Southern Avenue released their new record, Be the Love You Want, last month on BMG’s Renew Records. The creative process for the new project began immediately after the release of their last record, Keep On, which was Grammy-nominated for 2019’s Best Contemporary Blues Album.
Despite COVID slamming the brakes on their touring schedule for 2020 and much of 2021, band founder and guitarist Ori Naftaly says, “It’s a very non-pandemic album. This album was in the works way before the pandemic started.” As you’d expect from this band, the music exuberates in the messages of resiliency and hope we may all be hungry for after so much worldwide bad news.
Southern Avenue recently spent 3 weeks on the road opening for Jason Mraz and have several more scheduled gigs before taking maternity leave in November. Ori and lead singer Tierinii Naftaly, who got married in Israel two years ago, will be welcoming their baby girl into their family and taking some time off. The rest of the band’s line-up has Jeremy Powell on keys, Evan Sarver on bass, and Tierinii’s sister, Tikyra (TK) Jackson, on drums and background vocals. Ava Jackson, sister to Tierinii and TK, makes her first vocal appearance on this album.
In January of 2022, Southern Avenue’s first show will be with Widespread Panic in Mexico, and then they’re bound for the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise to the Eastern Caribbean.
During our interview with Ori and Tierinii, we delved into the details of their new music on Be the Love You Want. ABS is also proud to premiere the video for “Control.”
ABS: I’ve known you for a while, Ori. When was it you first came over from Israel to do the International Blues Challenge?
Ori:
It was 2013.
ABS: Look at the strides you’ve made in 8 years, can you believe it?
Ori:
No. It’s amazing, but it’s also just the beginning. Coming here with a suitcase and a guitar and achieving what I have thus far; it’s definitely overwhelming. I’m very blessed.
ABS: And the Grammy nomination is nothing to sneeze at.
Tierinii:
I forgot about that! (laughing)
ABS: I have a question about the cover art for Be The Love You Want with the old-fashioned turntable with the cassette player. Can you tell me about the symbolism on the cover?
Tierinii:
First, my manager is friends with this amazing artist (Steve Haney) that does these collages, actual physical collages. He came up with something that was great. But for us, our touch on it really was the elephant ‘cause as you know, elephants represent family, and that’s what we are. Through our music, I feel like we expand our family to our fans, and whoever connects to our music kind of becomes a part of that. So it’s symbolic as a family of how we move through the universe.
Ori:
And our music is kind of retro, and we think the collage is very old school.
When we write songs, we realized we’re writing timeless soulful Memphis music. And being able to have the old school design that’s not just our faces, because we didn’t want another album where it’s just a picture of us.
Tierinii:
The past album covers were too dark; I just wanted a bunch of color. The collage made a lot more sense to have light and color.
ABS: Speaking of old school, the studio in which you recorded this, Memphis Magnetic Studios, is an old school analog studio. You made a lot of really significant choices including the producer, the horn arrangements. When was the 1st time you thought about this album and started working toward this?
Ori:
That’s a good question. Right after we released Keep On in May 2019, we went to write with Cody Dickinson. He lives like 20 minutes away from us in Mississippi. We drove down and wrote “Push Now” and “Heathen Hearts.” The best time to write is right after you release an album because you get to write without being attached to any specific project you’re doing. We went with that attitude and wrote a couple of songs.
Fast forward 2 years later, and we’re discussing songs for the album. “Push Now” and “Heathen Hearts” were still so dominant. It materialized step by step. At some point we realized we had enough songs for an album, and then we started from there. I think that materialized maybe May of 2020 when we were ready.
ABS: That and having all your gigs cancelled, you probably had a lot more time for thinking.
Ori:
Yeah.
ABS: I think I saw a Facebook post last year – did you take a day job, an IT job?
Ori:
Oh yeah, I’m still working 2 full-time jobs. I wake up at 6 a.m. every day to get online even when I’m on the road, and then I clock out. If I have to, I use my PTOs (paid time off) sometimes. If we load in at 10 a.m., I can’t really work, but usually we load in at 3 or 4. I’m just trying to hold on to that until they kick me out really. I’m happy there, and I’m happy to have it.
