Electronica is cool. I mean, it’s not like we are going to give up metal for it…but why give it up when we can have the absolute best of both worlds? When you leave your genres together, by themselves, they start wistfully looking at each other all doe eyed, and the next thing you know, it’s an orgy of the senses, and Seek Irony is what is created in all that sticky goodness.
They are no strangers to the business. They’ve performed in major festivals around the globe, and were the featured band at SXSW just last year. They’ve played alongside major musical acts such as Tantric, Lionize, Filter, among others, and are well on their way on becoming the next band you hear coming out of your radio.
With their album Tech N Roll just out this past February, they aren’t showing any signs of slowing down. We had the pleasure of speaking with lead singer Kfir about Seek Irony, the upcoming videos, and everything in between!
Both you and your fans describe your band as a blend of Modern Rock and Electronica Dance music. Was that always your goal, or has Seek Irony changed over time?
Well, Seek Irony is originates from Tel Aviv, Israel. Many people don’t know that Tel Aviv is a big capital for electronic music. We all grew up listening to hard rock and metal and so, we were also going to raves and EDM parties. So, something between both worlds inspired us to do something that has the best of both. Throughout the years we developed a sound that had that strong beat that would make people dance, but also had those loud guitars and drums that make people you know bang the heads. We just wanted to create an experience that people would feel both at same time.
What made you take it to United States?
It started many years ago. The previous generation of the band came out here for a tour in 2005 because we got signed with a producer in California, who went on to produce and album for us. We flew out here, played some shows, and then we got back home. We had met some people in LA which led to some touring opportunities, but because we were based in Israel, it was pretty complicated to put them into action because it was too expensive financially. Even before stating a tour, you know you have to pay for plane tickets, pay for special visas for five people; you have to fly out all the equipment. You start off with over twenty grand in even before you start the tour. My brother and I just came back to the conclusion that after having to do national tours here, that we would have to create a base in the U.S. Back in 2005 we stumbled onto Austin, and fell in love with the city, and decided that it would be our home when we moved for longer tours.
Gotcha. How different is the scene in Austin than it is Tel Aviv?
Well, try to imagine that Israel is about the size of New Jersey, I think it’s something like that (laughs). It’s a small country, and with the politics involved, the countries around it don’t like us. That doesn’t open the opportunity for touring.
Sure.
Even though we do write our music in English because my brother and I grew up in Europe, English is not the first language in Israel. Hebrew is. There are people in Tel Aviv that would say, “Why are you writing and singing in English in the first place?” (laughs) The world of opportunities for us to play big festivals and huge venues in Israel was not really going to grow as much as we would have liked as if we were in a place like the U.S. where there is a scene, and opportunities that are worldwide.
So you established Evil Snail studio here in the U.S. What’s an Evil Snail?
Actually, it is a joke. Years ago when we were in the U.S., my brother started a joke that one day we would own this huge enterprise and it would be a record label and a recording studio, and it would be called “Evil Snail Records”. (laughs) We had a little logo for it, with a snail on it. When we moved here, we started our own recording studio – let me take a step back. Back in Tel Aviv I owned one of the leading recording studios in the country and I’m just trying to copy the same idea for success that we had in Israel, and do the same here. So, were started our recording studio, and the band, and we are just following the same guidelines that were successful over there.
Tell me about the evolution of Seek Irony. At first it was yourself and your brother. Then you came across Alex and Adam, Mikael. How did you meet them?
When Rom and I moved the Austin, we knew very few people other than those we had worked with back in the day. So, we just started meeting some new people. My brother played drums because he could, and at one of the shows he was playing for with a local band, Alex actually had his solo project the same night at the same venue. After the show Rom reached out to some of the musicians, saying that we were looking for a guitar player. Alex responded: “I’m a guitar player!” (laughs). He had just come back from Berklee College of Music, in Boston. His Facebook account said that he lived in Boston, so my brother ignored him for a while until he clarified to Rom that he actually moved back to Austin and finished with Berklee. We then got together then. From the moment we saw his videos and knew he was going to be overqualified for everything. It was just about meeting and seeing how we got along with them.
Then we met Adam. We met him through a friend at the Recording Conservatory (Adam studied there). He was actually on tour with KMFDM when we met him. We were a little unsure about working with him because of his schedule and being on tour for a month and a half. We just had a gut feeling that he was going to be the right guy. We told him that we would love to work with him, but not give up any opportunity just to be polite. (laughs). He appreciated that, and when he came back from tour he joined the band and has been with us ever since.
