For Noa Kirel he wrote, among others, “Pouch”, “Million Dollar” (with Shahar Saul) and “Diamonds”; For Anna Zak he wrote “Good Morning World” (with Nasrin Kadri), “Go to sleep” and “Who is it”; Ran Denker returned to the headlines with his “Madhouse”; Eyal Golan recorded “V Blue” which he created; Eden Ben Zaken reinvented herself with “Ana Magnouna” and “Mu’avet” which he concocted; for Ella Li Lahav he created the successful debut song “Zot Eni”; Lamergi brought “Do not go out to parties” and “Infected speech” (with Stefan Leger); and Itay Levy conquered the stages with “Techno”, “Only girls” (with Stefan Leger), and “The most beautiful mistake” from his pen. And that’s just A partial list of the songs created by Ron Beaton (also known by the stage name “Ron B”), who was announced yesterday that he won the “Writer of the Year” award of AKUM.
“It’s very exciting,” Bitton says now. “Last year I received the Gilgalatz writer of the year award, but now it’s the first institutional recognition, the final and official seal that what I do is good. When I called from Akum, I was in the middle of a work day and I was sure that they were calling me Regarding a creation because they want to check who the creators are. It surprised me. This award confirms to you that your work is appreciated and that your creations have done something to people.”
Beaton, who will receive the award at the Acom Awards ceremony on September 7 at the City Gillot Cinema, has become in the last three years the hottest and most successful hit machine in Israel. In addition, he is one of the first to implement the method of writing a song by several writers, usually collaborating with Maor Shetrit , Itai Shimoni, Jordi (Yordan Peleg), Dolev Ram and Pen Chazot (“Dolly and Pen”). Two of his songs have already won the title of “song of the year” (“Pouch” and “Beit Zeraiim”) in the annual charts of “Kan Gimel” and Galglatz, and he has hits that are regularly ranked in the top ten of the most played songs on radio stations in Israel.
Ella Li Lahav (Photo: Tom Simon)First small step
Beaton, who celebrates his 32nd birthday today, was born and raised in Kiryat Tivon. He says that he developed his strong passion for music when he watched the music channel MTV. At the age of 16 and a half, Beaton first met Omari Segal (“69”), today one of the most influential and prominent producers and creators in the local pop and hip-hop scene. “We were turned on by each other’s music, and he invited me to his house to hear the beats he was creating,” Beaton says. “We decided to form a band called ‘Ron B and 69’ and within a month we released an album.” Later he met the musician Pen Chazut. “He explained to me how to write songs in the structure of the Eastern and pop genres. He guided me and told me: ‘If you can find a companion, it will balance you and make it easier for you,'” he says.
Beaton began looking for his other artistic half and found him by chance at a party in Tel Aviv. “I met Maor Sheetrit, and he told me that he had just written a song for Ron Shuval that was less popular,” he says. Go for every day of work you miss.’ 2016. From that moment Maor said: ‘You don’t have to pay me anymore. Now we are partners’. We set off.”
The first hit that Bitton co-wrote was “One Like You” for Lior Narkis. “This hit was played at weddings, and then I just met Itai Levy who was at the very beginning of his career and I wrote him the song ‘Surviving Love’ which was very successful,” he says.
Later he also wrote songs for Shaked Kommi, Shlomi Shabat and Avior Melsa. But success came at a price. “2018 was a year in which I was unable to express myself and I also faced anxiety attacks,” he says. “I was so crazy that I said to myself: ‘How come it’s still not successful? How come I still don’t have a hit that broke the whole country?’ I became obsessed with it to the extent that I would go sit in Dolly and Penn’s studio until four in the morning to learn how they write songs, then go to Doron Medley’s songwriting lectures, and I remember him saying: ‘Only one of the hundred here will be a successful songwriter.’ He put me into more paranoia. I had a breakdown and was in the hospital. It was a very challenging time, but I got out of it.”
The year 2019 was the year of Beaton’s big breakthrough when the song “Pouch” as mentioned above broke playback records and established Noa Kirel’s position as a leading pop star. says “The day the music video for ‘Pouch’ was shot, Doron Medley, who was a co-creator of it, was there and he sent me a message and told me: ‘Listen, ‘Pouch” is your watershed. Remember what I told you!’. he was right”.
This song gave rise to a solid professional relationship between him and Kirel. “Since then, it’s been a crazy relationship,” he says. “We really like working together, we have a good connection and chemistry. We meet in the studio, hear some beats, start improvising, she brings a piece, I bring a piece, and within two or three hours we already have a song Ready. That’s how it was in almost all of our songs. Even in ‘Million Dollar’ I came to her with the chorus ‘How do I look? A million dollars. I’m all complete, a million dollars’. She jumped at the idea, we took it to Geordie, we wrote the verses , that we broke up the chorus and made it into a complete song.”
Among other things, Beaton is also associated with the musical success of Anna Zak. “The first song Jordi and I wrote for her was ‘Block,'” he says. “My first acquaintance with Anna began with a program on Channel 24 in which I participated as a mentor. When we started working on ‘Block,’ I didn’t really know who I was expecting. When she arrived at the studio and opened mouth, I felt there was something. I met a girl who wants to work very hard, and this is her dream. I saw her practicing in voice development classes. She had the right attitude. ‘Block’ was quite successful, and after that I also got to write ‘Good Morning World’ for her with Nasreen Kadri, and it was quite necessary for the hit ‘Go to sleep’ to come. It is a song that shatters a glass ceiling and changes a career. Just as Noa had ‘Pouch’, which turned her from a girl known to the youth to a singer that everyone knows, ‘Go to sleep’ was this song for Anna Zak “.
