The Public, one of the best bands ever in Cairo. They have participated twice in Andromida’s Rock Festival at El Sawy Culturewheel, and in both times they got rewarded for their music, let’s get closer to them and know them more…
The Public” what’s the story behind this name and the interesting logo?
During our first year, all of us were suggesting names and Yass came up with many names and one of them was “The Public Couch” then it turned into “The Public” and we all were in favor of the name. It’s light and easy to remember.
About the logo, Our first logo (The cup logo) Karim just walked in the studio with it one day showed it to us. It got the man, the woman and the cup, they all referred to “The Public” in one way or another.
The new one is made by our friend Tamer. He didn’t like much the old logo (and it was getting kinda old) so he designed and showed us a new one (the current logo) and we liked it a lot.
“The Public” fans are very disappointed because you haven’t performed that much except in El Sawy Rock Festival, can you tell us the reason behind that?
With two dentists in the band, a Pharmacist and a computer scientist doing masters you don’t really get much time. Still we sincerely apologize to our fans for the distant time between our performances.
We admit that we aren’t really the most active band around but we prefer to put a little more effort to polish our tracks and to come up with new ideas. I guess our fans would like to see less of us with high performance rather than more of us but doing not so good.
How did you feel when you won the best original in the 1st rock festival?
Well, it feels pretty good. You see, the “Best original prize” is more gratifying than anything else. It is good to be appreciated for the music you create.
The original prize was a boost that gave us confidence in what we can do, we feel happy that there are people out there who likes -and ready to listen to- the music we compose.
Can you tell us about your reaction when you knew that you won the 3rd place? Because everyone thought that The Public would win a much better place?
Well it’s the jury’s call and they have their criteria, but after all they’re just like us, “a band” but with a different point of view. They can rate our performance with a certain rating but maybe if I was one of the jury and they were performing I’d give them a higher or lower rating. We’re really good friends with them and we agree on lots of things and argue about other stuff but after all we share the same passion for music. But since we agreed to participate in the festival then we should go by its rules and respect the jury’s opinion.
Frankly, we put more consideration into what the audience thinks. They are the ones for whom we play our music to and they are the ones who will eventually decide if we are good or no good for them.
Still we welcome and would like to listen to criticism from everyone including other bands and judges. Basically everyone.
We were really glad that everyone after the concert was telling us that we deserve much better than this rating and they were very pleased with our concerts. This means so much to us
Tell us about your worst and best situations in both rock festivals volume I and II.
Best situation: While we were being awarded the best original prize, they played part of the original song (Phase_1) and we felt that it sounded really good on stage. I mean we are always playing the song but we never had the chance to be the audience of the song.
Worst: When the stage cameraman unwarily unplugged Karim’s keyboards and suddenly Karim’s keyboard wasn’t there. Another one is when the stage monitors (which we hear ourselves through them) were wrecked in the River Hall and were just playing big buzzing sound and we couldn’t hear anything on stage.
The comment that people always say about your performance is the unique output of the band. What’s your secret? Is it your instruments or your experience or both?
Its a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of other stuff. There are two other reasons that we believe they has great impact as well; the first one is that we have been playing for a long time together so we managed to create a blend between our instruments. Such a blend would make you feel you’re listening to songs as a whole band together rather than listening to it as separate instruments, so you feel the soul of the song together.
The other reason is that we are close friends outside the band. This means that inside the band we can tell each other whatever we want and there isn’t any embarrassment or whatsoever, we can tell each other freely when someone spots the other doing something wrong or something that doesn’t sound nice. Believe me, that’s one of the biggest problems that bands have.
Also, we’re always trying to make the most out of playing different instruments, as in “Phase_1” you can see Karim playing two instruments at the same time and using almost every hand/foot/finger he has; to make it a rich-sounding track. Hatem and Yass always try to get different guitar/bass sound effects to take the tracks out of the ordinary style people are used to.
We know that The Public have got some originals, why we haven’t heard about any album yet?
Again, it’s a matter of time. We have lots and lots of materials that require putting together and finalization. The band’s main goal in the next phase is the album. So I guess there will be no more covers!
Are you making a tour this summer like many bands are doing?
There are plans for here and there but nothing confirmed yet. The main focus is on the album, still as mentioned earlier there’s one or two events that are being planned for, you can catch all of our updates on our facebook fan-page.
How do you see the future of “The Public”?
A band with several albums. A band that listeners would recognize by their unique and pleasant sounds and by their constantly new ideas.
At least that’s what we wish for. Our current and biggest fear is that any of the band members travel abroad for a long time leaving the band idle and maybe leading to their disband.
A word to your fans
You keep us going on, Thank You!
Interviewed by: NJ Bakr and Yasser Mohamed
