Red Axes, the duo of Niv Arzi and Dori Sadovnik, are at the forefront of an exploding sound that blends rock and techno. The Tel Aviv based producers have become known for their eclectic sets and we sat down with them to talk about their new band, a few upcoming festivals they are curating, and the Tel Aviv music scene that helped shape them. In case you haven't already heard their recent album, we highly recommend putting it on while you read. The Beach Goths is out now, listen below and purchase here.
E: How has the last year or two been for you guys? Busy?
RA: Our last two years have been extremely busy. Tours, Shows, Recordings, Rehearsals, Studio Time and meetings. We are doing many things and have many projects like our new band “Red Axes 4”, we are working on new material all the time, also for our electronic live and with the band and our DJ gigs. We have released a new album, we have our own label “Garzen”, and we are working on new releases, productions and remixes all the time. But mostly we feel we are spending our time on the clouds in the skies.
E: How do you still find the time between touring these days to be productive in the studio?
RA: We are working a lot while on the road, preparing new tracks for our sets, many new edits, and some remixes. So there is not much time in the studio, but we are still productive. For the album we scheduled a month work in the studio in Israel, so we can focus on it.
E: Who are some of your musical favourites that you're listening to now?
RA: When we where young, we both used to listen to Iggy Pop, Fad Gadget, Kraftwerk, Eyal Barkan, The Jesus And Mary Chain, The Beatles and much more…
E: What was the transition like from being in your band Red Cotton to DJing/producing?
RA: In the band, each of us had an instrument. Niv was the singer and played guitar, Dori was the guitar player. We were sitting a lot together to write songs, and we used to work a lot together on how to perform them. To record the album we had to bring a producer (Abrao, which today is our vocalist on most of our tracks, and performs with us). Today everything goes much faster, we are doing things on our own, we produce them, record them, and we are only 2, which makes it easier.
We are reaching our goals and sound much faster then before, but we do crave playing live again, with our instruments, and the feel of a band, this is why we created RED AXES 4.
E: Recently I was talking with a friend who spent 4 years in Tel Aviv and saw you play over 20 times, including “some of the weirdest music” he heard over the years. Talk a bit about the Tel Aviv scene and your ability to be fully creative and expressive in your craft and how it has influenced you.
RA: We played in the past years in Tel Aviv an amount of gigs that is impossible to count. There have been so many. In the first years we played about 2-3 times a week, in different bars, with small dancefloors, or mini clubs, every set used to be 4-8 hours long, so we had to prepare a lot of music, to open, play peak time, and close. We learned a lot from this period, about music, about playing the right set, this was the number one DJ school for us. The crowd in these places is usually much more open, so we could play a very wide spectrum of music, and slowly it grew.
E: Have you noticed the Tel Aviv music/club scene changing at all?
RA: The club scene has changed a lot in the past years. There are much more producers today, many parties and clubs. When we started there weren’t so many producers in this kind of music, and only really a handful have made it overseas. The scene was much smaller, and there was a time when everyone played disco or dubstep here. We think the situation today is much better, there is more competition, but its good and healthy, and brings the best out of people.
E: Some recent tracks of yours have infused a bit of a different sound – like on the Joakim remix and the recent track on Jennifer Cardini’s Correspondant compilation – how has your sound evolved over the years?
RA: We always had a very broad spectrum of music we did over the years, so we don’t really feel anything has changed from our side, our music has many moods and many faces. We feel that we evolved and the sound we guess is doing this with us.
E: To follow up, do you find that the gigs you play influence the style of music you produce? For example since you are playing bigger and bigger stages it would be easy to imagine you guys feeling comfortable creating “bigger” music to play out.
RA: Of course. In the last two years we started to play in bigger rooms, and we play accordingly to the room, and also create new tracks influenced by the bigger dance floors, to help us and bring our vision also to the bigger places we play at. We have a lot of fun playing big rooms, but of course still love to play the smaller underground places.
E: What’s next for you in terms of releases (that you can disclose)?
RA: We have our first release on Life & Death, the label from our good friend DJ Tennis.
We have a new release on Garzen from a young band called “Deaf Chonky”. We have done a remix for them, and Manfredas also did one. We have an EP coming up on Dark Entries, and some remixes TBA.
E: Any big upcoming gigs that you are looking forward to?
RA: We are curating our own stage at the first DGTL Festival that will happen in Tel Aviv, we are very excited for this, and we have our own festival in November, the “Garzen Festival”. We also have our first tour with the band in October, and will also be playing Panorama Bar which we haven’t played for a while.
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