For many rock-cover fans, NoApology did not appear out of nowhere. The project is closely tied to the Sershen & Zaritskaya era — a YouTube phenomenon born in Kyiv, Ukraine, built on polished hard-rock arrangements, instantly recognizable songs, and Daria Zaritskaya’s voice at the center of it all.
That history matters because NoApology is not just “another cover band.” Their catalog tells a more specific story: a group that built a global audience through familiar songs, then grew into something with a life of its own. The name changed, the ambitions expanded — but the core appeal never wavered: powerful vocals, tight arrangements, and rock versions of songs people already knew by heart.
From a Kyiv Home Studio to 200 Million Views
The story starts in 2014, when vocalist Daria Zaritskaya and guitarist Sergey Sershen launched a YouTube channel under their combined surnames. At the time, it was just the two of them — no band, no label, no industry backing. Sershen, a former sound engineer and producer at Kyiv’s InRock Studio, handled all recording, mixing, and mastering himself out of his own Sershen Music Studio. That in-house control gave the project a polished, consistent sound from day one.
For three years the duo built their audience cover by cover. Then in 2017, drummer Dmitry Kim and bassist Alex Shturmak came on board to complete the full four-piece lineup. Kim was no stranger to the Ukrainian metal underground — before joining, he had played drums for Jinjer, the band that would go on to become one of the most internationally recognized heavy acts in the world. Having a musician with that background behind the kit raised the project’s weight and energy considerably.
By 2021 the channel had passed 700,000 subscribers and crossed 200 million views — remarkable numbers for a band operating entirely outside the traditional music industry. Then came 2022 and the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Daria and Sergey made the decision to close the Sershen & Zaritskaya chapter and start again. NOAPOLOGY was born, with the debut single “Ashes” arriving in October 2022. The current lineup is Daria Zaritskaya on vocals, Sergey Sershen on guitar, Alex Shturmak on bass, and Przemek Nalazek on drums.
Daria Zaritskaya: The Voice at the Center
Any honest account of this project starts with her. Born on December 31, 1994, in Ukraine, Daria Zaritskaya is the kind of vocalist who makes a cover feel like an event rather than an exercise. She doesn’t just reproduce famous songs — she inhabits them and reshapes them around her own personality.
Her strength is range in the deepest sense: not just register, but the ability to approach songs that live in completely different emotional worlds. “Back in Black” needs swagger. “Black Velvet” needs smolder. “Dirty Diana” needs danger. “Soldier of Fortune” needs restraint. Daria delivers all four convincingly, and that versatility is the biggest reason the catalog holds together as well as it does. Add in a powerful visual presence on camera, and you have the face that millions of viewers came back for.
The Band Behind the Voice
Reducing this project to vocals alone misses something essential. Sergey Sershen — guitarist, producer, and recording architect — makes the decisions that determine whether a cover sounds alive or merely accurate. His instinct is to find the rock version of a song that was already in the original, not to force a genre shift that was never there.
Dmitry Kim’s drumming brings credibility that matters for the metal side of the audience. His Jinjer background shows up in the precision he brings even to more pop-oriented material. Alex Shturmak’s bass gives the heavier arrangements their low-end punch without dominating the mix. Together, the four create exactly what a great cover project should: familiar enough for instant recognition, different enough to feel like a real reinterpretation.
12 Sershen & Zaritskaya / NoApology Covers That Define the Era
1. AC/DC – “Back in Black”
Written by Angus Young to honor the late Bon Scott, “Back in Black” is built almost entirely on swagger and one of the most iconic riffs in rock history — deceptively simple, and deceptively dangerous to cover. This version works because it doesn’t try to out-AC/DC AC/DC. Daria doesn’t imitate Brian Johnson; she uses the song’s confidence as a launchpad for her own. With over 22 million views, it became the project’s most-watched video and, for many listeners, the definitive introduction to Sershen & Zaritskaya.
2. Guns N’ Roses – “Welcome to the Jungle”
“Welcome to the Jungle” opened Appetite for Destruction in 1987 with a theatrical, tension-coiled danger that is hard to cover without sliding into impression. Daria doesn’t try to replicate Axl Rose — she finds the song’s aggression through her own vocal identity while the band frames the chaos in a cleaner, more modern hard-rock production. The result captures the feeling of something dangerous just barely under control.
3. Metallica Medley + Mashup
A single-song cover proves one thing; a Metallica medley proves another. Moving across a catalog where vocal demands and moods shift dramatically, this performance shows the project’s heavier, more metal-credible side. Kim’s drumming is the backbone — his background keeps the heaviest passages from softening — while Daria proves she can handle the tonal shifts that Metallica’s material demands. The most direct argument in the catalog that the project belongs in the metal world as much as the hard-rock one.
4. KISS – “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” feat. Halocene
Fact: Gene Simmons famously hated this song when it was recorded in 1979 as a disco-era commercial experiment. Paul Stanley pushed for it, and it became one of KISS’s biggest international hits. The cover leans into exactly what the original always was — a shameless, arena-sized anthem — while Daria adds a modern frontwoman edge and Halocene provides a second vocal layer that turns the chorus into a wall of sound. One of the most accessible entries in the catalog, and deliberately so.
5. The Beatles – “Come Together”
Written by Lennon and driven by one of McCartney’s most recognizable bass lines, “Come Together” is all groove and restraint — push it too hard and it loses its character entirely. This cover matters because it tests a completely different part of what the project can do. Daria shapes the performance through phrasing rather than force, and the band resists the temptation to over-produce a song that was always about space and atmosphere.
