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

