INTERVIEW: ISRAELI POP STAR IVRI LIDER
It’s 9:55 PM on Sunday night and I’m standing outside of one of Tel Aviv’s classiest restaurants, Brasserie. The people here are beautiful; they’re sippin’ on bubbly and livin’ their fabulous lives.
I’m five minutes early, and I feel a bit like a fish out of water. Beneath my clothes I have a tacky farmer’s tan and my skinny ankles are covered in fleabites. I just got off an organic goat farm in Galilee, and I’ve scheduled myself an interview with one of Israeli’s most successful contemporary recording artists. Apparently, I have ambitiously aimed to experience the full spectrum of this nation – from goats to pop stars.
Yes, Ivri Lider is a pop star. And I’m a vagabond. In many ways, we are worlds away from each other. Yet we have some things in common. We are both openly gay men who do not shy away from the spotlight. We travel the world, doing what we love. And we both have an affinity, I learn, for Modern Family and the sweet buttery vocals of Martha Wainwright. If we lived in the same city, I imagine that we’d be friends.
Ivri arrives punctually at 10 PM. He seems well-caffeinated, and is immediately personable. We tuck into a booth at the edge of the restaurant and order a couple of glasses of Israeli wine.
And the conversation begins…
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Daniel: So let’s just start with the biggest question in the world – Who are you?
Ivri: [laughs] Well you know my name. I live in Tel Aviv. I’m a musician. I’ve been making music since the age of five. I’m a pianist and a songwriter and producer. I’ve scored films. Ummm… so that’s who I am.
Apart from the music, who else are you?
I’m a bike rider. I ride and race road bikes. I’m a son. I love my mom, and we are very good friends. And I have a boyfriend name Yan who’s in Tibet.
Wow. He sounds enlightened! But back to the music… on your Wikipedia page, it describes you as an “Israeli Pop Star” – what does that exactly mean?
I guess it means that I’m Israeli. Which is true. It means that I’ve released six albums that all did really well… platinum. And I do a lot of shows, not only Israel. And there are a lot of people that are interested in my songs and what I do. So I guess that makes me a pop star.
So what’s the day-to-day life of an Israeli pop star look like?
My friends sometimes laugh at me because I like to get up, not too late, and work. Because I like my work. It’s not a job for me. It really changes because there are a lot of phases: writing, recording, marketing. What I like about it is the fact that it’s so diverse. I would say that 85% of what I do is fun and creative, and only a little part is things I have to do.
What is your songwriting process?
Usually it’ll start with a really random idea about something, perhaps a sentence, something you’ll say when we’re talking. I’ll have a pop-up in my head that goes “bing!” and I’ll need to write it down. Sometimes I’ll do it on my phone and you won’t even know I did it. I’m waiting for these moments.
I usually go music and lyrics together. I never write music without lyrics, unless it’s for a film or dance score. I always need the lyrics to create the song structure.
[The official video for "D.I.S.C.O." by The Young Professionals]
Speaking of music, who are ‘The Young Professionals’?
It’s a project with a guy named Johnny from Jerusalem. We are two musicians working together… we live in this western, modern, money-oriented, job-oriented world. On one hand we like and we’re a part of it. But always with some sort of ambivalence because we also hate it, and we also realize how fucked up it is. This is what The Young Professionals is about. We try to create something new, but it’s always based on something older.
And this is not instead of my career as a solo artist; it’s just something I wanted to do. I wanted to be in a band. And it’s a new band, from 2010. And why should the band be with a drummer, a bass player, a guitar player and a keyboard player? It should be two musicians, a graphic designer, an Internet artist, a manager and a video guy. We like to call ourselves a band. But it’s not a band of only musicians because we don’t believe that today music is something that you connect with only by hearing it. Today you see music immediately and you feel it through many different things, such as design.
Speaking of visuals, in a photo on your blog you’re wearing a T-shirt that says, “I LOVE MY COUNTRY” – what does it mean for you to be Israeli?
Well I love my country! I was born here. It’s my home.
My mother is a Holocaust survivor. She has an absolutely crazy need to move all the time. She’ll be in a new apartment for maybe three years, and she’ll love it. But then ‘Bam,’ she suddenly has to move. It’s a crazy story. She was a little kid in the war who was saved, she was hidden in a room for three years, and then escaped to Sweden, and then Argentina, and finally to Israel. But as she grew up, she never had a home. The family was running all their lives.
For me, I was born here. It’s my home… there’s something very strong about it. And not in a “Jewish-Holy-Land” sort of way, you know what I mean? It’s a very Israeli way – I’m a human being. I was born here. My friends live here. My parents live here. There is a language. There is a culture. For my parents, it was very Jewish. For me it’s just a human connection to a place.
I think there are a lot of great things here. There are also a lot of problems. It’s way far from perfect… I have criticism and things that I’m not happy about. I think Israel is a country in a very difficult, complicated situation that, a lot of times, people from outside of Israel don’t realize. It’s easier sometimes to judge it from the outside as thinking it’s very clear. But it’s not. It’s such a complicated situation. But the people that live here manage to create something really good.
I think culturally it’s a very interesting place, there’s something very diverse here. We are influenced by a lot of different worlds – we’re influenced by the West, but also by the Middle East. It creates a very interesting situation. Sometimes hectic-crazy-no-boundaries kinda situation. There’s good to it. There’s bad to it. But all-in-all I do love my country.
What do the next five years look like for you?
Wow. That’s a good question. I don’t know… I hope to go to a lot of different places with The Young Professionals. I love the group. We’re not only people that work together, but we’re actually friends.
Still, I want to do my own thing here, creating in Hebrew to my audience here.
[pauses…]
Five years? Five years? I might be a father… That’s possible… I want to. It’s definitely something influential, and controversial.
Alright sir, thank you very much for the chat.
Thank you. My pleasure.
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IVRI LIDER
www.youtube.com/ivriliderofficial
In the lead image, Ivri’s wearing a T-shirt that says AHMET YILDIZ IS MY FAMILY. To find out more, read about about the Ahmet Yildiz story.
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Ivri sings “The Man I Love,” as featured in the 2006 Israeli film The Bubble.
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Looking for things to do in Tel Aviv? Ivri shares his tips on what to see, what to do and where to eat in the Middle East’s most liberal city.
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Excellente entrevue !
Hey, really interesting article! Thankful to have found the new tunes, too!