Yoav
Who doesn't remember their first hangover; the throbbing of your temples, the cracked tongue sticking to the roof of your parched mouth, the buzzards circling overhead? You pray for anything, anywhere, to help ease the pain, as long as it's dark, and quiet. Really, really quiet. Solo musician Yoav remembers waking up painfully on hungover mornings to the sounds of vocal exercises, because when you grow up with an opera singer mother and sister, there's no such thing as silence.
Yoav's childhood was far from conventional. For one thing, the Israel-born, South Africa-raised musician was not allowed to listen to pop music, only classical and opera. This censorship led to an illicit love affair with rock-and-roll. He snuck out at night to practice chords on a battered guitar and ducked into alternative clubs (hence the hangovers) to hear the latest from Joy Division or The Cure. These moonlit escapades took him far from the ears of his parents and the grim restrictions of an Apartheid-era Cape Town at a time when listening to modern music had all but stopped and the biggest band to come through was Crowded House.
Fast forward a decade: Apartheid has ended, Crowded House has broken up, and Yoav is laying in the grass in New York's Central Park, tripping on mushrooms and playing acoustic guitar, when his style takes shape.
Rooted heavily in hip-hop and electronica, Yoav likens his unique, percussive playing style to DJing on guitar. Ever since that moment in Central Park, Yoav has crafted left of center pop songs to beats instead of melodies, and finally broke free from the singer-songwriter mold on Charmed & Strange, his debut album, out now.
Erin Broadley: Your style is very, very percussive. How did that develop for you? Was it happenstance or was it part of your plan all along?
Yoav:
A bit of everything, a bit of coincidence. Theres definitely an element to the fact that I listen to not too many guitarists and not too many singer songwriters, but I still write pop songs. The music I listen to tends to be electronic music, experimental hip-hop
EB:
I read that the challenge and fun in making music for you is taking the electronic or hip-hop that you listen to and translating that to acoustic guitar. Ive always thought of the best music and art as creative problem solving.
Yoav:
Yeah, and I think the limitations force you to make something thats new. Electronic music on the guitar, drum and bass on the guitar, hip-hop beats, all that stuff
I think the first song I wrote to a beat was the third track on the record. I would never have written it if I was just strumming or picking chords. Its opened up [so much]. A lot of the new songs on the record were written in that way, where they became much more rhythmic because the way that it was written
in between writing on a sampler which you do in hip-hop -- which is cool but youre quite cut off from the actual instrument -- and what youre doing as a singer-songwriter. I had a moment where things clicked in my head as far as like being able to do that and sing at the same time where I was tripping on mushrooms in Central Park in New York
EB:
I read about that! Didnt some kids show up on a field trip?
Yoav:
Yeah [smiles]. Thats when I thought, Ive really got to start focusing. Lots of things were pointing me in that direction. Then I went to London, played for a couple of record producers and they heard how I was doing it live and everyone just said, You know you should make a record just on the guitar, and then from here you can grow and do different things. We did that and then I had to go back and listen to the record and go, Okay, how can I make this happen really well live? It continuously evolves so theres always more. The first record, for sure, I think you should have something more raw and Im happy with the way its done.
EB:
Growing up, you played [classical] instruments that you didnt want to play so picking up guitar was like a rebellion. How much does a sense of rebellion factor into the music youre making today? Do you think rock music or pop music necessitates a rebellion of some sort?
Yoav:
Well, I hope so. And I think its missing
a lot of the rebellions of the last few years, like rock and hip-hop, have almost been co-opted. Theres still great rock and great hip hop but a lot of hip-hop has become very about the money which is not what it was about, and the same with rock music where its become quite corporate. A lot of it sounds the same. Indie is a contradiction because its all on major labels. I think being subversive and looking underneath the surface of society, thats important to me. Being an outsider and looking in from the outside of things is important because I didnt fit in as a kid and now, even in this wide pursuit of pop music and rock music, its what its about. Within what I do, I find that I dont fit in; Im not like the singer-songwriter and Im not like a pop star or a rock band or an indie artist
Im lots of different things. I dont want to ever feel too comfortable like Im doing something thats easy
though I definitely want it to be pop because I love pop music. But it should be dark and it should definitely have something subversive to it.
EB:
I think a lot of people misconstrue the term pop music to think that its without those things, when in reality some of the most subversive acts or songs that have changed the way people think or have changed music have been pop songs.
