More than music, a debut album speaks of parental support
- 11 Degrees of Love with zero degrees of separation
by Paul Chaderjian
A few years before the start of the devastating Civil War in Lebanon - when the Paris of Middle East, the jewel of a city, Beirut, was the capital of the Armenian Diaspora - two young college students named Seta Harboyan and Hratch Simonian, barely 20, began a legacy – perhaps unknowingly. Their legacy will be celebrated this weekend, once again, with the release of their daughter's debut record album, 11 Degrees of Love.
> Back story
From 1972 to 1976, Seta and Hratch hosted and produced the daily Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society radio program called "Haygagan Radiojam." With the then-modern and now-ancient reel-to-reel recorders, the couple - not yet a couple then - would wheel their dinosaur recording machine to Armenian elementary schools, record choirs, conduct interviews and rebroadcast them on Lebanese national radio.
One afternoon, I stared at these celebrities with amazement, as they came to record my elementary school's choir. The school was called Mardikian. The choir director was Sarkis Panossian. And we were called the Jeboor (cicada) Choir. Seta and Hratch were hip adults, beautiful, young, suave and smooth, and they were on the radio. We were seven or eight, nervous, impressionable and in awe. We were about to be on the radio!
Tapes were spliced with razors back then, erroneous takes edited out and three-quarter-inch magnetic mylar tape was reattached, sometimes with Scotch tape, sometimes with adhesive paper tape. That's how radio was done back then, when radio was king and when TV was on only in the evenings and at night. Seta and Hratch were the stars, the voices of a vibrant, healthy and dynamic community.
Each weeknight, Seta's and Hratch's solid, articulate, confident, intelligent and cultured voices would sound from large antennas to be amplified by large and small speakers from Bourj Hamoud to Antelias. They announced classical music, engaged in cultural dialogue, conducted interviews, created children's programming and played pop music. Seta hosted the children's programs, pop music shows and sometimes the literary and cultural programs. Hratch was in charge of the interviews and produced the other programs with Seta.
Then a war broke out.
The Lebanese Civil War. Christian Phalangists. Islam Druz. PLO and American military. There were snipers. East and West Beirut. There was chaos, candlelight and fear. Bombs fell. Jets flew across the sky. Burning tires clouded what was one paradise.
A nation was destroyed. Business and homes were burnt; so were entire neighborhoods. Thousands were killed. Highrises and midrises crumpled. The great naval gateway from the West to the East was history. The playground of the world's elite, the Arabs, the Euro-riche, the meeting plays of Eastern and Western thought was destroyed.
Lives were changed forever, and the grandsons and granddaughters of the Genocide had to flee again – one trauma after another, once deported, now deportees.
The Radiojam and a community were silenced.
> Flash forward 30 years
One late Sunday night last fall, in a fourth floor apartment on Baghramian 1 in Yerevan, the Trinity Broadcasting Network on satellite TV is keeping me and my laptop company.
Superstar preacher Joel Osteen is asking the congregation of his mega-church in Houston and millions around the world, what kind of a legacy they are leaving behind. "What choices are you making for future generations of your family?" asks the preacher. "Are you leaving a legacy of greed, hope, kindness, love and integrity? Or are you building a positive inheritance?"
I type his questions, a note to self, something to ask myself in the future. What kind of legacies are we leaving future generations? What are we placing higher value on? Benzes? High Fashion? Loyalty? Truth? Love for the arts? Cultural heritage?
> Months later
In a Glendale hotel room, I read a "Life in the Armenian Diaspora" weblog entry on cilicia.com about a band called Aviatic and how their song had been used for a Lifetime Channel movie. I go to iTunes and listen to the song, read the band's biography and media clippings and remember Seta and Hratch.
Armenians are like the Internet, unexplainably interconnected.
The man singing through the Internet is Sebu Simonian, Hratch and Seta's son. He is the lead singer of Aviatic, a band that has already made a big splash, created "an echo" (artzakang) - as they say in Armenia.
For a few dollars, I download "Arrival," Aviatic's debut album and hear Sebu singing a song he composed, arranged and recorded - a song that had begun as a talk to the Mountain, Mt. Ararat. The song may have cost 99 cents, but to a bantoukht Armenian, a migrant worker, who has also stared at the Mountain, the emotions validated in that song, through Sebu's voice, were priceless.
