Israeli symphonic progressive metal masters Scardust have just released their highly anticipated second album Strangers. Vocalist Noa Gruman and drummer Yoav Weinberg were kind enough to welcome me into their world for an in-depth conversation about the album, the creative process and of course, a lot of stories that came along with that! Here is the conversation:
Andrei: Hello! It’s great to be here with you! How are you doing?
Noa: We’re excited. The album is finally out. We had a heart to heart talk last night about how excited we are.
Yoav: It’s been a long ride!
Andrei: So, the release of Strangers is today. I can tell you’re excited. Are you also nervous or curious about the feedback you’re going to receive?
Yoav: Not yet, still excited that we did it and it’s out. Nothing wrong happened despite all the setbacks we had with this year during the process.
Noa: I mean, regarding the reactions, I like both the very loving reactions and the hateful reactions as well. Because it means that people can’t stay indifferent. We have reviews of 10/10 and then we have reviews of 3/10. I really love the negative ones as well! People are angry about our music and I love that!
Andrei: Well there’s no such thing as bad promotion. So, I want to ask you about the creative process, firstly about the songwriting. How do you approach something this… insane?
Noa: First of all, it was really clear to me that I wanted to write an album on this topic of being estranged and dealing with the concept of strangers in many different aspects. So this part was easy because I knew that this is going to be the album. The main writers of the album are Orr Didi and I. We start by sitting together and chatting for hours, brainstorming, and only after we have a solid idea of something, we can start writing music or lyrics. Our music is more similar to classical music. It’s very thoroughly planned and orchestrated so it’s not anything that we can “wing”. Except, there are bits and pieces here and there like for example “Under” is a song with less of a classical approach, so it’s more free in that matter. Or maybe there are instrumental solos where the musician can take a little bit of creative freedom. So these bits and pieces are less structured but the album as a whole is very thought out.
Andrei: Yes, there are so many elements moving in different directions at the same time that there’s no way to visualize them all.
Noa: With the orchestration part I really have to give credit to Orr Didi. When we write together, once we have a solid concept, the next step is to record a structure of just one harmonic instrument, usually the piano or the guitar, and then the vocals. And that’s like a naked version of the song that he uses to orchestrate all the other different parts.
Andrei: About the solos, because you have plenty of them: How much of the composition and creativity do the players actually take in the process of writing these solo sections and putting them together?
Yoav: Some solos are free, so we can do whatever we want, and some are almost thoroughly written in advance because they are part of the composition. So if you want the solo to be another take on the theme, it can’t be altered too much. And then some of them are in between. So Orr tells us what he wants it to sound like but we know the instrument better. For example, for the drum solo in “Gone” he wrote something he had in his mind because he needed something there and I listened to what he wrote on the computer and, obviously, a person can’t do that. So I see he wants a really fast solo with really fast background music and at first I just try to fill it and play all the notes. And in the end I make something else, that’s not completely different from what he thought because he wanted something in that direction so I’ll write it like that, but there are bits that he couldn’t have thought of.
Andrei: Well I guess the more knowledge you have of the instrument, the more you can tell what’s going to work.
Noa: Yes, and then there are different approaches to the same instrument from different people. So there are definitely a few places in the album that were very structured from the beginning, like the things that are weaved into the themes of the album. For example, if the guitar solo in “Gone” didn’t have the chorus melody, it wouldn’t be the same solo. But then, for the rest of the solo, Yadin could have more creative freedom.
Andrei: The worst thing about 2020, the global pandemic, took its toll on all musicians around the world. How did it affect you as a band, and the creation of this album?
Noa: First and foremost, the pandemic landed in Israel mid-recording. We were literally in the studio. We had planned two days of choir recordings, then drums, and then we were supposed to have the last day of choir recordings. But in the middle of the drums recording the pandemic entered Israel. And Patty Gurdy was supposed to come to Israel in a few days. So everything happened at once. Yoav was doing his best on the drums and I was constantly on the phone with Patty, with the health department, with the choir members that were supposed to record and with the people from the production of the video for “Concrete Cages”. We had planned a full, crazy video production with months of planning, that no longer happened. So instead of doing what I was supposed to do as a band member, I was constantly on the phone but nothing worked. At that point I was thinking that in a month or two everything will be ok and we will be able to reschedule everything. We fought so hard until the last minute but the pandemic hit us HARD!
