Politik: Roots, Creativity, and Music
Alex Gaskareth said, “Music is the soundtrack to every good and bad time we will ever have.” This is certainly true for Politik, a Southern California band composed of Eli Furar, Arend Hekma, Ben Dawson, and Lucas Durand. Their music merges feelings of adolescence with a classic rock feel and heavy-hitting beats. I met with Ben Dawson to discuss the band’s roots, maintaining creativity, and new music.
Who is Politik composed of?
“There are four of us. So, my name is Ben Dawson, and I play bass and I sing harmonies and backup vocals. Eli Furar is the lead singer and guitarist, Arend Hekma is the lead guitarist, and Lucas Durand is the drummer.”
How’d you all meet?
“We’re from a small beach town, so we actually all went to the same school since the age of, like, five. So we’ve known each other since basically the first school that we could attend, honestly. All the same grade, too.”
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Did everyone have a musical background before forming a band, or was it pretty spontaneous?
“Super spontaneous. We formed it like super randomly at like a school event, and then it kinda just evolved into something. We all played on our own but never really had a true feel of what a band was like, honestly.”
Was it hard when you guys first got together, hashing out roles?
“Kind of. It was definitely like a dynamic switch when there were four of us because everyone wants to have their own say but it definitely was a learning curve for sure.”
Where’d the band name come from?
“We were all super into history in high school so all were like let's use a historical name, and we all took the same AP European History class so we heard of realpolitik which means, like, realism, and I don't know how it formed into Politik but we didn't like the Real and we didn't like the Politik so we just went with Politik and kept the K. There's really no true background.”
Who are Politik’s main musical influences?”
“I mean, definitely in the last half year or so, Wunderhorse has been like a driving force for us, but um, Eli, who's our main writer, he’s super into a lot of like Brit-rock stuff like Oasis, Radiohead, and all that stuff. And then, I kind of have a heavier influence with grunge, just because that's what I've always grown up on. And then the other two are just… like Arend, our lead guitarist, is a jazz guitarist, so he listens to jazz, but he makes his way into rock. And then our drummer is just all Rush and Tool, as most drummers are.”
Would you say that's a pretty big influence on your music? Having all the diverse likes?
“Yeah. 100%, yeah. It helps with the writing, just so nothing gets too simple, nothing gets too bland, but I don't know. I feel like in music you have to have a diverse opinion or else it's just going to get bland.”
What is your favorite song from your discography?
“Our top song, ‘Waiting on Tomorrow’, the one that has the most traction, that was pretty… that means a lot to me, that one. But there’s some on the upcoming stuff that I really like.”
Do you know anything about the story behind your new single, “Override?”
“Yeah, it was actually written about the Lahaina fires in Hawaii. Not actually... I shouldn't say about, but that was kind of the drive behind it because Elis's family was in the fires and they were mainly affected by it. That song was definitely about kind of overcoming challenges like that because he saw it firsthand with his family.”
Is it difficult to balance college and a band?
“Yeah, 100%. Considering the fact that we’re all at different schools, it’s definitely a huge change just since in high school you can play any day you want, but in college, you have to plan it out.”
It is hard to prioritize college over a band and vice versa?
“I would say school always comes first, but it's definitely hard to balance the mindset of trying to continue it while still in college but we all want to, so it's kind of just a sacrifice you have to make. “
Would you say it’s hard to find people in college who play music as well?
“Yeah, um… I go to SDSU, and honestly, there are so many bands everywhere. They're not very serious, which is ok. I’ve talked to a few, they tend to just want to kind of have a little live experience, which is sick, I love that. I feel that it's a lot easier to do that than try and form a group that's genuinely trying to make it somewhere, just because college is a lot. It's a lot of time, a lot of effort, and I don't know. It's just hard to commit yourself to something like that. But, there's a couple bands in the college scene down here that are definitely pushing to make it. But the majority are just having fun.”
Are you guys pushing to make it?
“Yeah. We, I don't know, were pretty small, but we have pretty major connections, honestly, sand was just waiting for the right moment to kind of launch them. There's some pretty big stuff in the works. We’ll stay in the low ‘til the radar opens up for us, honestly.”
