Seek Irony is a band with a unique sound combining modern rock and electronica music, best described by its fans as a mix between a full on live rock show and a massive rave dance party.
Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.
Rom Gov - Drums
Adam Donovan - Bass/Misa Tri Bass
Alex Campbell - Guitar
Mikael Oganes - Synths and Electronica
Kfir Gov - Vocals
For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to Seek Irony? How long has the band been around?
Kfir - Seek Irony has been around for about 12 years. My brother Rom and myself had founded the band when we were very young teens. In fact our first demo recording took place in a studio in Tel Aviv when Rom was 10 years old and I was 15. Seek Irony had been active in Israel for the past 10 years with different band members,. Over those years we've developed a big following of fans and personal music careers as professional independent musicians. Seek Irony played many shows all over Israel and toured the US independently in 2004. We later signed our first production deal with famous Producer Sylvia Massy (Tool, System of down) who invited us to record an album with her in her studios in California in 2005 which led us to play a few more shows in the US that year as well. We then returned back to Israel, I later started producing other bands as well and developed a very succesful recording studio/Music Production business in Tel Aviv. Rom, my brother, at the same time developped a music career as a drummer playing for the whole music industry in Israel, he recorded tons of records for different artists and projects.
At some point, about 4 years ago, we've reached a ceiling for what we could do with both the band and our personal music careers in Israel and Rom and I both felt that it was time to move our life project to the US. It was the greatest challenge we had faced in our lives up to that point and it took us about 2 years to get everything in order to be able to make the big move. Another reason for doing so was that Seek Irony started to get touring opportunities in the US but it was very hard to follow through with such plans when the expenses of travel alone for the full band, visas and gear was way too expensive - and that is even before the actual touring expenses of renting a Touring vehicle, a crew and so on. We were forced to give up some big touring opportunities and we then realized that in order to push things forward, we will have to move our home base to the US even if it means restarting everything from scratch - our lives, our recording studios, and of course the band because the other band members weren't able to follow us to the US.
We moved to the US a little under 2 years ago, we picked Austin to be our new home base because we knew a few people in the area and loved the vibe of the city. While we were building a new recording studio now called "Evil Snail Studios" in Austin, TX we were looking for new members and found Alex Campbell, an amazing local guitar player who was nominated for 2 Grammys and played as a hired gun guitarist for top level bands such as Three 6 Mafia, Lady Gaga, Anthrax, and several others before joining Seek Irony. We found him at the right time, when he was really tired of being a hired gun and wanted to find his own band. Alex immediately fell in love with Seek Irony's sound and came on board. Later we found Bassist Adam Donovan, who played in a bunch of local bands and also toured with DIE KRUPPS and KMFDM as a lighting/sound Tech engineer for CHANT. Last but not least, we caught up with Rom's old friend from Israel - Keyboardist/DJ Mikael Oganes, who was living at the time in LA. Mikael reached out to Rom about possibly recording drums for his record and mentioned he wanted to to do a live EDM band so Rom and I told him... well you know that's pretty much what we are already doing here in Austin with Seek Irony and offered him to join us to test the musical chemistry and that crazy guy just put his things in a van and drove down here and joined the band. We knew it'll be a great fit because Mikael had a classical Pianist background so he was a top musician even before later becoming a DJ and mastering the art of sound design.
What’s the origin of your name and have you changed the band’s name before?
Rom - Actually, Kfir and I originally founded the band as "Sick Irony" when we were really young teens. At the time we played a form of Thrash/Progressive Metal inspired by bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Dream Theater and such. Later on we restarted the band with new band members and a whole different sound which was much more modern and electronica focused and we decided to change the name to "Seek Irony" that had a strong message behind it.
Kfir - The origin of the name represented a message that there's a lot of twisted irony in the world we live in. We wish more people would try to seek that irony so they could see the truth between the lines. One example coming from a person growing up in a place like Israel is that I find great Irony in the fact that while religion claims and is meant to carry a torch of morality for people, a light that gives people energy to endure their hardships in life and a binding faith that has the force to unite people together - it actually does the exact opposite when it divides people from each other, pushes people to hatred and war and does anything in its power to put down the individualism of people, that true inner energy that comes from being true to your own skin.
