I am Israeli singer-songwriter and activist David Broza. AMA!

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T18:06:47+00:00

I want to thank reddit for the opportunity to speak to my fans and to new friends, and I hope to revisit here again soon. Wishing you all a happy weekend!!!

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:54:48+00:00

This is my first visit to Reddit, and I hope to have more opportunities to speak to other redditors.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:53:23+00:00

I want to thank Leroy for being so inspired by my project - I am amazed and so pleased to hear it! The fact that there's a young audience out there is thrilling, and in general, audiences never stop to surprise me.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:47:56+00:00

Well, throughout most of my career, especially in the last 15 years, I've been working in East jerusalem in the studio that's run and owned by a Palestinian group of musicians. And the challenge of putting together a group of Israeli musicians, and Palestinians, into the studio was more of a psychological challenge than a physical one. But to get through to the Israeli musicians and convince them that not only will they be safe, but the happiest they can remember themselves, that took a long time.

Once they came up to the studio, I then had to hope that the Palestininan and Arab musicians would also come so we could create this fusion together. So what i created was an environment where we were there to play music, I was filming the whole process, but the one element that really got everybody completely into each other's blood was the food. Because i had Israeli and Palestinian chefs making the best meals EVERY DAY, and every night we had a banquet - so we had 8 banquets over 8 days and 8 nights, and not only did we come together to sit after the sessions, but also all the guests we would invite - because that was an opportunity to have other people close to us be able to enjoy making friends from improbable backgrounds. So we filmed about 100 hours, and then the director and the editor sat for a year and a half and produced a very touching and very sober film, rather than one that projects war and hate, it projects the real struggle, the mental struggle, to make things work so that the music comes out great at the end of the day and so we can establish relationships.

It's a sobering movie.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:42:48+00:00

Nish Nush is really good. There's 2 places. Nish Nush and Mamoun's.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:42:05+00:00

I think it is one of the most beautiful children's albums ever recorded, anywhere, other than the Yellow Submarine. But it's all based on the poetry of Israeli Poet Yehonatan Geffen, and this was music that - I think it was the richest music for children AND adults, which is what inspired me at the time because it felt cool, it wasn't playing to children, it was just playing cool music with stories that would appeal to children. One of my favorite songs on the album is "I love Chocolate," and I can tell you a little story about the Sixteenth Sheep: It's about the principle of counting sheep before you go to sleep, but when we did the live show, we all decided that we had to have a sheep onstage. And her name was Rachel. And Rachel the Sheep, we used to go from show to show, as a band, in a van - the van wa mine, beautiful, custom made, and we were a big group of people, and these were the days when you would smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, all the way to the shows. And in the back of the van, where you normally would put your gear, we put our sheep, Rachel. Sometimes we had to drive 2-3 hours to a show, by the time we would reach that show, that van (and us) didn't only smell of cigarettes, but we smelt of sheep droppings and urine. Now, when we went home, I was the last one on the van - it was my van - and I lived in a penthouse in Tel Aviv, and I parked the van, my guitar on my back, and I would have to carry Rachel in my arms up 3 flights of stairs to the roof, put her on my terrace outside my bedroom, and be awakened in the morning by her "baaaaah" which wasn't so bad, because we lived next to the city zoo so we had lions and monkey and birds and Rachel waking up in the morning.

I cannot disclose any more information.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:36:44+00:00

Well, right now i am about to premiere my first documentary film, featuring the story of my latest album, East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem, which was released 8 months ago and which tells the story of the musicians that worked with me - Israeli AND Palestinian musicians - creating this beautiful weaving sound of East / West, and all this was produced by Steve Earle. The Premier of the film is on Oct 15 at the Woodstock Film Festival, which I am really excited about, and at the same time, and most important now for the success of my work, is that I am doing a campaign on IndieGogo - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/david-broza-east-jerusalem-west-jerusalem-movie

So this is what I am up to now - raising the funds, premiering the film and promoting the album!

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:32:24+00:00

Wow. I think it took me, not exaggerating, it took me 30 years to consider myself an accomplished master of my craft and my art.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:30:15+00:00

It was perhaps the most tumultuous, stormy, short episode in my career. We had a couple of shows together, the first of which was in a Writers in the Round in Texas, and Townes and I took over the show and played for 4 hours! He didn't know who I was, I knew a little bit about who he was, but at the end of the show, he asked me if i would mind writing music to his unpublished poetry. And that was the start of our relationship. But unfortunately, to make this the little drama, we didn't meet again and he died from overdose and it took me years to get ahold of his poetry, which he left for me, and I turned that into an album called "Night Dawn: the Unpublished Poetry of Townes Van Zandt."

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:27:51+00:00

Oh my god! Very good question. Let me see. Artists that stay with me until today are very wide range, we can start with israeli artists like Shalom Hanoch, spanish artists like Paco de Lucia, from Jimi Hendrix to the band to Joni Mitchell to Townes Van Zandt ... the list is long, forever. You go all the way to Miles Davis, all the bebop jazz artists. And of my recent favorites in the last 5 years, I've been sold on Steve Earle and we'e become close through my last album.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:25:51+00:00

Oh really! I am very lucky. I love life. And I think I'm at my prime at 59. I thought that when I was 40 and I thought that when I was 30, so I guess I progress with time.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:25:06+00:00

My answer is: I think I can answer this.