It’s very difficult to work 40 hours a work and then having the band and everything that entails and then kids and family and friends. Well I don’t know about friends. I haven’t seen a friend in months. Until everything is safe, and the pandemic is over, I don’t feel comfortable to go. We’ve had so many cancellations from venues. We lost 3 or 4 shows in the last month just because of guidelines in the city where the show is. Every city is different. But it’s all good, we’re optimistic.
ABS: There are some sounds on Be The Love You Want that I don’t think I’ve heard before. On the title cut, are there bongos?
Ori:
Yeah, we had a percussionist (Jesse Brook) record 5 or 6 songs on the album, like “Let’s Get It Together,” “Love You Nice and Slow,” and “Be The Love You Want.” We thought it would make sense, and we wanted to expand the sounds a bit. Also, when we wrote the songs, that’s how they were written; they required percussion. Some of the songs were written like that. On Be The Love You Want, I wanted to have more of an Allman Brothers Southern rock where it will balance the rockiness so it becomes a bit more southern rock. I think the percussion really cements that. We also have a bit of percussion here and there on all of our albums. This is the first time we hired somebody.
ABS: As far as the Allman Brothers, Marc Franklin and Art Edmaiston, who did the horn arrangements, were certainly the right choice.
Ori:
They recorded on Keep On as well and our 1st album, too. They’ve always been with us. Sometimes we use the entire arrangements, and sometimes we change things a bit. They just come and do magic on everything.
ABS: Especially on my favorite song “Too Good to Be True,” which I’ll get to in a minute. I was reading reviews of the album, and no one mentions that song. Somehow I’m always drawn to the song that no one else paid any attention to.
Ori:
It’s because I think that reviewers don’t always go as deep, and that’s ok. For them it’s about first impression, and then once they’re done, they’re done. Some people listen a few more times, and then they find little things they didn’t notice before. It’s like a movie you have to watch a few times. A good album, you need a few times to listen to. Everybody’s very appreciative of the album and like it.
The thing is, for this album, the difference between that and everything else, we had complete musical freedom – everything from songwriting to production, even master and cover art. BMG really gave us complete freedom in what we wanted to do. A lot of decisions, even the small ones like not having our faces on the cover and just on the back was something Concord Records insisted. But we wanted our album, the vinyl especially, to be an artistic piece and not just a business card.
Then also all the way to me coproducing and getting credit for what I do on the production end and also being able to make decisions that will end up shaping the way that it sounds. That’s why “Too Good To Be True” is there. In the past, we would have to make an album with just 10 songs, and we would have to do more high-energy songs. With this one, we wanted 12 songs. We compromised on instrumental parts maybe a bit that we expand at the shows, but we did that because there were songs that needed to be heard. Whether there’s a solo, a long solo or a short solo, whether there’s instrumental or not, if the song requires, we will do it. But if the song doesn’t require it, we’d rather have more songs on the album rather than just long instrumentals.
That’s why “Too Good to be True” made it. It’s a different vibe. It connects all the other songs on the album, but it’s definitely a different one. We really got to do whatever we wanted. We got angles of our music that you didn’t really get in the past. Do you remember “Wildflower”? It’s very similar in a lot of ways. There’s always that side of us that was always there, but on this album, we really got to expand. We feel like it’s the most “us” we’ve ever been. It’s who we are right now and who we’ve been for the last 2 or 3 years. The next chapter begins.
Once you release a piece of art, you’re already on to the next piece. The journey ended with the release of Be The Love You Want, and now we’re facing whatever comes in the future. The pandemic just made it harder because we couldn’t rehearse. We couldn’t have Steve Berlin the producer come over and work with us for longer. We had to find a studio that was big enough for everybody. We were more confined in how much time we had in the studio, so the pandemic didn’t allow us to be more creative; it made it more difficult if anything.