Mikael was actually in Los Angeles.
You mean he relocated to be in Seek Irony?
Yes. He went to same school that my brother went to in Israel. When he was 20 he moved to LA and lived there for a couple of years. They didn’t hear from each other the whole time and when Rom moved to Austin, he reached to Rom to record drums for something that he was putting together. He was a DJ in LA. Rom recorded the drums and sent them back to him. They reconnected and Rom said to him, “Hey! If you want to do a loud EDM kind of sound, that is kind of what we are doing here, so do you want to come join us? We actually have another room where you can stay. You can try it out for a couple of months and see how it goes!” He thought about it for a week, packed all his things in a van, and moved to Austin. He’s been with us ever since.
Wow! LA to Austin? I mean you have been to both, but my gosh!
Yeah, yeah and Mikael, besides being a DJ, is a classically trained pianist. It was a given that he was going to be perfect as a musician, and he was tracking the style of music that we wanted to add. He was on that level, and it was perfect timing.
From my reading, your live show is pretty impressive, with lasers and dancers. Who does your choreography and costuming?
My girlfriend, Inna. She is a professional dancer, and has been for many years, ever since she was a child. She choreographs, develops, makes the costumes, and briefs the other dancers (they both dance for the Ballet East Dance Company). We all know each other through that. The dance piece has taken on a life of its own. We always wanted to have costumes and dancers in our shows. Inna took it on, and it’s great. They are now touring with us.
Awesome! So your music has already been featured on prime time television. What did that mean for your band?
It’s really cool! Everything that has happened since that has not been taken for granted. Nobody expected an unsigned band to hit the top 40 chart for college radio within the first week. We really were just hoping for something to happen and then reached after number 25 and were like, “wow this is like so cool, you know?!” Now there around 50-60 radio stations out there actually playing the songs. Then the reviews came back and were are getting 4.5 out of 5, and 9 out of 10, and then “Devil In Me” was premiered on Revolver. I also heard that it was going be somewhere on Time Warner Cable and it’s going to reach 26 million homes.
Very nice! So in the video I saw it they are very powerful; quite the story. An amazing how you bring everything full circle at the end. You starred in it. How did the idea come up for it?
Well, I was just brainstorming one night. The song is about addiction. We wanted to show different characters. Do you remember the movie “Crash” and how all the characters were connected to each other through the story, but did not know each other? That is kind of the same logic we went with, where we have the same type of characters, connected through different addictions. We begin and end with the first character. Austin’s EMS took part in the video. They were kind enough to take on the offer and to bring a whole crew and an ambulance. I was really really happy that they took part in it because we like to impact the community, and to bring in people from the community into what we do.
Absolutely, absolutely. You have a couple of other songs that we may be expecting videos for I hear?
Yeah actually we just finished recently another video for “Peel Me Away”. It should come out soon, the next couple of weeks or so. So that is an exciting thing. Next we will probably do a shoot for “Running Towards the End of the World” and maybe “Ravelution Push”.
Seek Irony – Devil In Me (Official) [HD]
[embedplusvideo height=”350″ width=”600″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1RpxwwJ” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/ShVudUmziPE?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=ShVudUmziPE&width=600&height=350&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=” id=”ep1010″ /]
Excellent! Now I have to keep my eyes open and see what will be involving the same scene or you expand your story from “Devil in Me” into the others?
“Peel Me Away” is more about mental health. It’s about a personality clashing between facing having to do the right thing, but choosing to do the wrong thing, and knowing at that moment that is what is going on. It’s hard to describe, but it involves three characters (two males and a girl), and at the end of the video you discover that the two males were actually the same person with two sides of the personality.
Oh wow, ok.
“Running Towards the End of the World” is a song about social media. It touches on its excessiveness. It also alludes to “Running Towards the End of the World” as running in circles, because the world is round. It’s a metaphor for us running in circles with social media controlling our lives, and being excessive with it. It’s going to be a really badass video. It’s going to take a little while to make it and put it together the way we want to.
Perfect, sounds like I am really exciting really excited to watch both of them. So where can we expect to see you next? I mean you’ve hit the festival circuits, and I saw you will be playing a bunch around Texas. Do you have any upcoming tours?
Well we just finished the Midwest. We went out all the way to LA and back. We have some shows in Texas planned for July and August and then in the fall, we have discussions about all kinds of big tours. I can’t really talk about these things, because these are things are happening in the background, and soon will be able to talk about them!
