Described as "Abba meets Heavy Metal" Estonian all girl band VANILLA NINJA, assembled by svengali Sven Lohmus in the Autumn of 2002, rapidly attained idol status in their homeland, the subject of intense media scrutiny from major tabloids like 'SL Ohtuleht' and 'Kroonika', and subsequently spread their fame across into the European continent. VANILLA NINJA are of such status in Estonia that they even have their own ice cream brand.

The quartet, Lenna Kuurmaa, Katrin Siska, Triinu Kivilaan and Piret Järvis, would make a point of performing their own instruments and adopted a Rock sound not traditional with Pop star status. Debut European album 'Traces Of Sadness', with all compositions scored by Lohmus, scored massive success in Japan, breaking the national top twenty. In Germany, 'Traces Of Sadness' went top ten, attaining gold sales status. In 2004 noted German Pop guru David Brandes bought VANILLA NINJA's contract for an undisclosed, but reputedly enormous, sum. In June 2004 founding vocalist / bassist Maarja Kivi, then just 18, was forced to quit the group after she became pregnant. She would be replaced by "17" year old Triinu Kivilaan.

Oddly, this success brought with an unexpected invite from Switzerland to represent the country in the Eurovision Song Contest. The selection provoked huge controversy in Switzerland, however, due the obvious fact that none of the band members were actually Swiss. This episode then bizarrely saw VANILLA NINJA pitched against their own country's representatives SUN TRIBE, another girl group assembled by Sven Lohmus. Challengers to VANILLA NINJA's selection as Swiss candidates also generated further press coverage when it was discovered that Kivilaan was not in fact 17 years of age as press releases had claimed, she was in fact just 15 and therefore under the age limit to enter the competition. The argument was beaten down by the acknowledgement that the new VANILLA NINJA member would be 16 when the contest actually took place.