ABS: I was wondering about the producer Steve Berlin. He lives in Portland, so you brought him to Memphis?
Ori:
Yeah.
ABS: As busy as he is, and as acclaimed as he is, plus his own musical career with Los Lobos, I don’t know how y’all finally made it together in the same place.
Ori:
It was planned out.
ABS: I’m never sure exactly about the terminology – producer, coproducer.
Ori:
It means that I took duties on me that were – it was me and him working together to create this album and bring the best out of everybody, anything from schedule to managing the day at the studio; getting food to everyone. All the way to mixing and
making sure it sounds like we wanted it to sound. When you’re not co-producing, you don’t get to be in the entire process and influence the entire process.
ABS: Who is it that grants you coproducer standing? Is that the label?
Ori:
When I met Steve on the road with Los Lobos, that’s what I told him, “Listen, I want to coproduce our next album. I want to be able to do what we want to do musically.” I trust his musical experience and decision making. He has more experience than me, and I would like to work with him.
Even though I’m co-producer, TK, for example, or anybody else, they always have a lot of say in what they do and the way they play. Their notes are a lot of times very influential to the way the song sounds. It’s not just like the producers, it’s everybody.
ABS: On the title song, or even from the first time you were here with your Israeli band, you were doing happy blues. I did that interview back then and the title was something like “The Happy Blues of the Ori Naftaly Band.” So here in Be The Love You Want, there are still these words of encouragement in the songs. Are these messages that both of you have needed to hear from someone else and now you’re passing on the good wishes?
Ori:
I think it comes from a different place for me and Tierinii, but we meet at the same crossroad which is bringing positivity into the world. We don’t share the same origin. For me, it comes from the Jewish religion, something that’s been around me all my life. Everything happens for the best. Being optimistic and positive and understanding why something happened and then moving forward is just part of who I am. That message was always something I wanted to focus on as an inspiration to others and to myself. If I spend hours on stage listening to songs, I’d rather hear something positive around me all the time and not write about the darker things. Even if it’s a dark thing, it can always be looked at on the other side in a positive light.
Tierinii:
For me, I had to at some point – maybe at my roughest point in my life – I had to create a practice to be kind to myself and forgiving. I was allowing the world to be so hard on me. I had to create a practice where I speak positively to myself. I uplift myself out of these bad situations. I had to retrain my brain and way of speaking to myself. A lot of times when I write lyrics, this is just the way that I speak to myself.
Fortunately I get to be positive to all my listeners, I get to be a positive inspiration to anybody who listens. We do need to remember to be kind to ourselves and be positive when we move forward. It doesn’t matter how low you get; you can only go up from there. That’s just how I speak to myself.
ABS: In “Control,” you say, “Brighter days are coming” and “Don’t doubt yourself.” I wonder if you’ve heard from individuals who’ve said these messages help them through bad times.
Tierinii:
We didn’t expect it, but we always get people with these amazing stories. It’s really touching, and sometimes it makes me want to cry. They explain to us how our music has helped them through rough times, through death or through healing, through cancer. It’s beautiful to be connected to people in that way. When you write the songs, you don’t think that far ahead, that people will be affected in such a way that they are, and it’s a blessing.
ABS: Are there any particular anecdotes you’d want to share?
Tierinii:
The last one we got was from one of the stagehands when we were opening up for Jason Mraz. He had his wife on FaceTime when we were playing “Don’t Give Up.” She was recovering from cancer, and he was working backstage. When we came offstage, he stopped me. It looked like he was almost in tears, “I FaceTimed my wife when you were singing ‘Don’t Give Up’ – she’s healing from cancer, and it’s a beautiful message that I wanted to give to her.” That’s the latest one we’ve gotten that was really touching.
ABS: That’s better than a big payday maybe, hearing that kind of thing.
Tierinii:
Yeah.
