With massive summer hit ‘La’, Old Man River has been taking over radios from Italy to Australia. Frontman Ohad Rein on how he came to be living the dream…
‘Every mythology starts with a dream. The dream came when I was a kid. I was 12 or 13, and my older brother played electric guitar. Being the younger brother, I always looked up to him and I wanted to play guitar as well. He was like ‘you can’t touch my stuff. And don’t get into my room.’ So, I’d sneak into his room for 5 minutes with the guitar and then I’d put it back and pray I didn’t get caught, but I did get caught a few times and it was pretty painful. My parents decided “Alright, for the sake of peace in this house, we will get you your own guitar.†When I got my own guitar, I just didn’t leave it. I took it with me everywhere. Somehow then the dream was formed – I wanted to make music.
‘In later times, the dream actually took shape in the form of action. I left Israel after finishing the army service and went to live in New York City – the dream was to be there and just make music. But when I got there I wasn’t making music, I was working in a really shitty job – telemarketing. Somehow, symbolically, I was there during September 11th… and I started thinking, ‘My god, if I die tomorrow…’ it brought an awareness that life is really fragile. I was, like, clap, clap, what are you doing here working in telemarketing? You are supposed to be making music. I didn’t know where to start, so I just went to the subway tunnel and started busking. It seems like a small thing to do, but for me it was massive – huge – to actually break away from the people going this way and that way and pick up my guitar and sing in the middle of the subway. It really built my confidence because I was performing to thousands of people, even though they were only there for a few seconds. That was the first baby step, and everything up to this moment, has been part of that journey.’
