Noga Erez released her first album in 2017, but the road for her to get to that point was rather long. The Israeli singer, songwriter and producer has been interested in music from a very young age, in fact, she even attended the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. She has tried herself out at different genres of music over the years, and up to a point, she was mostly interested in jazz. In addition to that, she learned to play several instruments, such as the keyboard and drums. She ended up making electronic music, though, and nowadays, she’s inspired by mainly hip-hop artists, which can be heard on her first two records, as well.
Her second album, „KIDS” came out last March, and she went on to tour with it as soon as it became possible. We could catch her live at numerous festivals this summer, one of them being Sziget, which is finally back after two years, and where she opened the FreeDome venue with her set on the first day of the festival. She burst onto the stage with full of energy, and it didn’t subside, not even by the end of the concert, and that really made the audience move. The setlist consisted of songs mainly from her new album, so we could hear „VIEWS”, „End of the Road”, and „NO News on TV”, of course she couldn’t leave out „Dance While You Shoot” from her first album, which was featured in an Apple commercial, she played her latest single, „NAILS”, and even a Lil Nas X cover, „INDUSTRY BABY”. It’s safe to say that with her concert, she managed to win over even those people who didn’t really know who she was, just happened to be there.
We had the opportunity to sit down with Noga before her set, and we talked about her inspirations, the story of her song „NAILS”, her latest album, she told us what helps her boost her confidence, how she’s coping with being on tour nonstop, and of course, we taught her a little bit of Hungarian, as well – exclusive interview with Noga Erez from Sziget.
It’s so nice to see you, how are you today?
I’m good, how are you?
I’m fine, thank you. So I know that you have tried yourself out at different genres of music. Can you tell me who were your biggest inspirations growing up and who are they now?
I guess that growing up, like during my early childhood, that would be probably The Beatles, the biggest one, and then it went to Radiohead and stuff like that. A lot of jazz, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald. And then now, it’s mostly hip-hop like Kendrick Lamar, Vince Staples, that kind of stuff.
Which song of yours would you show to a person that doesn’t know you yet?
I guess, I mean, this is a really hard thing for me to answer so I would take the one that the audience kind of recognises the most, which would probably be either „End of the Road” or „Views”.
Now, I wanna talk about your new single, „NAILS”. First of all, congratulations on it, I love it so much. Can you tell me a bit about the backstory of the song like what inspired it and what is the message that you’re trying to get across with it?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, what inspired it? The story of „NAILS” is, first of all, we started the song with me clicking a bunch of things with my nails because I started to get my nails really long. Then I noticed that that was what I was doing very obsessively. Just hearing the sound of my nails on different things, so that is what kind of inspired the beat. Then thinking about nails and about, you know, how, sometimes you think about feelings like jealousy, as you wanna, you know, use your nails as a weapon against somebody.
I started to think about jealousy because it’s such an emotion that we all experience every now and then. Yeah, I wanted to talk about jealousy in a way that is shameless. In a way that is not trying to hide away from how strong and dominant that feeling is sometimes and I wanted to own it.
The message would be, you know, I’m saying „all the sad ones, all the bad ones”, it’s for everybody, for everyone to kind of own the negative feelings with themselves as opposed to, you know, this positivity that is all around us. Just be positive, and stuff.
Don’t just be positive, just be yourself.
To me, the song feels like such a massive confidence boost. I’m curious, what helps you boost your confidence when you’re feeling a bit down?
It’s a good question. Sometimes, it’s songs, sometimes it’s songs that have that vibe of either owning some kind of an emotion or sometimes, you know, just happy songs. Sometimes, for me, I have methods, you know, I started to learn how to be nicer to myself.
I’ve started to know that the voices that are in my head that create conflicts within me, that are saying I’m not good enough or stuff like that, I started hearing them in a different way.
And… here’s Remi Wolf! Hey!
Yeah, just starting to hear them from a bird’s-eye view, like saying, okay, this is what my brain does, I don’t necessarily have to relate to it. It’s just a voice.
Alright. Your latest album, „KIDS” came out almost exactly a year ago.
Yep.
So what is the most important thing that you learned during the creation process of this record?
We tried writing the record „KIDS” to see how we transferred different things from one generation to the other. Kids are, you could say, the clean slate of humanity.
We come to this world without all these things that are added to us later on by our parents or society, the world, the media. So we were trying to kind of learn what it is that we can learn from kids that we all knew and then started to forget the more we learned and got influenced by culture and religion and politics, et cetera, et cetera.
So for me, I mean, if I have to kind of condense it to one single message, it would be, you know, every now and then just try to check up on your inner child and see what they would have to say about what you’re feeling, what you’re experiencing.
I think there’s a lot of wisdom to it.
You’re basically been touring nonstop for…
Forever!
Forever. So how are you coping with this kind of hectic schedule and being away from your home for a long time?
It’s weird, it kind of changes, but I feel like I’m… It changes, because I used to be very anxious about performing. I used to get on stage and feel very anxious, and now, since this part of the touring is kind of solved, because I’ve played hundreds of shows, right now, the thing that I have to cope with the most is actually the opposite. How to get myself into the zone and kind of really experience something new every time I get on stage and it’s challenging because you kind of do the same thing.
It’s really easy, while touring, to get really repetitive with how you do things. The same setlist, you start with the same thing and you end with the same thing. So I just try to do things that would get me out of this, I don’t know, automatic mode.
Every now and then, it’s like, doing some breaths, when I’m taking some alone time, just being with myself. Usually, it’s like, in the bathroom. I don’t know, like, doing my make-up and hair, just being a you being for once in a while, so I think that’s kind of my secret for now.
Alright, and do you have any pre-show rituals that you always do before every concert of yours?
I mean, I’m starting to develop them more. I have this breathing method that I’m doing. It’s not for exercising your voice, it’s more for getting energy back to the body. So, it’s like, breathing in for ten seconds, holding your breath for ten seconds, exhaling for ten seconds, then holding it out for ten seconds. If you do it for enough time, it gets the body in a weird and good stress, and then you’re, like, awake. So that is one thing that I’m doing.
And finally, if you had a time machine and you could go back in time to when you were starting out and give your younger self just one piece of advice, what would it be?
I think it definitely would have to do with taking care of my mental, taking care of my…
I don’t know, just putting time and effort into how I feel and my well-being almost as much as I’m putting into my work. Sometimes, you know, we let that go and focus so much on the work. I feel like balancing it more out to, yeah, just taking care of yourself, being good to yourself, is what I would say.
Alright, so that’s all we had time for today, but before we go, we would like to teach you something so you can take away something from this interview, as well. So, do you know any Hungarian words?
I don’t think so, actually.
Alright, so is it okay for you if we teach you how to say „I love you” in Hungarian?
Of course, yes!
Alright, so it goes like this: „szeretlek”.
Szeretlek?
Yes.
I think I knew that!
You knew that? Alright.
Szeretlek, I think I knew that.
Noga, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us.
Thank you so much! Szeretlek!
