The unique London-based trio Bar Italia will perform at Blind on September 12 for their first-ever Istanbul concert, where Kıyı Müzik will also be present for a warmup DJ set. We chatted with the trio on Zoom beforehand for a fun and perfectly chaotic interview.
The main reason we are talking right now is that you’ll perform in Istanbul at Blind on September 12. How does it feel to be coming here finally?
Jezmi Tarık Fehmi: Super excited. I’m going to be in Turkey for two weeks before the concert, so I’m going to be soaking it up for a long time.
Jezmi, you said in a previous interview that Istanbul was your favorite city. Do you have a specific reason for that?
Jezmi: It’s so big and it’s so interesting, and it has so many layers of history, the culture. I’ve just never felt so amazed walking around in any place as that.
How about you, Sam and Nina? Will it be your first time coming here?
Sam Fenton: Yeah. I’m really excited.
Nina Cristante: Yeah, can’t wait. It’s been a place I’ve always wanted to visit.
Being in a band that has been hitting the road for some time now, can you think of a concert memory that feels really special to you?
Sam: San Francisco was incredible. I remember just not having to think for a second the whole show and feeling completely connected with the audience the entire time. That was just something we were all locked in together as a band, we were all locked in with the room. I’ll never forget that.
Jezmi: We played a festival on Saturday in London.
Sam: Yeah. That was amazing.
Nina: The stage was a kind of a ring, so we had crowds on three sides. There were mosh pits on either side of them, so it was like a vortex of people on every direction. It was really cool.
How did you exactly stand on stage? Did each of you stand facing one side of the audience or something?
Nina: We were moving a lot. It wasn’t a big stage either.
Sam: They were trying to kick us off the stage because we went over as well, so we were kind of dodging the stage managers.
Nina: Running. Running from them. The San Francisco one is super special to me too. It was crazy. The location also was so beautiful. It was a theater.
I want to dwell upon your latest studio outing, The Twits, through this question: If you were to pick two songs from it, one easiest and one hardest to make, which two would those be?
Jezmi: I’ve realized recently that I have no memory whatsoever of working on “my little tony.” I only remember the bad things, so I’m assuming that was really easy, right?
Nina: Yeah.
Sam: “my little tony” was easy. I do remember that. “Jelsy” was pretty easy, too.
Nina: “glory hunter” was hard.
Sam: Yeah.
Jezmi: “Jelsy” was hard for me. It took ages to get that right.
Nina: But you did the vocal line really quickly. That was really quick. You put it straight away.
Jezmi: Maybe.
Nina: “glory hunter”’s second half, though, took a lot of rewriting.
Jezmi: “sounds like you had to be there” took a lot of rewriting as well.
Nina: Was that on The Twits as well? Oh my god, yes. That was so hard. Like, mathematically hard.
Is the writing process generally a blur with you guys?
Sam: It’s a blur with poignant moments that stand out more sharply.
Due to another interview you made, I know that you are two Virgos (Sam and Jezmi) and one Aquarius (Nina). Would you say that through your band dynamic, you showcase characteristics of your signs, with Sam and Jezmi being perfectionist characters and Nina bringing in some out-of-the-box thinking into the mix?
Sam: I think that’s fairly accurate. Did you say professionalism, though, for Virgo?
Perfectionism.
Sam: Yeah, there’s a perfectionism, and also an overthinking that Nina definitely throws out the window sometimes. In a good way.
Nina: I think there’s a good balance. I’m really glad, for example, the songs that took a bit longer. It’s so worth it. The rewriting just made it so much deeper. I can sometimes not go deep enough, and I’m just happy moving forward. They’re quite anchoring in a really good way.
Here is an anonymous quote on art: “Paintings are never finished, merely abandoned.” To me, that implies to necessity to drop an art piece at a certain point, despite you always have the option to add on it. What do you think on this quote?
Jezmi: It’s pretty true.
Sam: Yeah.
Jezmi: Unfortunately, in music, someone has to put it out. So I guess there is a finishing, but there’s also that you can’t change its recorded context once it’s on record.
Nina: Yeah, but you can abandon it.
Sam: I realized at a certain point that there is an art to actually finishing something, and there’s an art to deciding what is the end of that with the knowledge that you could go on forever and keep doing things. But making that decision in itself is an art form, and it’s one that I don’t find naturally easy compared to starting something. Yeah, “it’s only abandoned,” that’s a great quote. But you have to give respect to the art of finishing something.
Jezmi: I think, ultimately, that’s why people like music. That’s quite immediate and aesthetically pleasing, rather than purely intellectual rigor. Because creativity is a series of decisions you’ve made more than anything else. Your decision to end something is the most important creative decision. That’s the wheat and the chaff. That’s where the good shit lies, when you decide to leave it.
