		Vexing indeed, but unlikely to halt Alsou's shore-storming anytime soon. Even if it does, she's another fine talent up her sleeve. "I love drawing and painting," she states. Recalling one time when she'd had to draw nude models, "I was so embarassed, but when they handed back my work, I got an "A"!"