Do you have any hobbies or ways to do things outside of music that contribute to your musicality? Any other creative pursuits? How about the rest of the band?
“Yeah, I think, like Arn for example, he's into jazz, so he always holds little jazz nights in his dorm cause he has a kit in his room and everything, so 20 guys, girls, they'll just show up and play. So I think for him, that's his way of sticking around it. He also studies music, so he's always around it.”
“But, for guys like Eli and I, other than playing, we kind of just go to shows as often as possible. Like the Wunderhorse show in LA, and I'm down here, so it's just a big deal. Then Lucas is the same way, he goes to shows but he’s more, like he's a drummer so he can't really practice that much in a dorm so I don't know what he’s been up to but he sent us videos of shows so I'm sure he's still surrounded by it.”
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Do you have a favorite memory performing live? Anywhere in particular?
“Favorite memory… hm. I could say my favorite show, we were playing, you know, the Whisky in LA, yeah, we were playing that. It was our first time playing a club-style venue, and it was sold out and… I don't know, that place fits like... I think it's the same as the troubadour, like 550 or so. And that was like our first step into the real shows. And right before in the green room, uh, we were just like... I don't know what we were doing. We were playing acoustically, and Lucas was like drumming on a table, and that feeling right before we were going out was like crazy.”
Was it almost like a rude awakening?
“100%, yeah. ‘Cause we had never played to a crowd that size before that, and it was like it was eye-opening for sure. Cause you like, you're in the green room and you're all talking, you're having fun, and then you walk out and you see that many people and you're like, this is kind of scary, but, yeah, no, that was definitely fun. That was probably my favorite moment.”
Do you have stage jitters before the act?
“Uh, I don't. I don't think anyone in the group does, not that I know of. I know before that show, we were pretty scared. I mean, to play a sold-out club before never playing anything like that was pretty scary, but other than that, I don't think so, ever. We tend to have a very calm presence on stage. We have energy, but were able to be calm in times. Some bands go overboard, and that is why I think bands like Wunderhorse and all those bands are so successful, is that they know what they're doing on stage.”
What's your role in the songwriting process? Do you help with it?
“Personally, yeah. I try to help with it as much as possible, but Eli does all the writing. Not all, he still asks us for influence, but he typically comes with a full song structure, and then we just add on to it. He feels that he writes better when he's kind of on his own, which makes sense because writing with people can be difficult because you can think one thing and then some people have altering opinions and then, disregarding whoever’s right, it could end up making you not even decide one or the other. It's just a bummer. He definitely writes a lot on his own, and then he’ll ask me for help, but Arn and Lucas are more just on the musical side, which is great, and you need music, so it makes sense.”
Do you have your own creative process?
“My own… um… yeah, kind of. I typically write a lot of riffs, and then I'll just like hum over them, and then what I like to do is I like to look at an object and then find some sort of meaning in it. Like yesterday, I wrote a song, and I was like, staring at my door handle, and I was like door handle, door handle, humming it or whatever. And then I ended up making connections to other parts of my life, and somehow it's like opening doors to paths... I don't know. Stuff like that. But I like to make connections between inanimate objects. I don't know. That can't really get you very far with a lot of songs, but maybe one or two.”
A lot of people say the idea of perfectionism is kind of dangerous in making music because if you're always trying to make it perfect, you never get anywhere. Do you agree with that?
“100%, yeah. The only times we ever recorded in a studio are two-day sessions, four songs, and we kind of got it with the first recording we ever did. We spent too much time on the first one thinking that we had to and it kind of screwed us in the end because it cut off time for the other ones.”
“I mean, that's minimal compared to writing processes cause, even, Eli and I wrote a song that actually coming out in a few months and it was very shelled together and then we were like, oh, what if we tried this cause we don't really like it there, and it ended up just setting the song back maybe a month or so and then we ended up going right back to the shell so I feel like if you have a gut feeling about something go for it, but other than that, I mean, music is music. At the end of the day, some people aren't going to like it, so you don't have to be perfect with it.”
This is a little unrelated, but what do you think about AI in the music business? That's always interesting.