Yoav: Besides the shooting of the video, Patty was supposed to come to record her parts on the album and participate in a show. It was a tight schedule. We had the drum recording, then the video, then the show, and a few days apart Patty should’ve recorded her parts.
Noa: Restrictions started getting more serious by the day, so they announced we were only able to gather 100 people the day before the show.
Yoav: We didn’t know how to save the show. At first, I thought we’ll only let the first 100 people come to the show and refund everyone else. Then we decided to split the show into two different shows back to back.
Noa: Meanwhile, Patty shot and recorded her parts for the show so we could put her on the screen in the back of the stage!
Yoav: The last rehearsal was replaced by solving technical issues like how to play the video in sync with our playing. We barely played on that rehearsal.
Noa: I think it was the last show in Israel for a few months. And yeah, then we had to come up with solutions for album recordings. So Patty recorded at home, which was not easy for her because she had to coordinate all the technical stuff and also play this crazy song. I joined her for the vocal recording. We Zoomed, which was nice. And the last part of the choir had to record separately, one by one. A quarter of the choir, all the tenors, were recorded separately, because they couldn’t make it to the studio. Then we all recorded at home. It was really ironic I think, because we wrote the concept before the pandemic but we realized how relevant it is now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9boj0EckF4
Intro to Scardust’s last show before the COVID-19 Pandemic, from Patty Gurdy’s Youtube Channel
Andrei: I wanted to ask you about that. How do you feel about this concept fitting so well with the global situation? Is it satisfying that you came up with something that would be so relatable in this time before it happened?
Noa: It’s a prophecy! Well… like I said, it’s ironic. The videos were actually produced during that time, so in “Stranger” we are playing separately, in “Gone” we are playing separately. Everything has this taste of the situation. I don’t think that in “normal days” we would have done the same video concepts.
Andrei: About the album’s concept, why did you settle on this theme? How did you know you wanted to write an album about this and how did you come up with the symmetrical structure?
Noa: I think the first two songs we wrote were “Break the Ice” and “Mist”. “Mist” was based on an idea that Orr had in the days of “Sands of Time”. We wrote the first theme. And then I came up with the “Break the Ice” theme and we glued them together to make this pair. And then we thought to make the entire album out of pairs, but what would make them strangers? So we decided to completely separate them, put them in different sides of the album. I think this is what sparked this idea of writing pairs of songs and then separating them.
Andrei: Yeah I think it’s really cool that you get that feeling when listening to it because you meet one side of the story, and then a lot of things happen in between so you lose track of it, and then a while later you meet the other side, and it feels like travelling the distance between them. That’s also why I like that “Over” / “Under” is the pair in the middle because it’s where they clash.
Noa: It also gets less and less personal. “Break the Ice” is very personal, and when you get to “Concrete Cages”, it’s more of a global theme but it’s still somewhat related to feelings, and then “Over” is kind of like an archetype. That song is actually about misogyny. And then Under is about rebellion, and then it gets more and more personal until we get to “Mist”.
Listen to the new album “Strangers” on Spotify
Andrei: Can you briefly tell some stories about what some songs on the album are about?
Noa: I can tell you some funny stories. “Break the Ice” was written when I accidentally locked myself out of my apartment. My key, my phone, everything was inside. I went to the nearest coffee shop and asked to use their computer to check online for a locksmith. I called someone and he asked me to wait outside the apartment. He said he could be there between 10 minutes and an hour, so I went back to my apartment and I just sat on the fence for an hour. And I didn’t know how much time had gone by because I couldn’t check the time so I just thought what’s the most productive thing I can do. I had nothing to do, only my imagination and the sand beneath my feet. So I started writing lyrics on the sand. The lyrics were about the savior who was coming to save from this moment that was frozen in time. But the song is actually mostly about trying to get out of a disease that is blocking you from doing what you want to do, and then you’re waiting for something or someone to grab on to, to keep you going. In the song it’s a person who will get you out of this shitty situation but it could be anything.