6. Scorpions – “Rock You Like a Hurricane” feat. Violet Orlandi
One of the most riff-driven, chant-chorus songs in classic rock, “Rock You Like a Hurricane” doesn’t need reinvention — it needs delivery. The cover delivers it cleanly and loudly, and the addition of Brazilian YouTube rock vocalist Violet Orlandi turns the chorus into something close to a stadium shout. Like the Halocene collaboration, it also places the project inside a wider international rock-cover community rather than an isolated channel.
7. Bon Jovi – “Livin’ on a Prayer”
By the time any band covers this song, every listener already knows every turn. That is the challenge — and the opportunity. This version works because it uses familiarity as fuel rather than fighting it. The song’s power is in the lift: verse of tension, chorus of release, emotional directness in between. Daria’s voice gives that arc a different color without breaking the structure that made millions of people love the song in the first place.
8. Alannah Myles – “Black Velvet”
Grammy-winning in 1991 and genuinely underrated, “Black Velvet” is a tribute to the young, dangerous Elvis — all slow-burn mood and smoky atmosphere, no power chords. This is one of the best entries in the catalog for showing Daria’s lower register and her ability to carry a song through phrasing rather than force. When the original demands stillness and restraint, she delivers that instead of attacking the song. One of the most vocally revealing covers in the list.
9. Dua Lipa – “Physical”
Everything else in this list has classic rock or metal DNA. “Physical” is a 2020 pop hit — sleek, synth-heavy, disco-influenced. Covering it with live guitars and a full rock band is not an obvious move. That’s exactly why it works: it proves the project’s ability to move across decades and genres without losing its identity. The band transforms the production feel without destroying the hook. A cover project that only looks backward eventually becomes a museum. This one doesn’t.
10. Michael Jackson – “Dirty Diana” feat. Cole Rolland
“Dirty Diana” is the most rock-native song in Michael Jackson’s catalog — co-produced by Steve Stevens (Billy Idol’s guitarist), built around a guitar-driven arrangement, and a US number one in 1988 that felt like a provocation in the middle of Thriller-era expectations. The original already lives in rock territory; this cover just makes it louder and more dangerous.
The addition of Canadian guitarist Cole Rolland gives the track extra firepower right where the song demands it. Like the Halocene and Violet Orlandi collaborations, it connects the project to a wider international rock community — and delivers one of the most dramatic performances in the entire catalog.
11. Journey – “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)”
Long before Stranger Things reintroduced it to a new generation in 2022, “Separate Ways” was one of Journey’s most demanding songs vocally — built on urgency, range, and a controlled emotional desperation that has to feel real or the whole thing collapses. This is one of the strongest vocal showcases in the entire catalog. Daria carries both the song’s contrasts and its arena-scaled chorus without oversinging either, and the result shows exactly why this project found such a large audience.
12. Deep Purple – “Soldier of Fortune”
Written by Ritchie Blackmore and David Coverdale for Deep Purple’s 1975 album Stormbringer, “Soldier of Fortune” is one of the most quietly devastating songs in the classic-rock canon — a stripped acoustic ballad about loss and loneliness, with nothing to hide behind. As a closer, it strips the formula down to its most exposed form: no enormous riffs, no anthemic chorus. The performance has to feel lived-in and emotionally honest. It does. That is why it matters: proof that the project’s appeal was never purely about power.
NoApology Today: Album, Singles, and New Collaborations
The cover era is the foundation, but today NoApology is a fully functioning original rock band moving forward at speed.
In January 2025, they released their debut full-length album Uncovered — ten tracks of alternative metal, fully self-released without a label. The title is deliberately double-edged: uncovered as in exposed, and uncovered as in no longer hiding behind other people’s songs. Tracks like “Bad News,” “Hunter,” “On The Edge,” and “Disease” show Daria and Sergey writing material that sounds like it was always meant to exist — heavy, melodic, and direct.
In April 2026, the new single “Test Me Now” arrived, sharper and more immediate than anything on the album. Daria’s TikTok presence — over 350,000 followers — helped the track reach a new audience almost immediately.
Then, in May 2026, it was announced that Daria Zaritskaya appears as a featured vocalist on “Meet Me After Life”, a track by US rock band Stitched Up Heart. She shares the album with Heidi Shepherd of Butcher Babies and Elias Soriano of Nonpoint — the highest-profile international guest slot of her career so far.
No tour dates have been announced, but the band is releasing music at a consistent pace. If 2025 was the year they proved they could write a full album, 2026 looks like the year they prove they belong in the conversation with the bigger names of the genre.
Why NoApology Is More Than a Cover Project
The Sershen & Zaritskaya story is not just a YouTube success story. It’s about two musicians who started recording in a home studio in Kyiv in 2014 with no label, no backing, and no guarantee of anything — built a global audience entirely on the strength of their work — and then, when war came to their country, made the difficult decision to close that chapter and start something harder and more personal.
The covers are not disconnected uploads. They are steps in a longer identity, a decade of work that grew from a home studio duo into a full band with 200 million views and an original catalog that keeps growing. The name changed, but the foundation is still audible in everything they do.
For a cover project, that’s a rare thing to build. NOAPOLOGY is what it looks like when you get it right.
Explore more in our Cover Artists section. Check out our handpicked lists of the best Metallica covers and best Slipknot covers for more rock and metal reinterpretations.
