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M.R.: Can you tell me how AMASEFFER was born? Who met who and where and why and so on...
Yuval Kramer: Erez thought of the idea many years ago, in June 2004, Erez and Yuval first got together; Erez presented his ideas and played a few parts he wrote. They started working on the concept and wrote a few songs together, about a year later Hanan joined and together the concept was finally polished and ready.
M.R.: You are mixing a lot of styles in your music. What was the first idea behind AMASEFFER? What did you all want to create at the beginning?
Y.K.: We wanted that whoever listens to our music would be able to close his eyes and feel like he is on a voyage and he would be able to see the story takes place in front of him.
Our motto is no boundaries, we take our music to the extreme, and we dedicate ourselves to the music completely, trying to listen to it and see every time how we can add things, or fix things that bother us or that are missing.
M.R.: It seems to me, that you are very interested in history (you have also created the score for a Israeli film named Altalena). Can you tell me, what the movie is about and why you have chosen the story of the exodus out of Egypt as the lyrical background for your debut album?
Y.K.: The movie "Altalena" deals with a very sensitive event that occurred in 1948, right after Israel got its independence and was still fighting for it on all of our borders. A boat carrying 900 refugees from Europe and weapons that the Israeli defence groups bought (before the declaration of independence) was sent to Israel – while they were on their way here, an agreement was signed between the Israeli new government and the Arabs, that forbad bringing weapons. The Israeli army needed to ensure that the agreement will be fulfilled, and ordered the boat to stay in the sea. The crew on the ship didn't know about the agreement, they were in bad condition and wanted to get to Israel so they tried to get to the shore despite the army's orders. After a failing negotiations on the shallow waters at the shores of Tel-Aviv, the boat was bombed and sunk by the Israeli army. 19 people were killed. This event is one of the darkest moments in Israel's short history.
When the movie will be released, a trailer will be available on our website.
The story of the exodus is the birth of the Israeli nation; it is where the Israelites became a nation "formally", so this story is very important to us.
This is also the most known story in the bible and it was a big challenge for us to do a story that’s been done so many times in theatre is movies and in music and to do it differently.
We wanted a biblical concept because we all believe in the bible, not only in a religious way, we believe that everybody can learn great things from it and we wanted to let people know that these stories are not always preaching to a religious living but it can also be seen in many different ways.
We believe it –should- be seen in different ways, every time you read it you can learn something new.
M.R.: What will your second album be about? I hope the story will continue?...
Y.K.: The next album starts with the exodus itself and ends right before the Israelites get to Mount Sinai.
The third album starts with the Ten Commandments and ends after Moses dies after seeing the Promised Land from the top of Mount Nebo.
M.R.: Let's get back to „Slaves for life“. You did a lot of work here in Germany. What exactly? Who did you met? How did you like it here?
Y.K.: We went to Germany for the first time in the end of 2006, to meet Andy Kuntz and Markus Taske.
We played them the entire album (Instrumentally), presented our concept and explained our point of view. With Markus we talked about what we need to do to be prepared correctly to the recording session and with Andy we set the dates to the writing and recording sessions.
We recorded in Germany the drums, guitars and mixed and mastered the album.
Germany is a very beautiful place and very different from Israel. Everything there is much more relaxed people are very nice and quite, in Israel everything happens 10 times as fast, always noisy and very different. We really enjoyed your country.
M.R.: At first Andy Kuntz should be your vocalist. What were the reasons that we cannot hear him now?
Y..K.: When we got back to Israel after meeting with Andy, we found out that his projects (Vanden Plas, Abydos and the theater) are taking every second he has. We tried everything to somehow fit Amaseffer into his small holes in the schedule, but after six mounts we realized that if we don’t want to exceed from Amaseffer's schedule we need to part ways with Andy.
It was a very hard decision because Andy is a true friend of ours and a wonderful person, but music comes first.
M.R.: How did you get in contact with Mats Leven? Was it somehow difficult for him to be the „second“ choice? (He made such a great work!! It was a sign of god, that you took him!! Andy is a great singer, but Mats did the best job ever..!!!)
Y.K.: After Andy's departure, we decided to write all the lyrics and vocal melodies and to fly to Germany to record and mix the album instrumentally, so when we will find the vocalist it won't be long till the album will be ready.
Before we went to Germany we auditioned vocalists from all over the world, they got a part of the song "slaves for Life" with the lyrics to it, so they'll record their own ideas on it.
Then we went to Germany for the recordings, when we got back we listened to all the parts.
It was very clear to us that Mats Leven is the best man for the job.
We got in touch with him through his website.
We would never compromise on anything in our music, he was never treated like a "second" choice… as you probably heard, Mats is second to no one. He was definitely the best choice for us.
M.R.: I think live gigs are somehow very difficult for you. What would you do if „Slaves For Life“ is such a great success in Europe and a lot of people would ask for a short tour?
Y.K.: We will tour only after the whole trilogy will be released. It will be something very big and unique and we won’t compromise on nothing regarding the show either.
We got all kinds of offers to perform in all sorts of venues and festivals, but our concept and music is more important to us then answering marketing and financial needs.
M.R.: What did you and your band members do before AMASEFFER was born?
Y.K.: We all played in all sorts of bands, Hanan and Yuval has been studying music for a long time and Erez is completely self taught, so basically we matured musically before the main musical chapter in our lives could have started.
M.R.: What are your targets in the next future? Already writing the second part? Or do you write the score for another movie? Or just relax?
Y.K.: The second and third parts are written, not yet produced but the basic material is there. We will soon announce a few more projects regarding our soundtrack writing and we will never relax.
We are so eager to create music and continue our voyage so at the moment the word relax hasn’t came to our mind even once.
Well, that's enough for today. Thanks a lot for the time you spent answering my questions. You have made me very happy with the release of your great album. In the near future I will try to get the webzine online again. So I hope you can read the interview then, too.
I wish you all good luck!!!
Thank you for this opportunity and for all you kind words, we really appreciate this,
Amaseffer.
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