38 | OCTOBER 10 • 2024 J
N
G
iven the circumstances since
Oct. 7, these are understand-
ably challenging times to be a
pop band in Israel.
But the Tel Aviv trio RGB is simply
putting its head down and hoping for
the best as it releases its second album,
A Place For Lovers, this month.
“The uncertainty here in this coun-
try is really ridiculously impossible,
”
Roy Bartal says via Zoom with [part-
ner/girlfriend] Noi Agam and Alon
Kenett, who joined the group about
three years ago. By his side, Dumbo,
one of Bartal and Agam’s two cats,
wanders in and out of the proceedings.
“It implicates every aspect of the
band,
” Bartal continues. “You really
need to take it day by day, ’
cause you
don’t know what will happen the next
day. You want to release a song or post
something on Instagram, you never
know what’s going to happen on that
day. So, it’s always sadness mixed with
happiness for me. I think we are trying
to stick with our goal and just being
aware of the situation and be sensitive
and try to do our best.
”
What Bartal and his bandmates are
certain about, however, is that A Place
For Lovers is the best work they’ve
done to date, a 12-song set that, while
written before the current troubled
times, does speak to the existential
angst that anyone is going through
while living through them.
“This whole album was about going
through really hard times and sticking
to light and finding that bit of hope
and just holding onto it,
” explains
Agam, 27. “The music is our light, so
that’s what we’re trying to stick to.
”
Noting its title, Bartal, 28, adds that,
“What we really wanted to achieve is to
create some sort of actual place for lov-
ers … a ride of being able to just feel
emotions, connected to love, talk about
love — the upsides of it, the downsides
of it, without the other things in life
that always are in your mind. It’s a
place for everyone to just talk about …
love.
”
Love is, in fact, what led to RGB’s
formation.
THE BAND’S BEGINNING
Bartal and Agam met in Mexico,
where both were traveling after com-
pleting their military service in Israel.
Shortly after coming home, they began
making music together, filling out RGB
(it stands for the primary colors Red,
Green, Blue) with a succession of other
musicians.
The group dropped its debut EP
, In
Sight, during 2020, with RGB’s first
full-length album, The Art of Passing
Time, out the following year. Kenett,
a friend of Agam’s from high school,
joined for the latter. “We were think-
ing of growing, and I just remem-
bered him and his smile,
” says Agam,
to which Kenett, 26, gives a hearty
thumbs up.
The RBG members’ influences
are “all diverse,
” according to Bartal,
whose tastes range from My Chemical
Romance and Avril Lavigne to rhythm
& blues, stage musicals and Disney
soundtracks. Kennett cites a variety of
electronic music sources, while Agam
favors singers such as the late Amy
Winehouse and Lily Allen as well as
the Black Eyed Peas.
“There are so many great artists,
” she
says. “We come from different places,
ARTS&LIFE
MUSIC
Tel Aviv Trio RGB releases second album, A Place For Lovers.
‘Music
Is our
Light’
GARY GRAFF CONTRIBUTING WRITER
TAMARA LAVI
RGB