“Luckily I can get the guitar out anywhere, but my team is in big trouble”

The corona is also a matter of geography. Not only in terms of infection rates, but also in the way people experience it in different places. Probably for the musician Geva Alon, who has been living in Moshav Ma’ale Gamla in the Golan Heights for the past few years. “In the village you have your garden and your space in nature, and you do not have to be imprisoned in the apartment all the time, so in terms of closures it was easier,” he says in an interview with Ynet. After the depression of the first closure and the feeling of inaction, he has also learned to adapt to the new reality, and now he is launching Under the Waves, the new and fifth single from the album Follow, which will be released this spring.

Anyone who knows Alon, one of the great guitar heroes of Israeli rock, may be a little surprised by this new winter piano ballad. He himself was also surprised by the song he came out with. “I took advantage of the few winters there are now to get it out,” he laughs, “I wrote the song on the piano at home during the first two closures, when there was more panic and convergence. I had lots of hours with myself. One evening I sat and the song just came out of me. The album was actually It’s over, but I sent the song to Doron Plaskov (the producer of the album, AS) and he told me he had to come in. “So we did everything to make it happen.” Alon did write it on the piano, but he was not confident enough in his playing ability, so he sent the song to pianist Ohad Ben Ari, who lived in Berlin, who returned his side of the recording. Alon, who often flew abroad. To record albums, he is now forced to send files instead of himself. “We worked at Zoom,” he says, “after the initial bass period of the Corona I told myself that this is what it is now and with that we need to work. Technology makes it possible to do it at a very high level.”

In addition to finishing the album and enjoying the nature near his northern home with his eldest son who was born a few months ago, Alon took advantage of the period for yard performances, when it was still allowed. “I come from a world of troubadour performances with guitar, and I did it from the beginning, so it’s not as foreign to me as it is to artists who are used to big productions,” he explains. “I was very excited to get people home and sit with them at their dining table. These are very intimate moments. I came to a lot of corners in the country that I have not performed before because there are no clubs, and I have been performing for more than 20 years. “I saw people rejoicing at the music and the fact that they were being brought home.”

Will you continue to appear like this even after the corona is over?
“There’s something special about it that doesn’t happen in regular shows, and I have no problem continuing to do it for a long time to come.”

And are the long trips around the country an advantage or a disadvantage?
“I’ve been used to going to shows for many years. When I travel I don’t often listen to the radio, but sing to myself all kinds of ideas and record them. The car is like my office.”

Alon, 41, a native of Kibbutz Maabarot, broke out about 20 years ago as part of the Flying Baby band, whose debut album, Inner World, won critical acclaim and led to his coronation as a new local guitar hero. He has since released six albums. There are currently no plans to reunite the band, but Alon has not ruled out. Maybe after the corona. Here’s another reason to hope she’s gone from our lives.

Before the outbreak of the plague, he managed to record three songs with members of his side band, Wigan Friendly (along with Amir “Django” Rossiano and Assaf Reiss) and perform with Yehuda Poliker. “It’s a bit stuck right now,” says Alon sadly, “it was a great honor to record and play with Yehuda on the same stage. It’s an amazing thing to be in a room with someone like him, you immediately realize how ageless music is. The Greek combo with the rock he brings just became I have my head. ” In between the closures, Wigan Friendly also managed to record a song with Maor Cohen, and Alon, along with Rossiano, also played on Noam Rotem’s upcoming album. “I’m much more open to such connections than before. These encounters give rise to more encounters, so when possible, I do and enjoy them.” In the meantime he is focusing on his new and seventh album. “It will also be released on vinyl,” says Alon, “but this time no disc is planned. When we released CDs from the latest album ‘Looking for Heaven’, it did not interest anyone. When the digital revolution began I was amazed by it, today I understand that it is an evolution of music and we have to adapt to her”. This time, he says, he has already filmed a clip for each song, so that it is possible to release each one individually and translate it into units that stand on their own.

After years with the guitar, and more with a folk country rock sound identified with the late sixties and early seventies, this time Alon discovered the electronics and converted the riffs into beats. “It’s thanks to the connection with Doron,” he says, “this album is different from the ones I did to date, not only in the way it sounds but in the way it was created. It started with tests I did with Doron and was stolen from them, and that’s how we progressed from song to song.” According to him, the audience loves the change. “I played all the songs that came out in performances. They are translated into guitar and there are great reactions, because at the end of the day, a good song is a good song no matter how it is played. The shell around you only gives you inspiration and challenge.”

