As a child her father would use the music of Leonard Cohen to lull her to sleep, laughs British-Israeli musician, Lail Arad, “He would change the words of Cohen’s songs and pretend that he had written it.” So her affair with the strains of the sixties and the seventies, infused with the untrammelled spirit of the era is a long-drawn-out one. “It was what my parents listened to, and so it was always around. Of course, I rediscovered it for myself as a teenager but it was in my blood and in the air,” says Arad, who will be performing alongside her Canadian counterpart, JF Robitaille at the 13th edition of The Hindu November Fest.
Though music had always been an inextricable part of her life, it was on a school camping trip that she first discovered her voice. “Someone started singing ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ by Joni Mitchell and I knew all the words so I joined in,” she says. People around her began complimenting her and encouraging her to sing again. And so she did. “I went on to get a degree in Theatre studies from Warwick because I wanted that university experience. But I knew I was going to do music,” says Arad who launched her debut album Someone New in 2010 and her second The Onion last year.
Montreal-born Robitaille on the other hand, “was very into Rock and Roll as a teenager: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and all that stuff.” Then he got into lyrics and discovered folk music. “It gave me the doorway into song-writing,” says Robitaille, who released his third full-length Palace Blues along with a book of poetry called Minor Dedications in June last year.
Bengaluru Bound
After a hugely successful stint in Chennai, where they were given a standing ovation, the duo will head over to Bengaluru where they will perform as part of The Hindu November Fest on Saturday, November 18. “It’s going to be a little of everything but it is focused on songwriters and songwriting,“ says Robitaille. “It sounds very folksy, we are enamoured with that simplicity that gets across through the melody and lyrics.”
“Two performers, one guitar, it is very intimate,” chips in Arad, who believes that honesty in music is important for it to resonate with other people.
The concert will pay tribute to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Simon & Garfunkel and Joni Mitchell, interspersed with the duo’s original numbers including Arad’s quirky ‘The EU Song’ that draws a parallel between the Brexit referendum and her letting go of a man she once loved.
“But the blame all came down... To point of view...That summer I left you.. And we left the EU,” she sings to a tune that is vaguely reminiscent of Dylan’s
‘The Times They are a changin’. The song was written last year in New York, she says, where she had retreated to nurse an aching heart. “It came around a very interesting timing in both my personal and political world; it is a sad song for multiple reasons,” says Arad, adding that she often uses music to process and deal with things. Inevitably, that does mean a lot of love songs, of course, but, “we both try to mix in more universal and social ideas and experiences,” she smiles.
That's how the music gets in
It was melody that first drew them together, traversing the 5,000-odd kms between London and Montreal via the World Wide Web. “We heard each other online and felt some sort of connection,” says Robitaille. They first met each other in person at a festival and went on to do a tour in Italy last September. “Back then we were just two solo artistes doing the tour together,” he clarifies.
By the end of the tour, they had started singing harmony on each other’s songs and doing covers together.
Their first single together ‘We got It coming’ released earlier this year - -this will also be performed at the November Fest-- happened soon after. “I think it is inevitable when you put two musicians together for a long period of time, they are going to start playing together. And now there is demand for more. After this tour ends we will get back in the studio, “laughs Robitaille,
Talking about the ongoing multi-city India tour, they both admit to being very excited by it. “We have never been to India before and are awed by the country’s cultural legacy. It is overwhelming, “he says, while Lail adds, “India is not on the usual European or North American touring route. It is an incredible opportunity and we consider ourselves very lucky.”
