If you go
Who: Hazakim
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
Where: Kol Mashiach Messianic Synagogue, 1621 Lake Washington Road, Melbourne
Cost: Free
Info: Call 321-684-9757 or www.lampmode.com.
Brevard County-based Hazakim (pronounced ha-zah-keem, Hebrew for “strong ones”) will perform Saturday at the Kol Mashiach Messianic Synagogue in support of their CD “Theophanies,” released Tuesday on Lamp Mode Recordings.
Hazakim consists of brothers Michael and Tony Wray. The band’s faith became the driving force behind the music’s maturation, and the band began to filter its Biblical worldview through music and lyrics. The brothers’ formative years were spent in the Messianic Jewish movement, a sect of Judaism that believes in Jesus as the son of God.
I spoke with Tony Wray about the band’s style, faith and the new CD. So let’s Shake, Rattle & Know: Hazakim.
SRK: Do you feel by having 100 percent faith-based music, secular music fans may not give you a fair chance to be heard?
Wray: That’s a good question. We know who our market is, and that’s what’s most important. We can’t please everyone. The reaction by the secular pop market has been positive because we are faith-based, but not preachy. We talk about day-to-day issues and theological issues of people searching for God. In music today, there seems to be a push to have something for everyone, and make music that everyone is going to get into. We know who our market is, and we push towards that. We aren’t trying to be something we’re not.
SRK: There will be people who will question hip-hop’s place in faith-based music. How are you able to funnel music through a Biblical worldview in such a nontraditional format?
Wray: All genres of music had a beginning. If you researched the history of the song “Amazing Grace,” you would find it was written to the theme of a famous bar tune of the day. Hip-hop has become known as this gangster thing, but it started as a very social and political forum. This style allows us to be unhindered and pack a lot of info into a single verse, without having to follow chorus-verse and all the constrictions of traditional music. It’s freeform and we view it as poetry. Jesus wrote in parables, and we believe our music is a lot like a parable.
SRK: You began working on the album “Theophanies” in 2003, but it was only ready for release and gained traction this week. Why do you feel the project went largely unnoticed until now?
Wray: I would say more unfinished than unnoticed. We had a lot of personal issues and we got married, had children, and put the music on the back burner. It wasn’t until we got the record label (Lamp Mode Records) did we feel the need to push forward. It inspired us to complete what we had started.
SRK: Being brothers and band mates, do you ever have issues of sibling rivalry when deciding on what direction to go in musically?
Wray: Oh yeah! Mike is more of a purist. We both are, but more so him than me. We are into bands like Miles Davis, Coltrane and some of the classics, and we appreciate music in its purist form. I’m more experimental and open to some commercial sides of music, so we butt heads on the production side. Content-wise, we are usually on the same page.
If you have an artist/band you’d like to recommend for review, contact Nunez at www.myspace.com/shakerattleandknow.