ABS: In some of these questions, it will be very evident that I am not a musician and don’t possess the right terminology. All I can do is describe what I hear. In “Fences,” toward the end, you’re singing, “Oh every day,” and there’s a change in the mood, and there’s a beautiful chord progression.
Ori:
Yeah, the bridge. We wrote that song with Itay Shimoni, a songwriter and producer in Israel. We played with him a bit.
Tierinii:
In Europe.
Ori:
He lived in L.A., we played with him in Europe, and he’s in Israel. He’s a very famous songwriter in Israel; he writes for a lot of pop artists. He sent us this song, and he knows Tierinii very well and wanted to show off her vocal abilities and energy. It’s soulful and an old time, classic kind of vibe. We ended up editing it a bit, changing it a bit, expanding it a bit. It ended up bring great; it’s one of my favorites.
Tierinii:
Mine, too.
Ori:
It’s very special for sure.
Tierinii:
I do feel like Judy Garland when I sing it. It’s magical.
ABS: Tierinii, your voice – in my brain I’m seeing a bird that flits around in the air and it goes wherever you want to take it. You must have good genetics with your sister TK and now another sister, Ava, appearing on the album. How many siblings do you have?
Tierinii:
My mother had 7 kids and 6 of us now, and only 5 of us do music.
ABS: You’ve lost a sibling?
Tierinii:
Yes, I was a toddler, and he was an infant. We had a big, big family, and we all do music. My biggest sister doesn’t do music, but she’s a lot of fun. The rest of us sung, we jammed, we played. We weren’t allowed to do anything else, so we just stayed in the house and played a lot of music.
ABS: I read an article about when you wanted to do secular music, that was frowned upon in your church family. That’s got to be painful.
Tierinii:
Yeah, because I was such a good kid, and everyone was so proud and loving of me. As a songwriter – I’ve been writing songs since I was learning how to write – I always knew one day I’d have to break their hearts and break off and do what I knew was my purpose was to do. It was a rough few years but everything has gotten a lot better, and we’re all healing and loving. It’s beautiful; it’s been a beautiful journey.
ABS: I appreciate “Let’s Get It Together.” I think you start it a cappella with, “How did this world get turned upside down?” I’m so glad someone’s acknowledging that.
Tierinii:
That was TK’s line, TK’s contribution to the song. That’s such an important line, that’s why she’s got credit on it. It just sums up the idea of the song that we were worked on. It was beautiful before, but that was her line.
ABS: Every picture I’ve seen of her, and every time I’ve seen you live, she is just smiling and calm. She never looks sweaty, and playing the drums is such a physical thing. How can she always be so calm and collected?
Tierinii:
She’s in her happy place on stage.
ABS: Ori, when you met Tierinii, you needed her vocal ability. Was TK coming along with her, or did TK come along later?
Tierinii:
She was part of my negotiation.
ABS: “Heathen Hearts” was like going to church, it felt to me, the hand clapping and the rhythm of it. Was that the intention?
Tierinii:
Yeah, straight to the point.
ABS: Tierinii, your vocals go all over the place; could you call that scatting?
Tierinii:
I guess you can. It’s kind of like an old man whistling a tune, except I can’t whistle, so I’ll hum it. It can be a scat; it’s kind of freestyle, jazzy.
ABS: The video for “Move Into The Light” – that white dress was amazing.
Tierinii:
I hard such a hard time finding something to wear for that video because I’m pregnant. I knew I needed something that would look cool with the lights and colors we were going to do. I couldn’t find anything, and I went to K & G suit, like a church store. In the kids’ section I found this cute little Easter dress. Luckily I could fit it because I’m short. It worked out great. I love that dress and am probably never going to wear it again.
ABS: How far along were you when you did that video?
Tierinii:
5 months.
ABS: Jason Mraz was credited as a cowriter along with Michael Goldwasser on “Move Into The Light.” Tell me about these gentlemen.
Ori:
Michael was Jason’s producer for last record, and he’s also a very well-known producer in the reggae world, Easy Star All-Stars. I’ve known Michael for a while, and our manager knew Michael. We always wanted to write together, and then we talked. He suggested bringing Jason Mraz to the table, so it’s like me and Tierinii writing with Michael and Jason.
