Photo by Yaniv Israel Alon
Last month Israeli indie rock trio ELECTRA spread sweat, power and punk spirit with the German audience in form of a joyful tour. Some minutes before their gig in Leipzig, we had the pleasure to talk with these lovely lads about their home country Israel, the Tel Aviv indie music scene, bad mainstream pop around the world and their favourite bands as well.
You are from Israel. To us that’s something special, because Israel isn’t famous for rock music. Pleas tell us a bit more, Is there a scene? Are you part of it? And which kind of music is in there?
Nitzan Horesh: There is an indie or alternative music scene in Tel Aviv, it’s pretty growing, a lot of pretty good stuff is going on there right now. I guess it’s the same like everywhere around the world, where the mainstream is just really horrible. And the scene is trying to evolve, but Israel is really small place so you have to consider this. There are not so many people to get crowd of for bands which make indie music oder alternative music, it’s not that easy.
Boaz Wolf: It used to be harder, like five or seven years ago you really could call it a underground scene, now it’s more valuable and people also consume more of this music.
NH: Yeah and we are lucky enough to be one of the bands from the Tel Aviv Indie scene that been played regularly on naional radio. We fight the trashy stuff, the mainstream charts and stuff, so the actual situation is quite funny and interesting to us.
How sounds mainstream-like music in Israel?
NH: Haha, same way as in other countries. But also a bit Meditrrenean, semi Arabic, semi Euro pop. Tel Aviv is a cool city, it’s one of the coolest cities I know and it’s acting like any other normal cities. Like Berlin or London, just a bit smaller.
Is your origin an important part of your identity? Or is it a problem to get always associated with your home country?
NH: Of course it is part of us and we are part of it. We don’t know how it is, to be from another country. We don’t try to hide or deny it. And we are proud to bring other voices from Israel apart of what you see in tv or read about the politics and stuff.
How did you start your first contact to foreign countries?
NH: We signed to Anova,which is our label in Israel, they are the biggest label in israel and they had contacts to other labels and booking agencies for example in the USA. Then we started to tout the States, we’ve done two coast to coast tours, we had some showcases in Germany last year.
Ok now to your music. Your sound is influenced by the good old rock music of sixties and seventies, does this mean a limitation or a creative border sometimes?
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NH: No it’s the other way around, we always try to push our boundaries. And the thing is, we don’t have much songs of the same genre, we have punk songs, soul music with a bit Motown sound, glam rock, ska music or whatever comes to our mind. We are not limited by any genre at all. And some of our music that we’ve put out as singles also got remixed by techno musicians for example. We are definitely more than a retro band, we take whatever we want from the music that we like and try to create something new of ot.
BW: We also expand from the beginning of the band, we try new things and we are really generous all the time.
So it’s definitely possible that you gonna use things like an old drum computer oder some analogue synthesizers in the future?
NH: Um.. Why not… at one point we’ll maybe fire one of the boys and get some synthetic drums….(laughs) We are obviously more into an oldschool type of sound, we record analogue and we like that sound of the band, as a warmer sound, but I don’t know what the next album will be.
So you are really open minded, what kind of music you like to listen in private?
NH: We listen to all sorts of sounds, at the moment I got MINGUS, the JOHN SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION and DAVID BOWIE , I’m really into BOWIE at the Moment. Not the new album, I haven’t heard it now, I don’t wanna hear it, but Scary Monsters and Let’s Dance. Also FRANCE GALL, THE SHANGRI-AS, The Idiot by IGGY POP, GUN CLUB, GANGF OF FOUR, THEE OH SEES, TY SEGALL, that’s it basically.
BW: Right now I listen to the TAME IMPALA and SPOON. Each one of us bring another kind of influence to ELECTRA, that’s what make it so interesting and eclectic.
One of those typical questions is this one about the name of the band. But the name ELECTRA brings a lot of different and interesting associations, where did it came from?
NH: The name is associated with Marc Bolan from T-REX, he made an Album called Electric Warrior, it’s the first major album I guess. And so I had the idea to take the word electric and use it.
My last question is, what do “hope” and “passion” mean to you?
NH: The only thing that matters. Simple as that, right?
BW: Our Hope is maybe that we can continue what we love to do and to continue touring the world and making the music, which is our passion.
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