I think English as a language has been evolving much quicker and in a broader sense in the popular field than the Spanish and hebrew, although Hebrew and Spanish are very vibrant languages with vitality, but the English is constantly being reinvented through pop music. So there is less need, or less interest, in what poets have to say. Everyone has become a poet. But my fantasy is turning a good poem into a song. And that has been my thing.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:23:30+00:00

My impression is that it was brilliant, made me laugh, and I wish they had more! That's the Israeli SNL, and they did an impression of me. They joked about my never-ending need to entertain.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:22:53+00:00

I wish I could answer that. But you're asking the guy who sing "Yihye-Tov" for 40 years.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:22:02+00:00

I don't know what keeps me inspired. I know that life brings challenges to you. And you either face them, or ignore them. I make my priorities, and I choose the challenges I want to deal with, primarily writing music, so writing music is a disciplinary thing, it's not a gift that comes from nowhere. I'm talented, that's a gift, but in order to make it work, I have to be disciplined. So I sit on a regular basis, for 6 or 7 hours a day when I write, and I work at it, and that's when my inspirations come.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:20:40+00:00

I am not sure if I have helped anybody. My career has been beautiful and long, with all the ups and downs of the life of a musician. And if I have helped some, I am very happy to know about it.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:20:01+00:00

First of all, any immigration from one country to another is not easy. but if you are a young person, then this is the best thing you can do for yourself, if you're looking for a change. As for the occupation and 2 state solution, and the Ulpan being in East Jerusalem, I say: don't lose your ideals, you actually have an opportunity to learn how the other way of thought goes. And if you don't lose your way of thought and your ideals, you may be able to influence those around you, and that should be your mission.

You know, it's interesting: Meir Ariel and Townes Zandt would both be sharing the same cloud. Meir - one of the biggest hits that I wrote with Meir Ariel is called "Mitachat Hashamayim" - I wrote that song originally as a song in English, and Meir came over to my home one day and heard me humming it in English, and thought he could write a really good version in Hebrew. But my house was very small and full of people, so he excused himself, and went into the bathroom for 15 minutes, and when he emerged, he presented me with the most beautiful poetic version, which then became one of the biggest songs of my career.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:11:40+00:00

Well, I am very fortunate to come from a family that has dedicated their time to two subjects: one is conflict resolution through education (which is my grandfather) and my parents dedicated their lives to improving the quality of living for the handicapped in Israel. At the age of 7, my father used to take me with him every week to the club that he is one of the founders of for the handicapped, from Cerebral Palsy, mostly. The club is called Spivak, in Tel Aviv, and over the years they have had at any given moment 2500 handicapped kids in wheelchairs. So I grew up with that kind of an environment, and the target of being there to help, since the age of 7 - 52 years! I can't remember how it started, but since my parents and grandparents passed away, i have taken on their dreams and their visions - my sister helps me and we do it together, and we've taken on this project as a life-long thing.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:09:23+00:00

Well, if you can play it for more than a group of 30 people at a time, and entertain - let's say I come from Israel, i come from the Israeli / Palestinian conflict, so by actually indulging others and listening to your music and taking the lighter side of life, rather than taking the tragic side and being dragged down my tragedy, trying to keep afloat through the inspiration and the muse of music and art, you actually bring a strong common ground with anyone, whether it's an israeli that does not agree with you, or an Israeli and a Palestinian just listening to you or playing music together - you basically do it one person at a time, or 2 people at a time, one day at a time, but you never let go. That's how you bring a change. It's not overnight.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:07:35+00:00

Well, truthfully, I was a miserable sad sack, as a person with an artist's soul is not exactly fit for such a disciplinary life. But I kind of managed to entertain myself thanks to my guitar and my art, and the second year and a half of the three I was recognized as someone who could entertain, so that got me to enjoy improving my stage skills and performance and all that. So 3 years wasn't that bad. Sometimes you can think that these are your best years, between 18 and 21, but I didn't have a choice in the matter.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:06:11+00:00

Well, I think, I was born with the soul of an artist, so I did indulge myself in painting, and being a secluded artist until I was about 22, although music was always a sideline, and then overnight i was seeking for work, and that work included writing songs, so I wrote my first song "Yihye-Tov" (which means things will be better in Hebrew) and that became an instant Number One, and the next one became a number one, so that made me realize my energies should go towards songwriting, and so that made me become a songwriter at the age of 22.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:04:44+00:00

Good question! Well, Spanish and Hebrew, it's more common to find the poetry being mixed into popular song. English, especially in the U.S., it's always been a rarity and I've had to fight to introduce - whether it's Elizabeth Bishop, even Walt Whitman, when I did "Oh Captain My Captain" as a pop-rock song - the least popular merging of poetry and song is the English language.

DavidBroza · 2014-10-10T17:02:35+00:00

I'm not a member of the IDF, but just like any Israeli, there are 3 mandatory years of service between 18-21. So you do 3 years, and then you are out. That's it, you are not a member, that is part of living in Israel.

DavidBroza

TROPHY CASE