“Addicted” is partially about my work addiction, but it’s obviously speaking on many levels. And my part in Mist is inspired by someone who I was in a relationship with for a long time, and our relationship and our break up influenced me a lot in many different things. And around the creation of this album we actually reconnected and now we are in very good terms after being strangers for years. We’re actually good friends. And he is the artist who drew the cover artwork for the album.
Yoav: He did it against our will. We had a meeting with him, and we were brainstorming about what could the artwork be. We came out of it with a pretty decent idea for what we want. We wanted a nature element like some tree and the light bulb coming out of it. And then later he sends this almost done thing. And we were like “You drew it really well. It’s beautiful. It’s not what we talked about.” And then we had like a back and forth talk until everyone got comfortable with the new idea.
Andrei: The video for “Stranger” was also changed because of the pandemic right, so how did that go, and what had you initially planned?
Noa: It was supposed to be a one-shot video and for that you have to plan every second of it. I made an entire sketch of the location and an animation of the floorplan and everything was half-speed because we wanted to shoot in half speed and then squeeze it. So it was an 8 and a half minute animation video of the floorplan of “Stranger” and it took me about a month and a half to do that and then it all got cancelled. And then we came up with the green-screen idea with the animation of the columns around us. Which is nice actually. I love the outcome.
Andrei: Is there a song or a character in one of the songs that you personally relate to, that you feel most represents you?
Yoav: I can’t answer that now. I need some time off from the album, and then to listen to it in a few months, without all the feelings attached to the songs. Because when I think about the songs I don’t think about the lyrics or music. Each song has its own good or bad vibes that came with it along the process, so each note is so meaningful to me in terms of memories from the process, and I can’t disconnect from it. I don’t even listen to the music. I listen to the thoughts and memories from the creative process.
Noa: I feel I relate to almost all the songs personally but there is one song that I can no longer relate to, “Break the Ice”, because if there’s something I’ve learned in the past years, it’s that no one should ever wait for a savior. I think it’s this realization that I only need myself to rise above whatever I have to overcome.
Yoav: It’s up to you to make the change. People can help you, but no one is going to make the change for you. Something that I learned is that it doesn’t matter what happened to you. It doesn’t mean that you did it to yourself but it’s your responsibility to stand up to people, or leave people that are not good for you.
Andrei: Which one is your favourite video from the ones you have released?
Both: Gone!
Noa: It took us 10 months to make it. So after all that work it’d better be our favourite. I couldn’t imagine in my wildest dreams to get such cinematic footage of the sea scenes. And it’s all thanks to one person named Ori Wasserstein, the drone operator. We met him by chance. My dad has a drone, and I didn’t know anything about drones so I asked him if he wanted to come and shoot the videos with us. He said he would love to but apparently his drone wasn’t very good. The footage was not what would be suitable for a Scardust video. But when I wanted to give up the idea, he wouldn’t hear about it. He asked all his friends and then he found Ori, the drone operator. Ori didn’t know us personally. He just listened to our music, liked what he heard and he was on board. So a total stranger decided out of nowhere that he would like to spend his mornings, and I mean 4-5 a.m., climbing cliffs with us to do these crazy adventures, so that’s what is the most meaningful thing for me in “Gone”. A total stranger put his heart and soul in producing the money shots of the video and did it with such dedication, like he was a part of the team, like a band member.