Yoav:
Exactly. Thats what its about. Dark pop music, I consider everything from Portishead to Depeche Mode to The Cure, all of that, pop music. But its dark and theres something going on underneath [the surface].
EB:
Was part of the attraction to playing guitar because you werent allowed to listen to pop or rock music growing up?
Yoav:
Oh yeah, yeah. All of that, and the way I discovered certain things at certain times -- like it was alcohol and rock and roll, pot and hip hop, all of these things -- it was a lot about being a kid and sneaking around; it was my rebellion. It made it very appealing. Growing up in South Africa while it was still Apartheid-era
half an hour of music videos a week, one radio station that played the most obvious music, I found ways to make friends in alternative clubs and would go there to hear stuff I would never hear on the radio like Joy Division. And because I didnt know anything about these bands, they had a lot of mystique and an aura of mystery. Thats a big one for me [smiles].
EB:
Your mom was an opera singer, right?
Yoav:
Yeah.
EB:
Did you grow up singing with her?
Yoav:
[Laughs] I hated opera. My sister was also an opera singer. I still dont like opera. I get into classical music now but opera I cant. When youre nine-years-old and you get taken to an opera, some of them are like four or five hours long, thats like three weeks for a nine-year-old.
EB:
Oh, its a lifetime.
Yoav:
I watched my mom on stage and would wake up to her warm up exercises. Id sort of wake up with a hangover and in the next room its like operatic exercises.
EB:
That didnt turn you off from singing, though?
Yoav:
No, I liked singing, just not the whole opera thing.
EB:
I know there was a turning point for you when you got up on stage with Crowded House and sang when you were 15. Tell me a little bit about that story and about what clicked for you that night.
Yoav:
Yeah, yeah. I had an idea this is what I wanted to do and Ive always been one of these people that is sensitive to direction from the universe, or whatever. Weirdly enough, they came to Cape Town. They were one of the first big bands that came at the time. They played two shows and I went both nights
[on the second night] Im quite near the front and the singer, Neil Finn, towards the end of the show, is like, Does anyone here think they can sing better than me? There were about 12,000 people in the crowd and a lot of people around me knew that I could sing and started pointing at me. I didnt even have time to be nervous or think about being pushed onto the stage. Im given a microphone and this roar spread across the arena and it was great; it was an amazing performance. In the newspaper, for months after, it was reported that they planted me in the audience and that it was fake and all of that, which is typical. Thats the whole thing about coming from South Africa and making it there, but I remember this massive rush from the crowd and not being able to sleep with a big smile on my face. It was like, Okay, I think this is what Im meant to do. A few years later I first got my big break right after school. Someone heard my demos and I got flown to New York and played for the staff at Columbia records and they gave me a development deal. I was very much standard singer-songwriter, not doing what I do now. But that was what got me out of South Africa and moving to wherever I needed to go.
EB:
Do you ever get writers block?
Yoav:
Yeah, of course. Its a constant battle
you dont want to copy yourself. Thats difficult. If you know you have some sort of audience and youre being judged, then that can block you. You want to forget that but you dont want to forget it totally. A pop song is a very specific thing; its a very specific kind of form, which I try and break out from occasionally, but there is a very specific vocabulary you use in a pop song that you dont want to deviate from too much where you sound like as ass [smiles]. Its tricky and Ive been going back to that a lot because it was always important to me as a kid. I have loads of song ideas for the next record, its just about putting it together. And I have some lyrical ideas as well but its about matching them and how this record is going to be different in evolution. The writing process is tough. And the live thing I enjoy more and more.
EB:
Theres a lot of multitasking live.
Yoav:
Yeah, especially what Im doing. Im operating two samplers with my feet and playing guitar and its got to be second nature so I can put forward the song and really sing it. Theres a lot of art
EB:
I love how you say it feels like DJing with your guitar. Thats a great visual and a great way to describe it.
Yoav:
Yeah, and that would be the ideal for me because Im frustrated by being a singer-songwriter and to have that power that DJs seem to have -- moving a room and changing the mood and building it up -- I can see myself another album or two down the line where I could do that and build a set in that way. I understand the way a DJ set works so itd be amazing. It could really take the thing to a new level.
For more information on Yoav, check out his official site and MySpace. You can also show Yoav some love by voting for him as Yahoo's "Who's Next" artist.
For more information on Yoav, check out his official site and MySpace. You can also show Yoav some love by voting for him as Yahoo's "Who's Next" artist.
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