Zach Wheat & the All In, Honky Tonk Punk-Blues from Tel Aviv, Israel
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Hello. I'm Zach Wheat. It's not my real name, mind you, but a nickname given to me by an old friend, a neighbor in a certain building in Koreatown in Los Angeles, where I lived for eight years doing UNIX things that made me fat and anti-social, before consumating my self-destruction and enrolling into grad school in Israel.
I make American music. Sometimes I play alone with an acoustic guitar, sometimes with the guys, and every once in a while, especially if someone pays me, I'll DJ a blues, retro-rock or alt-country set.
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News:
Well, there's not much news really. Plans to record the album have been postponed, as we await Babush's completion of rigorous exams at Hebrew U. In the meanwhile, enjoy this youtube video, or come visit my solo acoustic shows this summer at Mescal Mexican Bar on Vital 2, in Florentine.
Press:
June 10, 2009, Israel HaYom (Israel Today) English translation follows.
Question: What would make an American guy from Texas play folk music at Beer Sheva, Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv?
a. An Israeli girl, who captured his heart and then shattered it to smithereens.
b. Judaism, which captured his mind and thus he converted.
c. Academia, which made him pursue his MA in Bar-Ilan, only to discover he's a blues and rock artist.
When it comes to Zach Wheat the answer could be: all of the above.
They say that an artist who's music comes from the soul needs only open his mouth on stage and it's evident. This is the case with Wheat, maybe the only authentic representative of southern American music in Israel today. He goes up on stage alone to perform "Cigarettes Whiskey and Wild Wild Women" acappella. Afterwards, he invites the rest of the members of his nameless band and the rock-and-roll bursts in to the moist Israeli night.
It is nice to sit with Wheat on the Allenby bench after the show and milk him for specifics about the rumors that once in his callow youth he killed a man in self-defense and had to run away. At first, Wheat refuses to comment "I do not respond to gossip," he says in Hebrew.
He offers, "Well, I grew up in South Texas where guns were a natural part of life. I got a gun from Santa when I was eight. When I was old enough to have a license I carried a .45 and I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if I hadn’t."
The Girl who Got Away
Wheat eventually took refuge in L.A. where he met the man who taught him how to sing: Eddy, the shoeshine man. "He was a homeless guy that asked me for a cigarette. I told him to fuck off and said I didn’t have any. He said: Hey, what's the matter with you? Eddy had the most amazing voice I've ever heard."
As their friendship deepened Eddy encouraged Wheat to develop his musical talent, but only the Holy Land was able to squeeze the songwriter out of him. Having converted to Judaism already and as the quest for the girl who broke his heart was doomed; the Texas pistolero found himself roaming the streets of Tel-Aviv with nothing but the clothes on his back. After drowning his sorrows in a lot of alcohol ("I've slept on every bench on this street"), Wheat walked in to a guitar store and bought the cheapest model he could find.
The songs burst out of him and soon the rest of the band, including Elad Avni on bass and Yoav "Babush" Wald on the guitar joined in. Recently, Element Yves Elisee from Côte d'Ivoire, a mysterious fellow in his own right, who plays gospel music in African churches on Saturdays, has also joined the band on drums. You can enjoy the first recordings at telavivcowboy.com.
One of Wheat's signature songs marking his love hate relationship with Israel is "Fuck you Tel-Aviv", which always makes the cult audience following him from gig to gig go wild. Wheat states that the song is based on a Towns Van Zandt hit, but it's obvious that the chorus which he wrote himself, is what captures the ear. "I say fuck you, but it's true love. It's like saying: Hey, fuck you, but I love you. You can break my heart, but you fill me with life."
