Interview: Telechild
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Interview: Telechild
What got you into music, and if you had not gotten into music what would you be doing today?
Charles: I took piano lessons as a kid for about 5 years but then my uncle bought me my first classical guitar at the age of 15 and it was love at first strum. He was a big fan of the folk singers like Neil Young and Bob Dylan which influenced me growing up.
Hadi: in high school and uni i really got into music but as a listener. Then I met Charles who once at a house party, in his drunken state, picked up a guitar and pretended to play the solo of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb while the song blasted in the background. And I remember thinking to myself this looks like fun.
Both: Music is not our bread and butter actually. Charles and Hadi are just two average guys with regular jobs who are trying to make it in this world like everyone else. Music is our hobby, our passion, an escape from our daily routines that keeps us sane.
What do you like to do when you are not playing music and how does that influence your creativity?
Hobbies include food, cooking it, consuming it, and talking about it while eating it haha. Can’t get any more Lebanese than that. We love sports too: Charles cheers his beloved Juventus football club. Hadi has recently become obsessed with golf.
Where are you based and how did that influence your music?
We’re both from Lebanon but have been living in Dubai for a long time now. It’s a second home to us and we’re grateful it opened its doors for expats to come and make a life here. There’s no denying the city stimulates a sense of materialism with all its modern grandiosity and instagrammable spots. So we released “Too Much Trouble” back in January to warn people not to get too carried away with social media as there’s more to life than just aiming for the perfect shot. Everyone’s busy and hustling in Dubai, symptoms of an ever-growing city, so we wrote “Take Me to the Temples” to express the need to escape that rush and to remind ourselves that it's ok to take a well deserved break every once in a while.
If you could play any show with any lineup, who would be on the ticket?
The British holy trinity of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Radiohead. Charles would insist on playing in Madison Square Garden.
If you could go back in time and give yourselves advice, what would it be?
Buy Bitcoin haha
Of your songs which one means the most to you and why?
Charles: “Father” because it’s a tribute to my dad who passed away. Another favorite is “Eye of the Sun” because of how beautifully melodic and melancholic it is.
Hadi: “Run You Fools”, it’s my most introspective song and also because i sing on it. “The Act” is our most interesting song if you ask me. It’s on steroids and changes a thousand times in just under 5 minutes.
What kinds of messages do you like to get across in your music?
Musically, we believe melody is king and we don’t mind if it takes precedence over the vocals and lyrics sometimes. We prefer the analog sound over digital in general and the guitar is usually the driving force behind our songs.
Lyrically, we write about our life experiences and our beliefs. It could be an emotional state we’re going through or an actual event that is happening to us. Unfortunately, Charles’ dad passed away a few years back so we closed the album with “Father” in his memory. Hadi went through a bad breakup so he wrote “Tarantino”. Some songs carry more of a cynical message on how we view society, listen to “Bad Day”, “Veto Human” and “Too Much Trouble” for example and you’ll get what we mean.
What are your plans for the future, and do you have anything that you want to spotlight that is coming up?
We’ve already started working on the second album and we’ll let you know if we manage to book Radiohead to play with us haha