"I miss Ukraine very much. I missed it even more when I realised that I cannot go back there." The Soviet-born heavy metal singer who had to flee war to maker her rock star dreams come true

(Image credit: Jen Rosenstein)

Tatiana Shmayluk is a big believer in manifestation. She says it’s the reason behind her remarkable journey from pop-punk-loving kid growing up in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine to the frontwoman with internationally renowned progressive tech-metallers Jinjer.

“I feel like I manifested it,” she says.

Whatever the secret, it worked. Having tried her luck in various local acts playing everything from nu metal to funk and reggae, Tatiana joined Jinjer in 2009, replacing original singer Maksym Fatullaiev. Despite the band’s relative geographical remoteness, a combination of determination and ambition have seen them become one of modern metal’s defining bands, releasing five albums, the most recent of which was 2025’s Duel.

Tatiana herself has played a huge role in Jinjer’s success, with her stunning vocal range and intimidating stage presence a massive part of their appeal. She’s no less direct in conversation, as she speaks to Hammer via Zoom from her apartment in California (she relocated to the US five years ago). She makes it clear that certain topics are off limits, not least Russia’s ongoing war on her homeland and the occupation of the Donbas itself.

But as the conversation progresses, she begins to open up, her more thoughtful and spiritual side emerges as she talks about everything from her upbringing in the remote Eastern corner of Europe to her place in the metal scene today.

What are your earliest memories of growing up?

“I was three, maybe. My mom had a vinyl player and we had a lot of different stuff. My father used to be a collector of The Beatles, he was a huge fan. But what I remember is the soundtracks from Soviet cartoons for children. That's the first vinyl that I was listening to when I was a baby, I used to ask my mom to play it for me to send me to sleep.”

Growing up in Ukraine, you must have been exposed to quite a lot of different music?

“Since I was born in the Soviet Union, the music that I was surrounded by was mainly the pop music of Soviet artists. But of course, some music from west and from different parts of the world as well. My first two tapes were [70s euro-disco outfit] Boney M – I still love this band. I dance and sing a lot to them. The second tape was a Soviet band called Aria.

"My elder brother introduced me to rock music, and they are a heavy metal band inspired by Iron Maiden. I was listening to these tapes, nonstop. And so that's why when I write music, my parts are sometimes kind of catchy and pop-ish. Disco-metal sort of thing.”

Do you recall your first attempt at creating music?

“My first attempt was when I was a child. I had a toy piano, a really small one, but it sounded quite realistic. I remember I took an old Soviet book, it was like a handbook for children, for school. It was basically the first book that children in the first grades of school or kindergarten have to learn to read. There was a poem, and I tried to sing and play and make a melody to the poem. I cannot play piano at all, never could. I was just singing and just pressing random keys.”

The music that I was surrounded by was mainly Soviet pop artists

How did you come to join Jinjer?

“I had been in lots of bands, some of them were very… ‘cringe’ is the word I would use. After so much hadn’t worked out, I told myself that I'm not going to do this anymore. But then I was asked to join Jinjer, as their vocalist had gone to the US. A band I used to be in rehearsed in the same place as them, so we knew each other. They asked me to fill in for one show. I learned all of their songs and the show felt good, so we agreed that we were going to continue doing that.”

For a band from the Donbas, how realistic was the idea of making it in the UK or the US?

“If you have you ever seen on the map where the Donbas is, where I'm from, it's the very eastern part of Ukraine. It's closer to Russia. It's so far away from Europe. Logically, it would make more sense to be aiming at the Russian market, but I chose to start singing in English and this was the first step that we made to look to a different direction, to look to Europe.

“I don't think that we looked to the US or UK market then. First, we had to be famous in our country, and then we had to go to the closest countries outside of Ukraine. It's like working in the coal mines, scraping tunnels. We were basically making tunnels, little by little.”

Tatiana in a shiny violet dress — Tatiana on stage with Jinjer in 2018 (Image credit: Jen Rosenstein)

It worked. You self-released your debut album Cloud Factory in 2014, and began booking international dates yourself. That must have took a lot of self-belief.

“When I was 11, I used to sit and listen to Metallica on headphones and imagine myself up on those kinds of stages. You can believe it or not, but I think I mostly manifested that. Don’t get me wrong, it was a lot of hard work, but it came to us through that belief.”

Are you a spiritual person?

“I guess I am. It's more like some kind of connection with the universe, let's say. My biggest wish was to become a rock star and play on big stages, but I combined this with the ability to work for it. Whatever you want you just have to do certain things in your head, imagining things, illusions and stuff. I tested it on myself, and it works. Manifestation works. Some of my dreams actually took 15 years, some of them took me around seven years.”

What kind of things?

“I saw my husband on the internet and I thought, ‘I like him, yeah, we’re going to get married.’ I believed that we would be together and now we are. The power of thought is very strong. That was the seven year one.”

My biggest wish was to become a rock star and play on big stages

And did you manifest your international success?

“I think it played a part. A fan set up our US Facebook page, and a lot of people discovered us before we had even played there. I think there were people just searching for new bands at that time, female-fronted bands maybe, and they found us in 2013 or 2014. That’s when we did our first video. The internet, YouTube, social media, it really helped us, probably a lot more than touring ever could have. I was happy to do all kinds of shameless self-promotion, adding people and sending them our music. I am a very stubborn person, and we weren’t going to passively sit there.”

You used the description ‘female-fronted bands’. That’s a loaded term these days.

“Yes, and we’re still going through this bullshit today.”

In what sense?

