Yoni Avittan – Singer / Guitarist
Ran Aronson – Drummer / Synth Bassist / Backing Vocalist
We know COVID has been keeping everyone down, but it’s time to GET UP and start kicking the damn quaratine baking to the curb and start listening to some music.
This week’s Indie Band of the Week are THE DODIES. They are a young garage rock duo from the southern desert of Israel. Yoni Avittan fronts the band as lead vocalist and guitarist, as Ran Aronson sings backing vocals while simultaneously playing bass lines on keyboard with one hand and playing the entire drum kit with the other. He’s A HUMAN OCTOPUS.
So – lay back, take a read and take a listen to our INDIE BAND OF THE WEEK! THE DODIES!
How do you describe your music to people?
We like to describe our music as “suburban rock” – it gives an idea of our vibe. We also say garage rock, and 90’s rock influenced.
What image do you think your music conveys?
It depends on the song, some songs are more epic where its easier to imagine your hair blowing in a powerful windstorm, some songs are intimate and quite as if we’re playing beside you in the room, and some songs just make you want to kick things on the street.
How do you rate your live performance ability? (Be very critical. No clichés!!)
It varies.
Yoni – what usually happens is that I want the show to be perfect so if I make a little mistake it can make me overly critical. I’ll play the entire show thinking “this sucks dick” but by the time we get off stage I usually see a lot of happy faces in the crowd that really seem to have enjoyed what we did. It’s a big contrast to what goes on in my head and it’s a little confusing. So the question is a difficult one to answer, our objectivity is a little off the handle
Ran – I would honestly say our live shows abilities have become better. Being able to play a good live show is an ability you develop over time, especially as a two piece group with a minimal setup. The upside is that it intensifies the positive impact you may have on people if a show goes really well. The downside is the dangerous part – if something goes wrong, even with the gear (which we’re super depend on since we don’t have a bass player), we are screwed. It’s happened before, but I believe we’re even getting better at handling those situations over time.
Do you get nervous before a performance or a competition? What advice would you give to beginners who are nervous?
We have had a few nerve wrecking shows. Those are the shows where you feel vulnerable the most, when you feel like every little mistake or error could be a real career ending catastrophe. But the more shows we play, the more we realize being nervous is not something you could or should be fighting. Anything that could help you focus and live with the feeling, instead of getting distracted by it could work – meditation, a stroll around the venue etc.
What are your immediate music career goals? (Next 1 to 3 years.)
Touring every possible place, and bringing our music to as many people as we can by doing so is the immediate goal. Touring across different countries has always been our biggest dream – having lived in such a small country as Israel, let alone the fact that it’s not part of Europe or North America. This is what we’re aiming towards.
What about your long-term career goals?
Our long term career goal is to record all of our songs under various albums. We never stop working on new music . As long as we have un-recorded songs, we’ll always have the urge to record them, and it usually takes years.
How would you define the word “success”?
It’s a hard one, since so many rock stars that reached the position we’ve always dreamt of ended up self-destructing. Being able to enjoy your creation for what it is, being able to communicate well with the people you create with, being connected to yourself enough to be able and appreciate the little things you’ve got. Those things are very hard whether you’re a rock star or just a rocker, and really achieving them would be considered a success.
What type of recording process did you use? Who produced your recording?
We started recording our debut album in Austin Texas, along with Matt Novesky and Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal. When we tackled some problems with getting back to the US, Ron suggested he would come to our hometown in southern Israel and we’d finish the record there, and that’s exactly what happened. We booked three days at a local studio, and Ron came to produce the rest of the album with us. After three days of tracking drums, guitar and synth bass at the studio, we moved on to Ran’s bedroom. There we used good ol’ Cubase and a condenser mic to track vocals, percussion, and all sorts of wacky sounds for all the songs. The recording process was then followed by months of mixing together, sending mixes back and forth between us and Ron, until we made everything sound exactly the way we wanted.
What are your songs about? In other words, what specific themes do they cover?
The songs in “It’s one hell of a ride” mainly focus on angsty feelings of alienation and depression. Our newer songs focus more on self-discovery and the willingness to except that we don’t know everything as much as we’d like to believe we do. All in all, our songs deal with personal experiences and feelings.
Do you write your own songs?
Yes, if we didn’t write our own songs until now we probably would’ve quit playing a long time ago. There’s something irreplaceable about writing your own music and finding your own sound. We believe it makes you committed to the music in a unique, profound way. That’s what made us believe in ourselves throughout the years.
How did you sell your CD’s/Audio Files? (Consignment? Live sales? iTunes? CD Baby? Amazon.com? Tunecore? Through traditional distributors/stores?)
Up until recently, we would take a bunch of CD’s with our demos on them to every show. We burned all the CD’s, one by one on our home computer, and Yoni would draw a different drawing on each of them. Over the years we’ve probably handed a few hundred of them to different people. They are scattered out there, waiting to become a rare collectors item. We are proud to say we’ve since moved forward to the 21st century, and our new album is now available (through Tunecore) on all the streaming platforms.
