Hanni El Khatib – Interview

Posted on July 18th, 2011 By Shaun Christie Under: Featured, Interviews, Music Tags: Fuck Yeah, Hanni El Khatib, interviews, music, Rock

It was many moons ago (moons is a valid measurement of time I believe) that I came across Hanni El Khatib’s version of ‘You Rascal You’ on influential LA music blog Rollo Grady. I was immediately hooked due to it instantly bringing to mind early Black Keys (Think ‘Rubber Factory’ era). I then scoured the web like a junkie looking for its next fix but sadly came up empty handed and so the cold turkey kicked in. But with the release of his album, looming on the horizon at the end of Summer, the wait won’t be too much longer.

Thankfully a handful have songs have made there way out into the ether in the forms of vinyl and free downloads on blogs. Whether it’s the doo-wop vibe of ‘Dead Wrong’ or the rock ‘n’ roll declaration of ‘Build, Destroy, Rebuild’ one thing is clear, I have a new favorite artist on the scene.

Hanni, fresh off tour opening for Florence & The Machine and a few of his own shows with Bass Drum of Death, took some time out to answer a few questions for MishMashMagazine -

MM: You just came off tour with Florence & The Machine. How was that experience?

HEK: It was good. We did some west coast dates together then I went on a few dates on my own with a band called ‘Bass Drum Of Death‘ then met back up with her in and did some dates in the south. Its always a good time. We have played dates together last year so we have become good friends with her and her band so it was a no-brainer for us to go back out on tour with them.

MM: Your musical styles definitely are somewhat different. Did her crowds react well to you?

HEK: I think generally the reactions were good. I think her fan base tends to be a pretty open minded genre-less type of crowd. She plays to huge audiences, I think the smallest sold-out show we played was maybe 3000 and the largest was closer to 8000 so that’s a broad range of people. I am sure there were people who weren’t into it as much but for each of them there were people who really liked it.

MM: You mentioned you have become friends with Florence and her band, any talk of collobarations in the future?

HEK: Actually on the last few shows in St Louis and Indianapolis Rob (Florence’s guitar player) came out and joined us on a few songs which was great. Flo and I have talked about doing a few songs together but shes a very busy girl so we will see if it pans out.

MM: On stage you play just as a duo of guitar and drums do you find that restricts you in any way?

HEK: I don’t know if it restricts me in any way but it’s kind of a challenge to figure out what to do with the limitations. It started out as a necessity to begin with, as I had recorded the music before I even had a live band. So when I was asked to play some live shows I had to try to scrape together something, then it dawned on me that a good friend of mine played drums (Nicky Fleming-Yaryan). I figured if I at least had the backbone I could sort out the rest later. Then we played a couple shows live together and it just worked and we grew this sort of dynamic. My view on shows is that I want it to have 2 different experiences so one for the recorded music and one for the live show. I don’t feel the need to create the album as it is on record in a live setting.

MM: Your album ‘Will The Guns Come Out’ has been done for quite a while now, are you anxious for it to be released?

HEK: Yeah sure am a little anxious. It was slated to come out in early June 2011 but now its going to be in September 2011. Our song ‘I Got A Thing’ just got licensed by Nike for a worldwide commercial campaign so in a way that’s good to have that happening just before the albums released. And also in this day and age where everyone gets everything instantly its kinda refreshing to wait.

MM: Is licensing a part of what you wanted to do with your music or did it just happen to be a by product of the songs?

HEK: I think it’s a by product. On one hand I could be like ‘Oh I’m not going to sell out and commercials are bull shit’ on the other hand this is an outlet for my songs to get out there so it’s cool. As long as it’s something I am into then I don’t see why not. Nobody’s really paying for records these days so if I want to be a full time musician I have to pay the rent somehow.

MM: On the record you do a great version of ‘You Rascal You’ which has been covered by an eclectic array of artists such as Sammy Davis Jr, Django Reinhardt and Louis Armstrong to name a few. What inspired you to do a version of it?

HEK: I had heard a few versions of it from listening to a jazz podcast. I heard the melodies and the music and then I read the lyrics and thought ’Shit this is really dark’ then I looked up the original lyrics and they were even darker. It struck me as weird that the music people had made around these lyrics were really quite upbeat, almost happy sounding. So I thought I would fuck around with it and make a blues song out of it and it turned into what it is.

MM: You use to work as a creative director with a skateboarding company, has that taken a backseat now that you’re pursuing a musical career?

HEK: I left that about 4 months ago now to focus on this. I like to change things up and take on new challenges when I start to get comfortable and try make myself uncomfortable. It was also impossible to tour and hold down a job at the same time.

MM: You tour quite heavily in the US, are there any plans for some UK and European tours?

HEK: I was actually just in the UK a couple days ago. We played a show on a beach in Cornwall for a big Nike surf competition thing. We also played a show in Paris just before that. There are plans on a full European tour this fall so hopefully that will come together. I am actually heading back out there in a coule weeks as well so I am spending a bunch of time over in Europe this year.

MM: I watched your Wilcox sessions video for ‘You Rascal You’ and saw you making out with the model in the video. Did you request that to be added to the script?

HEK: Ha ha well that’s actually my girlfriend so it wasn’t weird at all. Sounds like a good request to make though.