On August 20, the Israeli folk-rock band Jericho will perform on the Central Park stage at the Menashe Forest Festival in Megiddo as part of a tour celebrating the release of the band’s debut album.
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Aviv Stein
(Photo: Ryan)
For guitarist and band member Aviv Stein, who was born and raised in Kibbutz Ramat Hasofet, the performance on stage at the foot of the kibbutz where he began his musical career and near the school where he attended, will be a particularly defining and exciting moment. Now he tells about the path he took, about dealing with his fears as a brother to a mentally challenged person and about the feelings of returning with the music he created to his quarry.
Stein (54), married and the father of a girl, was born and raised in Kibbutz Ramat Hasofet. His connection to music started at a young age and he received musical education from his father and brother. “My father is a musician and plays the saxophone and mandolin and he taught me to play the guitar. I received my musical education from my brothers who listened to the Beatles and Zeppelin along with the Roosters and the Threes. As a child I would listen to a lot of ‘Beatles’ and later also progressive rock bands like Kansas, Yes and Genesis “.
Already at the age of 8, Stein started playing drums, but during high school he found his love for the guitar. “My father taught me chords and slowly I developed. Before the army, I went to a recording studio to record all the works I knew until then. I had this kind of feeling that I was going to the army and didn’t know what was waiting on the other side. I didn’t know if I was going to leave music at all and what It’s going to be, so I wanted everything to be recorded.”
After his discharge from the army, Stein left the kibbutz, moved to Tel Aviv and began his studies at the Rimon music school where he specialized in jazz, but did not find his place there and began studying sound. Upon graduation he opened a recording studio in Tel Aviv where he befriended musicians Dror Shostak and Eran Natans, the founding members of the Jericho band. The band itself, which in its previous incarnation was called ‘The People’, was founded three years ago. “Bassist Eran Natans, Dror Shostak and I met in Dror’s living room, we started playing together and everyone brought their own songs,” recalls Stein, “we started building the songs, but we felt that something was missing. We are three creators, not singers, and we also felt a little old for to be at the front”.
The one who filled the missing side in the band is the singer Natalie Polk, a resident of Los Angeles and the daughter of an Israeli family. “We did several auditions, we were looking for someone whose mother tongue was English because all the songs on the album were in English and in the end we ended up with Natalie Polk by chance. When she came to the rehearsal the connection was immediate.”
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Jericho band
(Photography: Noam Lebkowitz)
After Polk, the fifth member of Jericho, drummer Guy Gonen, joined and the band went on a tour in 2019 that ended rather quickly due to the corona virus. “We did one show in south Tel Aviv, a show with friends. It was a lot of fun, but two weeks later the corona virus started and then we realized that we couldn’t perform and we decided to use the time to record songs. It took us a year and a half to record the album songs.”
At the end of the Corona, the drummer Gonen left and Yoav Bunzel, one of the founding members joined in his place and the band reunited. The debut album which includes 10 songs in the folk-rock-Americana genre, all in English, was released recently and garnered positive reviews. In the meantime, three radio singles and three music videos have been released.
The band is distinguished by the folk-rock-Americana style that combines folk music with the basic rhythms of rock’n’roll music. “Each of us comes from a slightly different place: Natalie comes from folk, and even from the fringes of country; Dror deals with folk and rock; I touch folk and a little pop and make electronic music and Eran is a rocker. The more we played, the more we realized that this is what we are actually doing. Many people ask what Americana is : It’s something that in my eyes links to the desert and reminds a little of the Westerners, that’s where the name ‘Jericho’ came from – Jericho, which describes such a desert environment.”
The band’s target audience is diverse and there are even listeners from surprising places from abroad. “We have all kinds of interesting audiences,” says Stein, “We see on Spotify all kinds of places that hear us and we noticed that Ohio has the most.”
How are the reactions to the songs?
“People tell us that they connect very much to the songs. They connect to the lyrics and the vibe and find themselves in them. In the end, the songs are the ones that touch people and they are the ones that carry us on their backs. The songs are our conversation with the audience.”