Follow, the first single from the album, also features Idan Raichel and his piano. “Doron called me one day,” Alon recalled, “and asked me if I was willing to work with British producer Danton Sapple, who had previously worked with Coldplay and was just in the country. I told him yes, and when I got there Doron told me that Idan Raichel would be here in a few minutes. And we started looking for ideas, we picked up some very quick sketch and from there the whole album actually started. ” Another change in the upcoming album is a return to English, after two albums in Hebrew. “This matter of languages ​​has passed me by a bit,” he admits, “the main thing is that you do something. English may keep you away, but it’s not a bad thing. It’s good to be close and direct and our own, but also good to be in escapism. This range is important to me. “Small and technology allows it to work. But do not worry, there will be another album in Hebrew, it’s a matter of time.”

Is the division between rock and pop or between electronic and rock still relevant to you?
“No, an artist is an artist. I had an interesting process when I made the albums in Hebrew. It was a revealing move that I was very afraid of and after they came out I told myself it didn’t really matter, because as I expand my spectrum, my body of work will be more interesting. “It doesn’t matter what you call it, or if I perform with an electric guitar or with a computer. In the end, it’s the message and the feeling in your stomach and you have to convey it.”

Speaking of musical changes, one of your best-selling songs is the cover to David Bowie’s Modern Love, which this month marks five years since his death. Is there another cover for the classics in the planning?
“I have all kinds of thoughts about songs that accompany me for many years that I want to perform. Modern Love is a song that goes with me from childhood. When you are a child you do not think about settings, but absorb something of deep quality. It is a great song and I always performed it in shows. “I opposed him at first because I did not want to do covers. In retrospect, it turned out to be the smartest thing to do,” he laughs.

As Alon moves on to talk about the state of the culture industry over the past ten months the laughter has stopped. “The situation is very difficult, and I hope it will come back soon. In my opinion, the music industry will go through some restart, the question is how many casualties will be on the way, and no one can answer that at the moment.” Alon admits that the uncertainty in the current period has broken him. “There have been a few weeks that the world of culture has seemingly opened up, and there have already been planned shows and tickets sold out, and suddenly the money has to be returned. I am working with what is currently available and trying to get through this period as best I can.”

There is a feeling that the people of culture have been neglected enough, and almost no one deals with your struggle and suffering.
“Luckily, I have my guitar that I can put out anywhere, but my team is in great distress and you do not see it in everyday discourse. By and large, the priorities in the country are very problematic. Culture is a need. It is not that I want to perform, it is my need to perform. And of the audience to get a performance.You sometimes see in a performance people from both ends of the political spectrum standing next to each other and singing the same song and hugging.It unites society, beyond that musicians and artists are the ones who volunteer the most.We come and always the first, no matter where. “Comes when I can, and you want to think that when you need something back, society will be by your side. In my performances, I see that people are completely there. In the leadership, this understanding does not really exist.”

And here, when Aviv Geffen meets with Netanyahu, he snatches from all sides.
“It’s a very complex situation. I do not know all the details around this encounter, but I appreciate Aviv’s ability to get up and do things to change the situation. This period is very depressing and I try to focus on my family cell to stay sane. Anyone who does something There will be fire against him. ”

Alon may be going through this complex period somehow, but for some of the people who have worked with him over the years the new routine is more difficult. “Behind every artist is a pyramid of staff that has been with him for many years: there is a band and sometimes more musicians, a soundman, a lighting and a driver who drives them all, a show manager and a PR woman, and there is the performance office that handles contracts and the personal manager,” he explains. “This is a large group of people whose work it is, and some of them have a very big problem now. For example, Yossi Lugassi, my soundman who has been working with me for 20 years and has been with me on all albums and hundreds of shows. This is a man who planned festivals here and artists from abroad asked him to work with them and others suggested He had to join their columns, and today he was forced to teach mathematics. It’s not some kid who took a mixer yesterday, he’s one of the best professionals in the country, who works with Shalom Hanoch and Mishina, and it’s very sad for me, “he adds,” The way an artist sounds, looks and feels is a combination of many minds working with him for years. “From these people, what they know and love about artists.”

But despite the challenging period, Alon remains optimistic. “You sit for a few months at home and get depressed, and all of a sudden you come to a yard show and get that breeze from the crowd, and it’s a big thing,” he says, “suddenly you realize that music has a life of its own and it has reached people who went through a process with it. “Just as we need the audience, the audience needs us. It is important that there is a culture in Israel and everyone should strive and help in what they can for it to exist.”