Onili Interview: SXSW 2010

I used to live in Paris for most of my life, and I arrived to Israel five years ago. (Barak Kram, drums and samplers) was one of the first people I met here through another band. We immediately hooked up and I made him listen to a song, and he liked it. The next day I came to his house and tried to record him on a track, and he was amazing. It was like I didn't have to say anything.

What was it like to record your first LP?

It was a big adventure. I did it with a bass player/producer called Jonathan Levy, who is a huge musician and groove guy, and we spent, like, two years working on this album. It was amazing. I finished it two years ago. I didn't want to release it yet because I wasn't ready, and so I decided to release singles instead with lots of remixes. Now that I released three songs from the album, I told myself, "OK, maybe you should release the album now." But I wrote a lot of new songs since then and the album that comes out in Israel is not going to be the same one that comes out in the States and in Europe.

Why is that?

Because time has passed, and I have new songs that I feel more like they represent me now. I'm using Israel a bit like rehearsal. I can go crazy here, because it's a small place and everything is spreading fast. You can test what's going on, and you can really understand the market and yourself. When I come out in the States and in Europe, I feel that you don't get a lot of first chances -- your first album is your first album. I feel like I want to come out with something that I am 100 percent behind.

Onili is your real name?

My real name is Nili, and my family name is Ohayon, and Onili came like Ohayon Nili.

How does all the international traveling that you do influence the music that you make?

The fact that I was raised in Paris really influenced my music because they have a very special point of view on art. They are very artistic. They encourage originality. I really developed myself there. But then again, most of the music I was listening to was American and English. My traveling to Spain was really a very rhythmic musical adventure for me, because the rhythm of the flamenco is so differently groovy that I understood that the groove can be in everything. I think it opened me to that fact. I don't like one kind of music. I like all music, as long as it's groovy.

So music really got started for you when you were living in Paris?

Yes! When I was six, I knew I wanted to be a singer, and when I was, like, 14 I wrote my first song on a guitar. At 16 I bought my first four-track and started recording, and when I was 23 I actually decided to start producing. I worked very hard for two months to buy a whole studio and started doing my own stuff. I used to play with bands forever. I played with a band called Story About the Clown in France. We had like 10 years of work together and then I decided to quit because it got a bit too complicated. I had to go my way.

What are your musical influences?

I can say that I started with more rock, and then Prince was a big turn, because from then on I went totally groove and hip hop. And lately, with the electronic and mostly the French electronic music, and singers like Santigold, and more the mix of rock and groove with electro. I wonder what it will be like in a few years, but now I feel like I love those three.

Why did you decide to record in English?

I started writing when I was like 11 and it came in English, and ever since then my instinct is when I feel I want to write it always comes in English, always. Lately I started doing some songs in Hebrew and even sang in French. English makes me feel like I discover myself somehow.

So do any of these languages pose a barrier to your recordings?

It only gives me a new field, a playground, you know? It never was a barrier. I don't feel like in music there is such a thing as a barrier. Really, it's like everything is permitted. There's no police.

If you could describe your sound, how would you describe it?

I would say urban pop. Urban gives it the crunchy and the rough[ness], and pop, it's still very structured songs.

Is there something that you really love about doing a live show?

Live is my life. Live music and investigating sound in the studio. But the thing that is special in my live show is that I play with two microphones, and one of them is plugged into my effect machine, and I sample myself live and improvise a lot with it. And the fact that we're only two onstage, there's a solid base of groove that's going on.