Anna Zak (photo: Ido Isaac)How was “Go to sleep” born?
“We scheduled a session with Jordi, and a few days before the session Jordi sent me a message asking if I had an idea for a song. I sent him on WhatsApp a sentence that came to my mind: ‘Come and see what you missed.’ He thought it was cool, so we thought we’d start from that sentence, the first small step. In the studio we started writing it, and at first there wasn’t the section ‘Are you awake? Go to sleep’. Then we met for another session, and Jordi said he had a punch, and from there it’s history. I told Anna it was going to be a crazy hit, and I usually don’t say that on recordings. I believed it.”
Yes to Eurovision
Beaton has quite a few anecdotes about behind the scenes of the successful songs. “‘Zot Eni’, which I wrote for Ella Lee Lahav, was born when she had just come out of ‘The Next Star for Eurovision’ and they were looking for her first single,” he says. “Johnny Goldstein and I made experiments and went a little to places that are not natural for her. So we decided to return to her source , to Kay Pop, and we brought British producer Scott Quinn on the line with us. I started writing the lyrics on Jonny’s laptop in the studio: ‘That’s me,’ and as I’m writing I’m thinking: This is her first single, she’s got to catch people’s eye.’ Zot Eni’ was a marketing move because I knew it would make people wonder and think why ‘Zot Eni’ is not ‘it’s me.’
Ran Danker (Photo: Or Danon)The songs “Moavet” that you created for Aden Ben Zaken and “Madhouse” that you created for Ran Danker – in a certain sense they reinvented them.
“There is a lot of sophistication behind them. When we made ‘Madhouse’, Ran was in a place where he had nothing to lose. He recorded things that didn’t work, and he said: ‘If he doesn’t go now, then maybe I won’t make music, I’ll be a stage actor or something.’ Geordie asked Wren what he likes to hear, and he said that lately he’s been listening to Robbie Williams who sings about his life very openly. We thought of creating a song like this in Hebrew, about the questions Ran is asked on the street, all the things he experiences in life. Geordie came up with the idea of creating a big chorus that would speak to everyone, and that was the crack of the song. We knew we had a crazy product on our hands, but we didn’t know how successful it would be. I am happy that the song was successful and in a way changed his life and career. As for ‘Moabat’, it’s one of the best protest songs that came out here.”
“The song was inspired by an evening I spent with Itay Levy at the Rothschild night club in Tel Aviv. I asked Itay what he wanted to drink, and he asked for Red Bull vodka. I went to the bartender and asked for Red Bull vodka, but she said they don’t have it because it’s from ‘Ersim.’ It pissed me off, so I wrote this thing on the phone and waited for the right moment. That moment came when Eden Ben Zaken wanted a song about a techno beat with something funny. I thought it would be cool if the most popular female singer sang a condescending song. I told Eden to sing condescendingly, like the guys The cool Tel Avivs.”
Eden Ben Zaken (Photo: Daniel Kaminki)Kobi Afallo wrote: “A generation of musicians is growing up here who competes to come up with the lowest and dumbest text.” How do you deal with the negative criticism?
“I always say: ‘There is no arguing about taste and smell.’ I have never gone against someone who made an uncondescending criticism. If someone makes a condescending review, it will annoy me. Why was I upset about what Kobi Apallo said? Because he said: ‘Make classics’. But how can he determine whether a song will become a classic or not? He can’t and neither can I. Only the test of time and the love of the audience will determine that. If someone writes about my poem that he buries the Hebrew language, that Bialik is turning over in his grave, etc., then I will explain: ‘Guys, that’s not what the poet meant.’ I don’t write literary poetry, I need to create a song that will stand out from a thousand songs that come out a month. Since I deal with popular music, I’m ready to take criticism, for better or for worse, but I don’t like condescending criticism.”
Which Israeli artists influenced you?
“there are plenty. I really liked Eric Berman’s first two albums because there were sophisticated and sharp texts, subliminal and the shadow, Shlomo Artzi and there are probably more that I can’t think of at all.”
Which of the Israeli artists do you want to write for, and haven’t done so yet?
“Here in Israel there are several: first of all Shlomo Artzi. It is a dream of every music creator to work with this man and travel in his imagination. I appreciate and love Idan Reichel, and I would like to work with him. Rita and Karen Peles also intrigue me with their art. Everything in its time and I believe it can happen. If at the age of 13 I dreamed of writing songs, and at the age of 32 I won the Akum award, then nothing is impossible.”
Do you have a fantasy about an international career?
“Probably. I’m working with guys in Los Angeles and we’re talking about creating sketches for the international market. Today there are also Israeli companies and labels such as Universal that make the connection to the international market. I hope Noa Kirel says yes to Eurovision, and I hope to be a part of it. I have no doubt that we will bring the most bomb song there is. This could open doors in the European market. This is part of my goals for next year.”