“As a music business major, AI is kind of going to screw a lot of people in the industry. Writing isn't exactly there. It can write lyrics, but it's not very, like, writing lyrics definitely comes from within, and AI doesn't have those feelings yet. But regarding the industry, AI is screwing it up. It's making too many jobs go virtual and… how do I say this… It's definitely making the process of making music and promoting music a lot harder because it is so much more accessible now. I think it's like 780,000 pieces of music a day or I don't know what it is.”
“Regardless, maybe 1% of those are good, well-produced songs, but it just gets put into the algorithm and it just screws people up. That's why in the 90s, and I mean 2000s even, and before, it was way more… if you were good, then you'd make it, rather than now, it's more like if you have access to the technology and the tools that can help you make it then you can make it, which is a bummer because a lot of good bands… we've played with a lot of good bands that I could see making it and they just don’t have any traction because they don't have any access to it.”
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Would you say, then, that majoring in music business is helpful in doing what you do?
“Um, eventually it will be. I'm not exactly in any music business/music industry classes yet, but I definitely think that will be a help, I hope, because there is not a lot of future in it if it doesn't help.”
Do you guys want to expand audiences? Two go to school down here, and then where are the other two?
“Um, Eli was in London last semester so that’s kind of why we couldn't play but he is going to community college for this next semester and then is going to transfer over to what’s looking like USC, so he’ll be, I mean, in the LA scene and we’re in the san diego scene. It's pretty similar. But, Lucas, our drummer, is in Boulder, so we're trying to score some following over there because there is like a huge music scene in Boulder, I guess, and to have a two-state following would be pretty big cause then you could kind of fund a little bit of a, not a tour, but you could expand which is... We haven't been able to do that yet. But that's what we’re hoping to do.”
Where would you ideally want to expand? Or, where is your dream state to expand to?
“Dream? Uh.. the dream for us is to play in England for sure. The music scene in England is just unmatched. The crowds are... Amazing. They actually care about the music. None of them are on their phones filming. That's a big deal for us. We like the idea of connection to music, so, I don't know, not even just England, in the UK, there’s just so much passion, whereas in LA, you kind of get these crowds, not LA specifically but I'm just going to use LA as an example, you get crowds that are trying to get into the scene but they care too much about how they're viewed I guess, like even at the Whisky show, we saw phones everywhere and, I don't know, one of my favorite bands is Tool. It's pretty heavy, but what they do at their shows is that is, they see you on your phone, they take it from you, which in colosseums it seems hard but there's never any phones, and that was probably the best show I've ever been to because it was just, everyone was connecting so, UK is definitely the goal. And then a world tour (laughs). But in the States, we just want to expand around, definitely around the West Coast. The South has no true meaning to us until we actually make it, you know? We're a rock band, so the West has all the rock. That's the goal”.
Any advice for those out there looking to get into the music business?
“Yeah, for sure. Um…you have to realize that it's not glamorous. There’s very little pros, there’s a lot of cons, but the reward is so amazing. I don’t know, my parents had me grow up on a lot of good music and I never had the true feel of what it was like to play live even, let alone just be in the industry, and when I actually found my true passion for it I never want to do anything else in my life, honestly. I always tell people I think you should always pick up an instrument, you should try to sing anything, just because there's no shame in… music is really difficult, and there’s no shame in trying to pick it up. And if you suck, you suck. Who cares. I've played in punk bands, and we really were not good, but it's just, like, so much fun. The energy is unmatched, honestly. I think everyone should get into it, but they definitely need to realize that it's not as glamorous as the celebrities would promote it as.”
What’s next for Politik?
“We have a show on the 7th of March and then… that is our first show since August when we played the US Open of Surf in Huntington but we’ve been waiting for so long to play that. We have our friend Joey helping on drums, like, we don't even have our drummer, but I don't really care. I just want to play.”
”But we have a song called ‘Stereo Traveller’. It's coming out in eight weeks… something like that. It's a very singer-songwriter, pretty sad song, but we just came out with ‘Override’, which is a very uplifting song, so we figured we’d drop it down. But yeah, we have three more singles we’re going to roll out in the next maybe six or seven months, and then it will all come into a four-song EP, and then we’re looking to record an album, maybe next summer or next winter hopefully, but that's a big deal. Just because it's a lot of time and effort, so, still figuring that out.