Yoav: For this video I wish I could have played in the middle of the sea like Noa and Yanai but I barely accepted the idea that I will play on the wet sand. We shot in the early morning, when the sea was low. So anyway, I start setting up the drums and Noa comes and she’s like “No what are you doing, you’re supposed to be next to the water”. And I couldn’t be there because it would just take one wave and all my gear would be ruined. But this is typical Noa. She has a perfect fairytale video in her mind and she’s like “No but Yoav, you’re gonna ruin the entire video!”.
Noa: I didn’t say that!
Andrei: But maybe you meant it.
Yoav: Anyway, I moved the drums closer. The shooting went ok but then when we were disassembling the drum set, the tide started and one wave hit us. I saw it from far and I was like “Guys, just take everything now.” And we started throwing things, but some of the equipment got wet and we needed all the toilet paper and towels we had there to wipe it before putting it back in the cases. Now, when I come to rehearsals, and take something from the bag it’s like… I got sand on my hand. So it’s in my drum cases for eternity!
Andrei: Why did you decide to get Patty Gurdy to perform on “Concrete Cages” and how did that recording go?
Noa: So, about 2 years ago, I get this message on Instagram of this singer singing “Dials” and asking for vocal advice. And I started chatting with her and then I checked her out on social media and I saw that she is The Patty Gurdy. The connection was very natural and we had this show planned a few months later in Berlin. She’s not from Berlin but she traveled to Berlin to meet us in this concert and spontaneously, we invited her to play with us in the concert. And this is when we knew for a fact that we were going to write a song for Patty Gurdy. There was no doubt. We had this connection and she became part of this family. I remember the first time we saw each-other we hugged as if we’d known each other for years. The actual process of writing Concrete Cages was also interesting because we don’t know hurdy gurdy. And it’s very important for us to have all the instruments shine in our music. So we didn’t want to just write a random thing. We wanted to have the gurdy shine and of course to have Patty shine, so we had a lot of talks to understand what she likes to do with the instrument! And Orr made sure to include literally everything she wanted. And then we had to have her voice, because she is an amazing singer, and because we really work well together. So we alternate in the verses.
Andrei: Do you have a particular moment in the album that you’re the proudest of in terms of your own performance?
Noa: For me it is the voice solo in Concrete Cages. There are a lot of parts in the album that really challenged me. I like writing things that are more complicated or more challenging than I think I can actually do and then I practice to get to them. There are multiple parts, like the opening on the Overture is a super complex part, and the ending on Mist. All the runs are also very complicated. But the voice solo is by far the part that I spent the most time practicing and I will need to come back to it once we need to perform.
Yoav: For me it’s Under. Because I see myself as a pretty versatile drummer. Along the process of rehearsing and learning the songs we started with the more Scardust-ish songs like “Tantibus II” and “Mist” and it felt like it’s just gonna be another “Sands of Time” but more straightforward. But when we started practicing “Under” it gave me a shuffly vibe, like Rosanna by Toto. There’s this really 6/8 feel in the middle and I just knew I have to do that.
And there’s also a moment in Stranger in the second instrumental part. There are 10 seconds that I think I worked on the amount of a song. It’s built beautifully, the ideas that Orr gave me and the way it works with the other instruments, I just really like it. It’s not even the hardest one but it’s the one that I would love to hear on an album the most!
TMO: Since this is something we’re all missing, would you be willing to share some of your favourite show and tour stories.
Yoav: We had a show in a festival in China. Not strangely enough, everyone in China is Chinese.
Noa: To me it was surreal because it was a huge stage. We headlined the Chinese metal battle competition, so it was a sea of people. Before we even start talking about the actual show, the idea of inviting us to headline this stage on this festival was overwhelming. And we were treated like real rock stars with hotels and shuttles and everything. But the actual show was amazing. These people don’t really understand English, they didn’t understand what I was saying on stage. But everything that wasn’t communicated by speech, they reacted so well, like the clapping on “Arrowhead”, or raising their lighters on “Sands of Time”. Standing on stage in front of thousands of strangers who are reacting like this is incredible.
