A hot new boy band is in town: as1one, comprised of six men in their early 20s, belting out pop ballads and playing instruments. They’re also considered the world’s first Israeli and Palestinian boy band. They’re Jewish, Muslim, and Christian.
Their message of unity was tested before they even released their first song. The group flew to Los Angeles to start recording their debut album last year on October 6, then the next day, Hamas attacked Israel. The war that followed has claimed tens of thousands of Palestinian lives.
KCRW hears from Aseel Farah, a Palestinian Christian from Haifa and the band’s rapper and percussionist; plus Nadav Philips, a Jewish Israeli from Tel Aviv who plays the keyboard.
The six members met in Israel in 2022. They each heard about auditions for a group that was going to move to LA and record their first album, explains Philips. After auditioning, they met at a week-long boot camp.
“They closed the village, and they made it like ‘how to build a star’ kind of thing. So we were singing in the studio and dancing, and it was amazing. And this is where we met, it's all gonna be on our new Paramount+ show on December 3,” says Philips.
He points out that the members were a band for a year before moving to the U.S. on October 6, 2023.
When they discovered that Hamas attacked Israel the next day, they were hurt and shocked, recalls Farah.
“Since we come from different backgrounds, each of us had in their hearts something that's different. Some of the guys know people … who lost their lives in this attack. And for me … who doesn't have anyone who lost their life in the attack itself, it's just seeing what's gonna happen after was just the scariest thing for me,” says Farah.
He adds, “I have friends in the West Bank who's also going through some stuff there. But in Gaza, I don't have family or friends. But still seeing all of these things, you don't need family or friends to have empathy.”
Philips knew people who died at the Nova Music Festival, one of the targets of the Hamas attack. Others he knew were able to flee the event.
“It's a tragedy that no one could really accept, like, expect it's happening. It was hitting hard. It was our first day, and we were so excited and so happy to be here. … We waited more than a year for this moment to come here. And then [the attack] happened. … It changed the way we think. It changed our music. … We can't just ignore the situation,” Philips says. “Sometimes we were going to the studio meaning to create an uplifting song, but our spirits were down, so we would just have to write about it. And this is how it went like the past year. And honestly, it created some amazing art and amazing music that is about to come very, very soon.”
Farah points out, “This is partially represented in our new song ‘Stranger.’ And this song specifically has a lot of meanings on how we were feeling throughout these times, and how we were afraid to go back home and see how it's changed and how the world has changed. And that's why we call it ‘Stranger.’”
That song has double meanings, Philips says. It sounds like a love song, but it’s actually about missing home and family.
“We had such good faith that the future is going to look different. And now it's sad to see everything's happening in the world in general, not even just Israel-Palestine, it's just craziness all over,” Philips says.
One of their songs, “All Eyes On Us,” is about brotherhood around the world, though it can be interpreted in different ways, says Farah.
For Philips, he never met Palestinians before joining as1one. “Before that, I had my my feelings about the situation, and I was not as open to it as I am now. And the progress I went through is just because I met them, and we're the same people. … We love the same food, we love the same things.”
Farah adds that they were lucky to have each other in Israel. “We were lucky to see that … even though these things are happening, we still have empathy towards each other, and this just brings us all together. And when we have empathy, we are ready to talk. And partially, music was one of the biggest objects in front of us that we could use in order to share our emotions toward each other and towards what's happening in the world.”
Farah does acknowledge that the bandmates had arguments a lot when they first formed. “[The fights] would very much be from the smallest things, like Neta [Rozenblat] snoring in my room, and then to what's happening in the war, and what we feel about what's happening in the war, and how we were just not having the same thoughts.”
Philips adds, “In the beginning, we tried to convince each other to change our minds about the situation and everything. And it just was never working well. And now we just accept that we agree sometimes to disagree.”
However, at this point, Farah says he’s become a lot more open-minded: “When you experience firsthand the emotions that the other side — or not even the other side, just other humans — go through, you start to want to understand it and to listen to it. … When we live together, we have to understand each other. … And for me, I became more open to listen and to not only have my answer ready before anything. Just to listen. And this is something that we need to do sometimes. There's a saying that I saw written on the wall on the way here that said, ‘In order to learn, you have to die just a little.’ Just forget who you are for a minute, so you can listen and to learn and to understand new things, and this is what I do.”
Philips says the members are like brothers now. “And when you have a family member that’s talking about the suffering of his people, you just want to see what it's all about.”