Sebu had looked at the majesty of the giant rock on his first visit to Armenia and had been moved to write, "Stop staring / stop caring / It'll burn your eyes / It'll make you blind... Yes, I can see you / but I can't even try to hold you..."
In room 1423 in Glendale, in November of 2006, I made the connection. I knew what Joel had been asking. I knew how Hratch and Seta had passed a legacy on to their son.
This legacy was to be validated in my eyes, yet again, when an e-mail passed through cyberspace last week, inviting Aviatic fans to celebrate the release of the Simonian's daughter's new album:
From: Karin Simonian
To: arts@reporter.am
Sent: Friday, May 4, 2007 10:12:13 AM
Subject: My album's coming out!
Hi everyone!
I wanted to share some exciting news. My brother Sebu and I have been working on my debut album over the last year, and it's finally done! It's called 11 Degrees Of Love. We've set a release date for May 15...
Warmly,
-Karin Simonian
> The Interview
I meet the Simonian siblings at Sebu's Stereotrain recording, rehearsal and production studios in Burbank. He has half-a-dozen studios under one roof and rents them hourly or weekly to other musicians and recording artists. This is also where he records music for his own band Aviatic, and where he recorded his sister's 11 Degrees of Love.
"My parents always encouraged me," says 28-year-old Sebu. "I've always played music. I’ve always loved the piano and singing. I also love technology and music technology and how the music industry works."
While in high school, Sebu decided that he wanted to write and perform songs. He bought a small recorder and began recording his compositions with a number of musicians and bands. He even recorded demo's or audition tapes for other bands. His career in music had already begun.
"The bands did really well," says Sebu. "Whatever project I was involved in would get some level of success, and that motivated me and encouraged me to keep going."
Aviatic's debut album has also received much praise and a number of awards. The band also won two battle-of-the-bands competitions, beating some 80 bands to land the coveted top spot.
Some of the other benchmarks for success in the information age are ones Aviatic has also scored like landing on the top ten of Yahoo Music's adult alternative chart, receiving thousands of plays per week on personalized Internet radio stations around the world, being featured on television movies, purchases from iTunes, sales through stores and via cdrama.com and the sea of fans who turn up at their Southern California gigs.
"We have a loyal following," say Sebu, whose band averages one performance every 45 days. Each appearance is usually made up of a set of nine songs. Over the past year, Aviatic has performed 20 shows at local clubs like the House of Blues, the Henry Fonda Theater, the Roxie, the Knitting Factory, the Whiskey, the Troubadour and the Viper Room.
"Aviatic is modern alternative rock band," says Sebu. "We are very melodic and have a lot of harmonies. We can also get very energetic and very heavy, but at the same time stay melodic and emotional and mellow it up a little bit."
In addition to Sebu, the lyrics are co-written by the band's drummer and co-producer Barrett Yeretsian, and sometimes all four band-members work together to create new songs.
"Barrett is a recording engineer and producer fulltime," says Sebu. "My base player, Clint Feddersen, is a fulltime lawyer by day and rock artist by night. He’s got a cool double life. I sometimes call him Clark Kent. He looks like Clark Kent too."
The band's guitarist is Ryan Welker. Sebu says Ryan lives the life of a rock star, bartending at nights and playing music during the day. Sebu says members of Aviatic have known each other for quite a while. They have worked together in music in some capacity for nearly seven years, but they have been together as a band only for the past two years.
"Aviatic pertains to flight and traveling," says Sebu. "So, those are the kinds of feelings I’d like to deliver with my music. Spiritual, artistic, flight, movement, passion, revolution. When I think of our logo, which was designed by my sister by the way, there is a bird and a runway. It ties together a lot of things, nature and technology, flight and landing. There is a balance. That’s what life is all about. It’s kind of a Yin-Yang idea."
The themes that Sebu says he is drawn to are communication, human interaction and love. "I think half the time, or maybe more than half the time," he says, "the songs are directly related to a specific incident or a specific person. The rest of the time, I put myself in other people’s shoes. I use my imagination and try to become an actor and write a fictitious script."