I'm obviously not blaming ALL religious people - I respect all people and all beliefs, I believe in "be and let be" but what I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of very irresponsible religious leaders and their followers who don't see,m to forget all that is moral whenever something doesn't fit their agenda. Faith can be a beautiful thing when it is practiced privately between a soul and its god. But organized religions always find a way to manipulate believers into doing horrific acts in the name of ....... (fill in the blank).
Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?
Kfir - I write the lyrics to all the songs. The music is a process that we all contribute together, some songs are more guitar based in their nature, some are more electronica based so that determines pretty naturally who contributes more or less to a certain song. Topics of lyrics vary, some are political like "Rave-lution (Push)" for example which was inspired by an Israeli-Palestinian youth leadership program that I was invited to attend as an activist artist in Israel. It was a very unique 2 weeks program that connected between Israeli and Palestinian youth leaders of different fields from arts to science, to politics to education, it was meant to bring together youth leaders on both sides to hopefully shed some light on the conflict and then later inspire others when all return back home and share their experiences with others around them. "Running Towards The End Of The World" is a song that discusses Social Media and technology and how it affects all of us this day and age.
The message is that although Technology and progress is awesome, maybe we need to kinda step back for a second and re evaluate the sacrifices involved such as a) losing touch with our human connection - people these days live very lonely lives and barely understand what real friendship even means b) we're in a great rush to give up every bit of what is barely left of our privacy c) we're giving very few corporations a lot of control very quickly, before we even have proper legislation and rules on what they are allowed or not allowed to do with all this information that they are collecting on all of us. Other songs are inspired by personal challenges in my own life or in the lives of people around me that I get inspired to write their personal stories in the form of a song. Some are very deep and meaningful and some are kinda silly like "Tech N' Roll" which simply describes what Seek Irony's music is really about - the combination of Techno (EDM) and Rock N' Roll. In general I think that lyrics are meant to be empowering and to give someone out there a voice or something they can relate to when they face challenges and hardships in their lives.
What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?
Rom - The list would be very long but if we had to name a few - Nine Inch Nails, Pendulum /Knife Party, Infected Mushroom, The Prodigy, Rob Zombie.
Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?
Kfir - I saw Metallica live in Tel Aviv when I was teenager. That inspired me to learn to play the guitar and to become a songwriter and then later to start a band.
Rom - I would also say Metallica but at the time I was too young to go to that specific show. When I was 8 years old I loved Metallica and Ozzy. I loved Lars Ulrich so much that I would imitate everything he did. I still have some very embarrassing pictures from my childhood to prove it...haha... I did see Rage Against The Machine live in Tel Aviv when I was a teenager and that really inspired me growing up.
Adam - My first real rock concert was smashing pumpkins on their Siamese Dream tour 1993. When I saw them on stage, bigger than life, I was hooked. I got my first guitar about a month later.
What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, ect …
Kfir - I typically drink a lot of water that day to stay hydrated, sometimes I do some breathing exercises right before the show.
Alex - I typically avoid being social for an hour before a show to get my mind right. I begin technique warm up exercises 45 minutes before the show and then spend the last fifteen minutes stretching and otherwise warming up my body.
Rom - I eat 2 slices of pizza
Adam - To prepare for a show, I'm usually running around like a madman checking the lights or working on the tour bus in the parking lot. When something breaks, I'm generally the first to know.
What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?
Kfir - We've played some very big festivals in Israel, one of them called the "Students Festival" in the University of Tel Aviv in front of thousands of people. Making thousands of people Rock and dance together to your own music is an amazing experience.
If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?
Kfir - Present - Nine Inch Nails / Past - Pendulum - Simply the bands that have inspired me the most.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Kfir - Just want to give a shout out to Seek Irony's former band members back in Israel - Yoav Volansky, Daniel Strosberg and Eran Muntner who were part of our family for so many years and have contributed a lot to the writing/recording of this album. Another shout out goes to Phil Anderson from Powersound Studios in Edmonton, Canada who mixed our album and to Maor Appelbaum from Maor Appelbaum Mastering studios in LA who mastered our album - both did a tremendous job!