"Parting with Ben El crushed me. It was important for me to convey my pain in the new album" - voila! culture

Static (Liraz Russo) at the listening event for his first solo album, "Liraz", to which journalists were invited, February 19, 2023 (Walla! Culture)

"For a long time we didn't talk, just me and you,

it was a very difficult year and it's all because of you,

you are arrogant, two-faced, scared,

you left everyone and then you cried alone"

(from the song "Liraz", lyrics and music: Static, Ron Beaton, Jordan "Jordi" Peleg, Itai Shimoni, Amit Mordechai, Ido Netzer and Dor Gal)

half a year after announcing the dissolution of the duo Static and Ben El, today (Wednesday) Liraz Russo, better known as Static, releases his first solo album - "Liraz" - who manages to captivate the listener already in his unique opening song.

This is the theme song of the album, and instead of the duo Static and Ben El, it seems that the performers are the "duo" Static and Liraz.

Liraz poignantly confronts his alter ego Static in a dialogue of mutual insults.

In these rough texts, Statik largely distances himself from the mainstream identification that was his property during the time of Statik and Ben El.

The result is surprising, creative and powerful.

Static slaps Liraz, and Liraz slaps Static, including the following harsh words (you are invited to guess who is saying to whom): "I am sensitive? You are stupid", "You are becoming ungrateful to me", "You are arrogant", "There is a fine line between madness and madness / You made everyone around me keep their distance", "Aww, how pathetic you are", "Very brave for someone who is afraid of abandonment / Leaving his partner and wife too" and "You're a maniac, you're a zero".

The chorus includes the charged and threatening words, again - of the musician towards himself: "I will give you nightmares / both good and bad is the price of success / I will give you nightmares, on the one hand I owe you, on the other hand I hate you".

"This song is very inside, it's also very much how I feel," Static said at the album launch event for journalists, "the song doesn't just end with the words 'You know what? Fuck Static / I'm going to work on new shit,' because it's really some kind of reconciliation with Myself, that this static that everyone built for themselves in their heads is not the static that they will accept anymore. Let's say that my content was very softened and very censored, and it's not that now I really lose it and sing about strippers, but somewhere I do mature and allow myself to speak differently."

Older.

Static (Photo: Moshe Nachomowitz)

Apart from the opening song with the rough lyrics that we wouldn't find in the duo Statik and Ben El, what else can you afford today, when you are less committed to an audience of children and not necessarily aimed at the mainstream for the whole family?

"Bastik and Ben El originally did not try to sell to children. Even 'Dubi Gal', which is one of the first songs, is the most not for children. After it came out, it was branded like that, in pastigels, etc. I think that today, when I rebrand myself, I can Brand it as you like. I'm relatively gentle for a man, I'm not someone who swears all day and I'm not someone who talks about terrible things all day, but in the end I'm a human being. I think it's possible to be more real and yes."

"This is a very critical week for me. My psychologist says that they don't say fear, they say excitement. Physiologically, it's the same feeling. I want to say that I'm very excited and very moved. I understand the responsibility I have towards myself this week. I feel that this is a week that will dictate many things going forward ".

"This will be the hardest part for me. I'm so used to having Ben El's back on stage, physically. In the studio it's easier for me because I'm used to being with myself in the studio, but on stage it's much more complicated. Listen, I'll have to stand it, There is no choice. It will definitely be difficult and scary for me."

"I don't think it's something that can be solved. I think it's something that you learn to do without."

"No. The truth is not. Not at all."

"I don't know. He doesn't communicate with me. We don't communicate.

Statik and Ben El Tabori (Photo: Moshe Nachomovich)

It is interesting that in all the duets on the album, you chose to sing with singers with Mediterranean colors - Eden Ben Zaken, Itai Levy and Agam Bohbot.

It must not be by chance, after Ben El who also had curly shades.

"You don't lack Mediterranean tones in this album. I think it happens to be people I really like."

"I'm not tired of it because I understand the matter. I don't judge the media. It's clear to me that it's part of it. But I want to say okay, we laughed, we had fun, it was fun, now let's move on. Let's look forward to what's to come."

Just before the release of the new album, there was a listening event for the album to which journalists were invited.

"It's no secret that I had a special year full of bumps in the personal and professional side," Statik said at the beginning of the event, "I got divorced twice. The truth is that it kind of crushed me, as a person and as a musician. From what you at least know, it was always Statik and Ben El. You know me from the beginning As part of a couple. And processing it in terms of the static was very difficult. The same in the marital aspect. Getting married at a relatively young age and getting divorced within a year was a very hard blow on a personal level and it taught me a lot about myself. I put instead of a huge question mark what I do with my life Now, actually where am I going, how do you reinvent something like this, especially after something so successful like Statik and Ben El. How do you restore the public's thoughts about the rumors, of close friends and family. A movie, in short."

"After a moderate silence, I had a conversation with Oron (managing Statik with Yoav Gross - New York, New York) and we started rolling the idea of ​​the villa in our heads, and it became history. We moved into a villa in Caesarea in November with the musicians I trust the most, which is Jordi, Ron B, Triangle and Ithi Shimoni, we closed ourselves for a month. This album, like my life, is very divided into what is the new static and what is the new liraz. On the one hand, it is clear to all of you that without Ben El we had to make some kind of static that is not static And Ben El without Ben El, but something completely new and bringing something that wasn't here yet and occupying a slot that doesn't exist, which is difficult in itself. Also for Liraz. If this Liraz who went through what he went through, with rumors, lived a new life and suddenly is single again. These are things that I have already forgotten how they feel. It was also important to convey that in the album. All this pain."

More in Walla!

"How lucky I was to meet John Lennon. I am a big fan of his to this day"

To the full article

Statik and Sarit Polak on their wedding day (Photo: Nir Pekin)

The new album includes 12 songs, created by Static with Ron Beaton, Yordan "Jordi" Peleg, Itay Shimoni, Amit Mordechai, Ido Netzer and Dor Gal.

The album includes a collaboration with Eden Ben Zaken.

"I originally wanted to do something with Odia for the album, she approached me and I was very much in favor, but they decided to drop the song. We decided that we couldn't give up on a song like this, so we brought in Eden Ben Zaken," Statik said.

The song "Hit of one song" is about his ex-wife Sarit Polak.

"This song, in my opinion, dictates the tone for the new Static or Liraz", he says, "It is a song that is very dear to my heart. It is the song that is most important to me that it succeeds."

The album continues with two more collaborations - "Tarantula" with Agam Bohbot and "Lashtuf a't Ajman" with Itai Levy; and it ends with the strong song "Mahl", which was signed with the words:

• culture

• music

• The music news

Tags

• Static

• Static and Ben El Tabori

• Itay Levy

• Sarit Polk