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Aviv Stein Lives between two extremes
(Photo: Ryan)
Each song on the album contains a story. Stein wrote two songs that correspond with significant events in his life that left an impression on him: one is Let The Stars and the other is In Your Heart. “I wrote the first song in the days when my partner’s mother was on her deathbed in the last days of her life,” he explains.
The second song was written by Stein following his additional work as the director of the music department at the ‘Knafiim’ association, a day arts center for the mentally ill. “This is a song that was created from an encounter I had with a pianist who was in my group and I worked with her. She entered my heart. The mental state she was in, chaotic and unstable, touched me and from there this song came out.”
Stein came to the ‘Wings’ association more than a decade ago, after a journey he spent trying to solve the anxieties he suffered from. “After I left the recording studio, I set out to wander the world and came to the East. I arrived in northern Thailand to a monastery and there I went into vipsana that lasted almost a whole month. During this time I had a lot of fears that grew stronger and stronger. I was able to deal with it within the confines of the monastery and had an anxiety attack. I went through something very strong, I felt That something opened up in me, but I still couldn’t look into this thing and see what it was.”
Where did this anxiety come from?
“This comes from my home: my brother is mentally challenged and it has been with me since high school on one level or another. I must have accumulated some very great fear of mental illness. At one point I was called to come see the place of ‘Kenfaim’ – a day arts center for mentally challenged people – and since then I There”.
Instead of running away you enter into it.
“Yes. Instead of pushing the fear inside, I jumped into the crater of the volcano and I’ve been there for more than ten years. My first two years in the ‘Wings’ were a very deep healing process in which I went through all the fears I had and many other aspects that I was not aware of. The work in the wings also I developed the ability to listen to people.”
What does music contribute to them?
“I work there with a group of lovely guys who write their own music. We produce it together and perform. This place gives them content and meaning in life, gives them something to get up for in the morning and a way to express themselves in the world artistically. Their life circumstances have led them to a situation they don’t have Where to express themselves and we give them this place, and they do it in a wonderful way. I feel that I have a right to work with them and in general to work in this place.”
On August 20, as mentioned, the Jericho band will perform at the Menasha Forest Festival in Megiddo, right next to the house where Stein grew up in Kibbutz Ramat Hasofet. “A year ago the festival moved from the forest to the field in front of the kibbutz but I was abroad at the time and this year I said it was impossible for the festival to come to the kibbutz and I won’t be there. I said we must perform at the festival and here it is. This is the first time we will appear in it. We will perform on the Central Park stage, which is right next to the regional school I attended.”
“Yes, it’s great fun to bring my music home. I’ve been playing in Tel Aviv for many years and I almost never got to do it.”
At the same time as his membership in Jericho and his work in the ‘Wings’ association, Stein is also an independent creator of electronic music who has already released two albums and is now on the way to release the third. “I create a kind of techno. I really like this genre and the creation within the electronic environment. For me these edges of techno and rock complement each other: on the one hand I work in the studio with a synthesizer, and on the other hand in the rehearsal room with the band Jericho and working with Wings. It closes a lot of things in music that I like.”
There is a contrast here.
“True, but for me it works together. I can go back to the show at night and get up in the morning and get into a track.”
Central Park Megiddo will take place between August 20-17 with four evenings of shows and original productions, from sunset into the night – on the Central Park stage and on the South Park stage. Among the participating artists: Hanan Ben Ari, Ravid Plotnik, Yasmin Moalem, Assaf Avidan, Margi, Balkan Beat Box, Giraffes who will host Eden Darso, Lola Marsh, Nono, Mercedes Band, Paul Trank, Tipax who will host Arzot HaKivod, Echo who will host You are Spita, Peled and more. In addition: stalls, northern cuisine and attractions in a variety of other complexes throughout the council.
At the same time as the activity in the various complexes, there will be held for the first time this year – Megiddo Bandcamp – the first conference of its kind in Israel for youth who want music. During three days between August 17-15, 2022, hundreds of girls and boys from all over the country will gather to experience the festival up close, and as part of the conference they will go through artist workshops with some of the festival participants and experience playing and learning music.