Sam: And also, it might be a finished piece, but it changes in the perception of people listening and the context that they listen to. And no one hears the same song twice in exactly the same way anyway, so there’s always something changing.
Recently, I interviewed Jon Hopkins and asked him how he knows when a track is finished. He said that he actually not listens to a finished track for a few weeks and then returns to it to have a more clearer, objective opinion on whether it still needs a few touches or not. Does this opinion resonate with you?
Jezmi: We are lucky to be three people, and we all have different interests within music specifically as well. Someone’s interest in one niche little thing isn’t necessarily everyone else’s. So we can just be like, “No, you’re going macro on that thing,” or, “Maybe try again. It’s not good.” We’re lucky that we have each other to bounce off in that regard because we don’t all look at it the same way either.
Nina: Yeah. And I definitely think we all do this not listening for a little bit.
Jezmi: Yeah. It’s essential.
Nina: Especially in terms of structure. I actually relistened yesterday to stuff that we recorded early this year and things that at the time I hadn’t noticed, they were so glaring. It had become way easy to identify. If you zoom out a little bit and just look at it when you’re in the midst of it, it’s obviously much harder to see, right?
You’re mostly defined as a post-punk band right now, but, in the 21st century, that is as broad as a term as it could possibly be, right? You didn’t even start out at this particular sound, and, for all we know, you might as well release club music in the future. Do you, in an overall perspective, find the categorization of genres more of a positive thing in the current modern music world or a negative thing?
Sam: Negative, personally.
Jezmi: Yeah, but I understand why people do it. I think everyone does it in some way or another. I think that particular term is, like you say, essentially useless. I understand categorization because that is a part of the human condition. People do like that. That is how we order things.
Sam: Some people are better at doing it than others, though. (all laugh) People mean different things by the same word. It can be a bit confusing and misleading, that’s why we tend to avoid it. And also, any band categorizing their own genre, is making a mistake. (laughs)
Jezmi: Yeah, it’s kind of weird. “We’re a psychedelic band.” What you actually mean is that you are a pastiché band of the sixties. That’s not being psychedelic. You can find fault in every single version of someone’s categorization.
Nina: It’s generalization.
Jezmi: Yes, exactly. You can do whatever you want with it.
I will now ask you to check your streaming platforms and tell me the last three things you streamed there.
Nina: Oh, God, that’s…
Jezmi: The Twats, The Twits– (all laugh)
Sam: I use Apple Music, I’ll say that.
Jezmi: Mine are all podcasts about football, so it’s not useful. (laughs)
Nina: I listened to an amazing podcast today about UFO and God.
Sam: Oh, cool.
Jezmi: Nice.
Nina: Yeah. It was amazing. That’s the last thing. It’s called “UFOs, God and the edge of it understanding” with Diana Pasulka in The Gray Area Podcast. There is another episode I was listening to about astrophysics. The guest is a well-known jazz musician. He thinks that everything is basically a product of sound waves, and that potentially, our entire reality is made of sound. But obviously, he’s a jazz musician. So they are trying to prove the fact that him being a musician is what makes him see the universe in that way. What’s yours, Sam?
Sam: I was listening to an Indian singer, a woman called Kishori Amonka. She sings traditional ragas, which are devotional songs.
Nina: And you were listening to podcasts, Jezmi?
Jezmi: I was listening to three different podcasts about the Chelsea Football Club.
This next question is inspired by today’s news of the Oasis reunion. If you had the power to reunite one band back into action, which one would you pick?
Jezmi: Oasis. (all laugh)
Nina: Oasis, is it today?
Jezmi: No, no. They’re doing a worldwide tour. I’m sorry, this is completely separate, but I need to say this now before I forget. Do you know that the reason they’re actually reuniting is because Noel Gallagher got divorced and lost 20 million? He’s actually going bankrupt. So they need to do this. (laughs)
Returning to the topic: I would love to see Can play with the original lineup.
Nina: Alice in Chains would be great. Just because I’m really close to this live album by them.
Sam: I’ll pick Jimi Hendrix.
Let’s imagine we’re at a Musicians Theme Park 100 years from now, where every artist or band featured have their own memorial stone with a certain lyric by them written on it. Which one of the lyrics would you like to see written on bar italia’s stone?
Jezmi: “Can I come inside?” (laughs)
Sam: One of our lyrics about heaven.
Nina: I would be too busy laughing to come up with anything.
You can check out bar italia’s Bandcamp page here.