One of his songs, Stop Staring, was written in the summer of 2002, when Sebu had traveled to Armenia with his family. "I was looking at Mt. Ararat and thinking how disconnected I am from it, even though it’s right in front of my face. That was the initial theme of loss. That inspired me to write the song, but it eventually transformed and became broader. Most people when they hear the song, they interpret it as the loss of a human being, either by death or a breakup."
Sebu says he wants to return to Armenia this summer or next. He hopes to perform with his band at the Pan-Armenian games that are scheduled for August. He says he hopes to tap into the global Armenian community that will be in Yerevan in August.
In addition to upcoming gigs, Sebu is working on a solo Electronica album with music he has composed and arranged. He is also collaborating with a band called the Traveling Saints and busy with the launch and promotion of his sister's album.
"I've put out a lot of music with my previous bands," says Sebu, referring to bands like Io and the Unknown Project. "But, of course, they’ve been very independent and very grassroots. With my sister’s album, we are hoping to make it a much bigger thing and go nationwide and get distribution."
> Enter Karin, enter singing
The eleven songs on 11 Degrees of Love have been in the making for the past year-and-a-half. The Simonian siblings have been carefully planning the release of Karin's debut, which takes places in a few days.
"I always wanted to record an entire album," says 25-year-old Karin. "It was a matter of timing and finding the right opportunity to record. And obviously, I needed Sebu’s time, talent and recording skills."
Karin recorded a few songs while in high school. Then she was off to college to study Interior Design at her brother's alma matter and launch her career in the field. Sebu says, while she was busy as a residential interior designer, he established his Stereotrain recording studios and focused on Aviatic. Both kept Karin's solo album on the backburner.
Karin's first singing experiences were in elementary school and then performing back-up vocals for her brother's bands. She was also in the choir of their high school musical, Pirates of Penzance. The first original song she recorded was at the age of 16. That song, she says, was about "puppy love."
While in college and pursuing her career, Karin says she always dabbled in music, writing lyrics here and there, making notes, singing. "A few years ago," she says, "the timing was right, and my maturity had reached a level where I was able to commit to the work it takes to make an entire album."
Karin says music has been in her life from day one. "There are pictures of us at the piano as babies," she says. "I started taking piano lessons when I was four or five. Sebu picked up guitar in high school, played the violin, now plays keyboard and a little bit of drums and base."
11 Degrees of Love touches upon different aspects of love, says Karin. "It’s about love and heartbreak and all the different situations you can find yourself in."
"Most of the inspiration for the songs and lyrics came from her," says Sebu. "I would help her bring the song to its completed form, by throwing back and forth some ideas, changing lyrics and music and making adjustments. It’s been a real collaborate effort."
"He has a lot of experience," says Karin, "and he has a very natural ability to just come up with things that are very touching and moving musically for me, and obviously, for a lot of people who have reacted to his music over the years."
Karin says she is lucky to have someone like her older brother to collaborate with, someone to help her realize her dream. "It’s really fun to work with each other," she says, "because we have very similar tastes and a lot of the same influences as far as who we listen to and who we look up to."
The siblings say it's also easy to work with one-another, because there is trust between them. "The cool thing about working with Karin is that she’s my sister, and I can blurt out whatever opinion I have about her ideas, and vice versa," says Sebu. "If we don’t like something, we can just say, 'what are you thinking, we’re not going to do that.' God knows she’s said that many times before to me. And that actually really helps song become better."
With 11 Degrees of Love ready for release, Sebu says the real hard work is about to begin. "I’m excited," says Karin, "and i’m ready for it."
From broadcasting to recording stars, the Simonian Legacy continues...
connect:
www.aviatic.us
myspace.com/aviatic
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"Armenian music has a lot of influence on my work. It is something that has affected us and comes across even when we are singing and writing in English. I also think that the Armenian community is a support system. It is supportive of artists, and it's a good place to start. But, it’s definitely not where you want to stop either."
- Sebu Simonian
"Mom and dad have been liberal and progressive, compared to other families. I couldn’t be more grateful. Their support has just been irrational. I can’t believe how supportive they’ve been of everything I wanted to do, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them. So, I really appreciate their belief in my aspirations and my dreams."
- Sebu Simonian
