Tel Aviv trio to crank up the volume and craziness at The Pilot Light

By Steve Wildsmith
of The Daily Times Staff

It wasn’t like this back in the day, when the three guys who make up indie rock outfit Monotonix played their hometown of Tel Aviv.

The last time the band performed at The Pilot Light, the band’s use of fire ended up in the hands of an overly excited fan, according to guitarist Yonatan Gat.

“We were using lighter fluid to set the cymbals on fire at the beginning of the show, and this guy went berserk,” Yonatan told The Daily Times this week. “He grabbed the lighter fluid out of the drummer’s hands and poured it on himself and lit it.”

The patron was OK, but that’s not the only incident involving fire and debauchery to take place at The Pilot Light when Monotonix played there. On another occasion, the burning cymbals gave way to wads of lighter fluid-soaked toilet paper, tossed around and set on fire while Gat and his bandmates — singer Ami Shalev and drummer Ran Shimoni — found themselves in the middle of a hyperactive and physically enthusiastic crowd.

That’s just the nature of the Israeli band, whose brand of ferocious rock calls to mind the Australian trio Wolfmother. The band gives and receives a sort of raw, visceral energy, and after being blacklisted in Tel Aviv when they first started, the guys find such spectacles as the ones that took place previously at The Pilot Light to be refreshing.

“We’ve been into rock ‘n’ roll all of our lives, and we listen to albums by classic rock bands and listen to how much energy they put into them,” Gat said. “When we’ve played shows, we think it’s kind of weird when the audience just stands there and stares at the band. We like to think of how we can take it to the next level. We want to be in the floor with the audience, and if it’s a good show, the audience ends up freaking out and dancing, and it becomes like a party.

“They really can do whatever they want. A lot of them will play drums with us or lift us up in the air — we just let them do whatever they want to do. We want to make them feel like anything can happen at our show, because anything can happen in life, too.”

The bandmates started playing together in November 2005 in Tel Aviv; at the time, the heavy rock scene was somewhat lacking. Most Israeli music draws it influences from Greek, Arab and Mediterranean folk; “local” rock is really a blend of ’80s pop with some world beats and a soft touch, designed to appeal to seated patrons who dine while watching the show.

That’s not what Gat and his bandmates wanted. They set out to model themselves after classic rock outfits like Sabbath and Zeppelin, and the reception they got wasn’t a warm one. The volume and the exuberance and the debauchery didn’t go over well with law enforcement or club owners; the band was often banned or booted off the stage shortly after starting to play.

“In the beginning, we tried to play the venues that would have us, but we would book a show and the owner would get freaked out and stop it before we even started,” Gat said. “We would get noise complaints because we were too loud or wild for the venues, and they would stop the show while the audience would boo them.

“I remember one time we played at Tel Aviv University, and they sent 10 cops to shut us down. I didn’t understand — they could have just sent one and we would have stopped playing. I think there were more cops there than people in the audience. I guess the university didn’t appreciate the fire in our performance in the lobby of the art academy.”

Eventually, the guys in Monotonix drifted to America, where they caught the attention of the Drag City label, which recently released the band’s “Body Language” EP. It’s a loud, boisterous rock record that seems put together with sweat, beer and broken electric guitar strings — it’s a party in and of itself, which means that, live, it gets even more crazy when Monotonix takes the stage.

And sometimes, Gat said, it gets a little too wild even for the band members themselves.

“We have to watch our equipment, and sometimes we try to play while we’re shielding our instruments and amplifiers and drums with our bodies,” he said. “That’s kind of hard sometimes, but then again, we encourage it. If somebody acts too dangerous, we’ll tell him to stop, or just stop playing for a few minutes and ask him to calm down. We just want to make sure nothing gets broken, but even then, it’s still a good show.”