“We are still getting compared to artists that have nothing to do with us. And not always good or talented artists, and I feel very, very fucking offended by that. Because some people, they cannot sing, they don't hit the notes! Then I get people saying ‘Oh, she's doing better than you, she does it better than you, she has this personality she has…’ Oh my god! Leave me alone! That that kind of stuff that really pisses me off.”

Do you feel you’re getting pitted against other women?

“Yeah, and it’s always women who get this kind of stuff. I'm on my own, I never try to copy. Actually no, I can confess, I tried to copy Randy Blythe from Lamb Of God. But I get a lot of comparisons and comments comparing me with [former Arch Enemy vocalist] Angela Gossow. I never wanted to sound like her. Some people told me, ‘Why don't you colour your hair? why don't you dye your hair blue like Alissa [White-Gluz, another former Arch Enemy vocalist]?’ But why would I? I don't get it.”

Do you see yourself as an inspiration for people?

“All this fame stuff, you cannot control it. It leaves me at a loss. People are going to think what they think.”

Have you always felt that way?

“I think I used to be naive, but I’ve had some bad experiences with the press, I think it’s made me more guarded. I second guess myself a lot in these sorts of situations, because I am aware of what we call the ‘yellow press’. It’s the people just looking for scandals. I used to just say anything in interviews, but now I’ll play them all back in my head and worry about how those words will be framed. It has affected me, I’m not [controversial Falling In Reverse singer] Ronnie Radke, I’m not some person trying to make headlines.”

Jinjer really broke through internationally with the song Pisces in 2016.

“Yeah, it was an exciting period. It’s funny, it was never meant to be a big song. People go, ‘Let's make the biggest hit of all time!’, that they're going to play it on radio and stuff. We never did that. I thought that I Speak Astronomy [also from 2016’s King Of Everything album] was going to blow.

"I like that song better. It really represents what I feel, how I see things. Pisces is narrower because it's about only one of the 12 zodiac signs. I Speak Astronomy is about all the people on the earth. But it didn't go that way, it absolutely went in a different direction. We were really surprised.”

I'm on my own, I never try to copy anyone

What have been your personal career highlights so far?

"Well, you know what's really memorable for me, was Resurrection Fest in 2018. We have live footage of it. I remember those photos from that gig were everywhere. And the outfit that I wore became popular, like a signature one. After that, we went on a Latin American tour and our promoter said, ‘Hey Tati, a lot of people here who are going to come to your show asked, could you please wear that dress?’ Luckily, I had it. But I love festivals, like really love festivals.”

You moved to the US in 2020. What inspired that?

That was my 15-year manifestation. When I was 13, I started listening to California punk, and I got obsessed with Blink-182. Then I started watching a lot of comedies, like American Pie and stuff. I really wanted to go to America, I painted my nails like the American flag. I'm good at knitting and so I knitted a crop top with the American flag and Blink-182 on my back in big letters. I moved here in 2020, I got married, I started doing my green card in 2021. I love it here in California. Again, manifesting works.”

How easy has it been acclimatising to a new country?

“I still have problems with that, even after four years. I’ve spoken English for 20 years – in fact me and my friends would deliberately speak it in school. But when I was placed into this situation where I have to speak English, I found myself unable to keep conversation going because I start translating my thoughts from Russian to English, which you're not supposed to do. You have to think in English. I find it hard. Beside my husband, I only have two friends who are Russian-speaking people from Ukraine. So I speak Russian to them.”

Tatiana in a stunning shiny violet dress — (Image credit: Jen Rosenstein)

Have you ever considered doing a full Russian language Jinjer album?

“Well, we have put a few Russian lines in our songs, a few words, but never a full album. I am a big fan of Cypress Hill, and they have translated their albums into Spanish, but I think I’d want to do something new. But that’s actually a very interesting idea to me, so thank you for planting some seeds in my head.”

How much do you miss Ukraine?

“I miss Ukraine. I miss Ukraine very much. I missed it even more when I realised that I cannot go back there. Because if there was no war, I would be back and forth, and it would be easier for me to deal with this kind of emotion. Right now, I can't go there, I can't go to Kyiv. Something tells me that I shouldn't. I’m pretty sure that I have bad luck, sometimes it's really bad, and I'm pretty sure something would happen to me.”

JINJER - Duél - Tatiana Shmayluk - One Take Vocal Performance - YouTube

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You’ve spoken about the things you’ve manifested in the past. What are the things you’re manifesting at the moment?

“If we're talking about something quite materialistic that I'm manifesting a house for myself, a little castle, a small Victorian-style house for myself, just because I spent all my life living with someone. I just want a house for myself to make a crazy renovation, that my husband doesn't have to be involved in. It's my project, just my project.”

Sounds nice.

“Yeah. But also I was just talking about my dreams, and I had a dream about the war. I had a dream about peaceful days in my hometown. There were a lot of people, sunny weather, everything was like active, lively. In my hometown we have Victory Square, and it was packed with people. I was there standing there, enjoying everything.

“Maybe we should collectively manifest this. You know when people group pray? We probably should do the same, just manifesting and imagining the world becoming a peaceful place again. Because I don't think I can do it myself, I think it takes more than one person to make it happen.”

Latest Jinjer album Duel is out now via Napalm. Grab an exclusive Duel t-shirt and Jinjer alternate Metal Hammer cover bundle via the official Metal Hammer store

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Stephen joined the Louder team as a co-host of the Metal Hammer Podcast in late 2011, eventually becoming a regular contributor to the magazine. He has since written hundreds of articles for Metal Hammer, Classic Rock and Louder, specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal. He also presents the Trve. Cvlt. Pop! podcast with Gaz Jones and makes regular appearances on the Bangers And Most podcast.

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