ABS: How did you end up opening for Jason on a tour?
Ori:
Michael Goldwasser said basically he took a chance on us.
Tierinii:
He plays in Jason’s band.
ABS: How was the Jason Mraz audience different from your own as to who attends the shows and the audience size?
Ori:
It was young and old, and our messages of positivity are the same. He has the same energy as us, so were accepted very well. It was a lot of fun.
ABS: Did it feel like you were gaining some attention you wouldn’t normally have gained?
Ori:
Yeah, every show we played for 50-60,000 people over 2 1/2 weeks, so of course, followers and fans.
Tierinii:
So many tagged pictures of themselves.
Ori:
It was a true blessing, and his fans were really into us. It felt very worth of us. If his fans would hate us, it would be a very bad time.
ABS: “Love You Nice and Slow” – is there really a Cadillac?
Tierinii:
There’s this thing on my mom’s side, all her sisters, when they got married, their husbands buy them Cadillacs. But they’re so high maintenance, I noticed that all of their Cadillacs at some point would just break down and not really move. That’s where that first line came from. I got space in the Cadillac, and it don’t move, but there’s space in the back. It’s like a Southern thing. Give a Southern woman a fur and a Cadillac, and she feels like a rock star.
ABS: Let me skip to “Too Good To Be True.” When you’re writing something, you have an audible vision of what it’s going to be like. Could you possibly have imagined how “Too Good To Be True” would sound when all the parts came together?
Ori:
Yeah, for me.
Tierinii:
No. I love this song – it feels like walking into the holidays, and you see cousins you haven’t seen in twenty years. It feels like a big hug. When we first wrote this song, I thought the beat was cool. I thought the chord changes were amazing. When I added the harmonies, they were just in my head, and hearing the harmonies made it even more amazing. And then really when we recorded the song, and the horns got on there, it took it to a place that I never imagined it would go. The song feels like love in the air, and the horns bring that love to the air.
ABS: You’re singing “love you” and in the spaces are the horns.
Ori:
We wanted it to end dramatically – a lot of time the song structure is repetitive, like verse, chorus, chorus again. We wanted it to be a bit more classic.
Tierinii:
We wanted it to follow the emotions of what the lyrics were saying. When you’re afraid of something, but you’re going for it, the closer you get to whatever you’re afraid of, the intensity grows. By the end of the song, the vocals are screaming “love you.”
ABS: The line, “You’re the first to rock my cool,” and the way the “cool” sounds, it sounds cool with whatever you did to make it sound like that.
Ori:
It’s the chord she chose to harmonize on “cool.” And then the horns that follow.
ABS: How many layers of harmonies are on some of these songs?
Tierinii:
Some of them I did with my sister, I wanted to feel like a 3-part harmony. We’ll double each harmony, so I guess that’d be 6 layers. We’ll do a simple 3-part harmony and double it. With songs like “Too Good To Be True,” I wanted the harmonies to be more jazzy, I kept layering them.
Ori:
It was up to 5 different voices in one song in either “Pressure,” or I think the bridge for “Push Now” has 5 different actual notes being sung.
Tierinii:
For “Let’s Get It Together” we did 2-part harmonies throughout the song but the last chord is like 5.
ABS: What I kept wondering was, how do you recreate the music on stage during a live performance?
Ori:
We recorded it kind of live and overdubbed a lot of parts. But it’s not that complicated. Obviously I cannot do 3, 4 different guitar parts, but it translates very well.
Tierinii:
It’s the harmonies that will bring the color.
Ori:
That’s one of the reasons we added Ava was to be able to replicate more of the percussion and background vocals.
ABS: When baby comes, how will that play into the touring?
Tierinii:
Who knows? (laughing)
Ori:
We’ll just have to make it work – we’ll get a nanny or something. We’ll figure it out.
Southern Avenue