Yoav: And the majority weren’t people that know us. We didn’t aim for China with our previous album. So seeing people that were so enthusiastic, is something we’ll never forget! On Sands of Time, when people had their lights up, Yanai the bass player was like “Yoav, you have to get a video of this!”. And I was like “I have to play in 10 seconds!” So I get my phone up and I’m shooting it and on the last second I stop it and start playing again!
Listen to Scardust’s debut album “Sands of Time”
Noa: Another one was definitely the Scarfest. It was the last really big show we had. It took place in one of the most prestigious venues in Israel, where all the big artists perform so it was a big honor to perform there as well. And the cool thing about this festival is the cooperation with local artists and bands who we feel are sibling bands, that are personally related to us. The entire festival went so smoothly. Dozens of people helped so much and were dedicated to make it work. You would expect with a project this big for everyone to be nervous and yelling at each other but none of that happened.
Yoav: It was well planned and the people who participated and helped make it happen were the greatest.
Andrei: When I was seeing everything about the Scarfest online, I kept thinking that for the next one, one way or another I have to get to Israel.
Yoav: You and Gary! We have a fan from England. He flew to Israel for the Sands of Time release show in 2017. He flew for a day. He came to Berlin for a show. And then finally last year we saw him on his native land. When it comes to highlights from live shows, I think the 2017 release show for Sands of Time was one of the most touching moments in my life thanks to Gary. He stopped his life for like 2 days to just come see us and say hello, we drank one beer and then he had to go to the hotel, and to the airport the next day. And I couldn’t believe that someone from so far away would do that. If it was a festival I would understand, but for one show? My show! Every time we see him in a show, I stay with him and talk to him and we drink beers, because this is what’s important to me.
Andrei: Noa, you started a Patreon page about a year ago. Why did you decide to start it and how was your experience with it?
Noa: I wanted a platform to share more, to be more personal. I really like that it kind of forces me to go a bit beyond what I usually do, because I’m not a very sharing kind of person on social media. I force myself into doing these things. And Patreon is a more allowing platform to share this kind of things in a more down to earth manner. It’s not like I’m this huge celebrity that posts filtered photos on Instagram. I’m myself and I’m communicating with my supporters and allowing them to enter my world in a deeper way.
TMO: Now I want to ask you how you started the Hellscore choir and how did you get this idea to cover metal songs fully acapella?
Noa: I was always into acapella, I sang acapella, before I played any instrument or before I even spoke actual words. I was raised in a musical family. My parents are not religious people but they like the tradition of having family dinners every Friday night and singing together in acapella. It’s actually a Jewish thing to do. My mother has French roots so she used to bring French acapella arrangements. And we used to just sing acapella on Friday night. So this was always a big part of my life and then later on I sang in some acapella groups, professional ones, participating in festivals. It is a big part of my life. So the combination with metal had to happen at some point. Hellscore started around “Sands of Time” actually. We recorded Sands of Time. The choir was made of my private students, and some friends and family who are great singers. And after the recordings that went really well, I found myself standing in front of a group of people who are great singers, like the same kinds of music, and are all really nice people. So I had to put a title on it and make it into and ongoing thing. And I called it a metal choir, not particularly acapella, because we do acapella but we also sing with metal bands such as Scardust Orphaned Land, Amorphis, Patty Gurdy, and of course Ayreon. And there are more surprises to come in the near future about Hellscore.
TMO: Is it purely coincidental that both Hellscore and Patty Gurdy participated on Ayreon’s latest album?
Noa: It actually is. I remember a conversation with Patty telling me “I can’t on this day because I’m recording for a secret project that I’m not allowed to share with you”. And I was like “Oh that’s funny, I’m also recording for a secret project that I’m not allowed to share with you”. If I were to put it into a fairytale it would be as if we counted to 3 and both said “Ayreon” at the same time.
TMO: This is it! Thank you very much for your time! Do you have any closing remarks?
Noa: Thank you for having us! We had lots of fun! We hope to get to play live soon!
Yoav: And to see you in person!
Noa: And thank you so much for the support. It really means a lot to us!
Buy the new album here.
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