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 Hadag Nahash let's everyone know they are back in Israel. The bandmembers always tell what's on their minds. Hadag Nahash had lots to say about their international succes and the start of their new tour in Israel for their latest popular album With Jam's Help. Of course they also wanted to share their opinions on the Lebanon war, the recently held gay parade in Jersualem and their fight with the rapper Subliminal.
The band Hadag Nahash was established 11 years ago in 1995 and they had many hits since then like, To Move, No Suckers and Here I Come. Although the band has had and still has lots of success in Israel they hope to achieve an international breakthrough and get worldwide fame. Next month the band is planning to participate in a tour through The United States with many other artist and perform at various festivals. It will be already their 6th time in the USA.
On the 30th of November the band held a concert at the theatre in Yafo, Tel-Aviv, which was also broadcast live on the israeli music tv channel.
It was be the official launch of their Israeli tour. Hadag Nahash will perform together with other artists they collaborated with in the past, like Barry Sakharof, Ahuva Uzeri and Liora Itzahk. The show will be bigger than the previous ones to celebrate the success of their latest album called With Jam’s Help. Shlomi Alon the saxophonist of the band adds: “Because we were busy, a war took place and were busy performing abroad, we didn’t get the chance to officially open our Israeli tour. This was the right time to do it”.
Going International
The band was a part of a big concert being held in the middle of August at Budapest. Hadag Nahash was invited to perform with big names like Radiohead and The Prodigy. They are happy and satisfied they were able to perform in front of 100,000 people.
Once returned to Israel the band received a phonecall with the bad news that the Lebanon war had started, but also that one of their songwriters called Uri Grosman (son of the famous author David Grosman) had died. The band met Uri Grosman by accident when he was present at one of their concerts and afterwards started talking to them by chance. From their on they started working together and Uri Grosman started to write some songs for the band. He wrote their most famous song called The Sticker Song. Not only did this song make the band famous but it also represented them as members of the peaceful left wing inside Israel. Hadag Nahash was interviewed all over the world because of this song. Of course the band members were shocked from the bad news and couldn’t believe this was happening to them.
Lebanon War
The band continues to discuss their image as a left wing band and their opinion on the recent Lebanon war. During the war the band visited the North and use to watch lots of TV to know what’s going on there. There were several rallies during the war of the left wing members against the war. Also Hadag Nahash decided to participate in the third rally and said: “Enough with this war! Leave Lebanon and leave the Lebanese people alone”. For this the band thinks that the army has recently canceled some concerts they were suppose to have in front of soldiers. When the person in charge in the military was asked why their concerts were canceled, they were told that the army doesn’t want a band to perform in front of the soldiers, when their lyrics motivate the usage of drugs, that youngsters shouldn’t serve in the army and the ones in the army should go see a shrink and leave the army.
The leader of the band called Sha’anan felt insulted by this occurrence. He says: “The soldiers want to hear these songs, they like it! They prefer to send them some singers that will perform old folk songs the group has to sing along with?". The band is angry at the army, because 2 years before this incident, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel sent the band abroad to explain in front of Jews about how multi cultural Israel is. Shlomi Alon, the saxophone player of the band, gets angry and says: “The police in Israel should be busy catching criminals and shouldn’t be busy checking who has drugs in their pockets for self use”.
Gay Parade
Recently a big fight started in Israel, when the gay community decided to have the gay parade inside Jerusalem. Not only by the various religious population in the city Jerusalem, but in the whole country the people didn’t aggree with the gay parade inside the holy city and it was seen as a provocation by the gay  community. Hadag Nahash share their opinion on this incident and tell that they went to the rally that the gays and lesbians arranged. The band was aware that almost everybody in Israel was against the parade, including many artists and bands. Even the artist Ivri Lider, who is a gay himself, said it should be canceled totally. Hadag Nahash doesn’t agree with all these people, because they think this parade is for the rights and liberation of the gays and lesbians in Israel. The band says that if they can do a parade in Tel-Aviv, Ashkelon and Nazareth they should also be allowed to do it in Jerusalem (note: so far no gay parades have been held in Nazareth). The band concludes: “There are also gays in Jerusalem and even at the bar this interview is being held. So of course the gays have a right to parade in Jerusalem too!”.
Jacko Eisenberg
After winning the 4th version of the show A Star Is Born, Jacko Eisenberg shared his critics on Israel, the army and many popular Israeli artists. Hadag Nahash responds to the statements Eisenberg made. The bands bassist called Yaya Cohen-Ahronov says: “We know Jacko and his band for a long time now. They use to perform before our shows. It’s to bad Jacko didn’t consult us before giving the interview”. The band says that Jacko, also if he spoke against the country and the army, was out of proportion.. But the band share their positive opinion about the new born star. They think Jacko added something special to show of A Star Is Born, compared to the dull concept of Harel Skaat and Ninet Tayeb. Although Hadag Nahash would never say anything mean and insulting like Jacko did about Rami Kleinstein. Jacko called Rami Kleinstein (nicely said here) a lousy artist. The members of the band agree they would never say such a thing.
Hadag Nahash vs. Subliminal
For a while Hadag Nahash has a small on going conflict with the rapper Subliminal. On the bands latest album With Jam’s Help they included a song called Relax. The song contains small teasing and attacks against subliminal. The lyrics are focused on issues like Subliminal trying to "sell" the people what a great and successful artist he is, how easy the solution with the Arabs is, how many girls he has around him and that with force we can solve everything also if it means attacking people from your own music industry. Shlomi Alon says they wrote the song, but doesn’t feel like talking about it. He does say that they wrote it because Subliminal annoyed them and made them angry, but now they aren’t angry anymore. Then Sha’anan Street responses: “We are still angry. I have lots of skepticism and many doubts about Subliminals achievements in the music industry. And every time they put a microphone in front of him he feels the need to attack us and say bad things about our band. Even personal bad and dirty things about me”. Sha’anan Street leaves us and mostly Subliminal with the reminder that at one point you can be op top and next you can be all the way down.
Subliminal responded to the comment of Hadag Nahash and said that he thinks the band is making fine music, Sha’anan Street is also a fine writer, but he isn’t a good rapper. Subliminal says: “I also don’t like the message the band is trying to give in their songs; laugh and disrespect your country, disrespect the Israeli and Jewish traditions, don’t go to the army or leave it and take drugs. This is totally Un-Zionist to me!".
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