Catching up with Infected Mushroom

Erez Eisen of Infected Mushroom plays a synthesizer during their show at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colo. Sept. 6, 2009. (CU Independent file/Adam Milner)

A lot has changed since Israeli trance band Infected Mushroom last graced Boulder with their presence. Both main band members, Amit Duvdevani and Erez Eisen, have families at home and have been on tour almost all year.

As a result, their fame has increased exponentially.

Their Thursday night concert at the Fox was a testimony to this success, packed full of sweaty moshers and screaming fans.

Infected’s lead singer, Duvdevani (also known as Duvdev), discussed life on tour, the definition of success, opening band selection and stage presence.

CU Independent: Do you intentionally book opening bands that are sort of mediocre to make your show sound better?

Duvdev: Actually no. No, opening bands is not our thing. We don’t care who it is, usually. If it’s Randy Seidman, which is you know one of our crew, so we like being with him and he’s a good DJ. I’m doing Christopher Lawrence tomorrow, which is a pretty big DJ, so I’m not in charge of the line-ups. So when we do an Infected Mushroom show I don’t care who opens for us; it can be whoever you want, you know? So, no.

CU|I: So can you describe a typical day on the road?

Duvdev: Well basically it starts pretty f***ed up in the morning; we’re really, really bad cause the day before we probably drank or whatever. [We have] four shows a week, so I try to pace myself. So, uh, wake up in the morning, have a coffee, go to the bus or whatever, go to the airport, catch the flight, come down from the plane. [Then we] usually come to the venue to do the sound check, a few interviews, then maybe dinner or sleep again. Then come to the show, do the party, drink, whatever. Some go to after-party, I usually don’t, then wake up to the plane the day after. So this is the tour.

CU|I: Any crazy fan stories?

Duvdev: Well usually the crazy stories are about the fans that take Infected Mushroom really serious, and these are the true kind of all-body Infected Mushroom kind of style. And we have a few of them on the road, but I know them already. Each year they show me another tattoo or whatever. Crazy fans, girl fans; this is all good and fun but I try to avoid that, you know? I have a married life today so it’s a different story.

CU|I: Recently you guys have gotten increasingly well-known, pretty rapidly…

Duvdev: Maybe you see it as pretty fast, but for us it is a long process. Me and Erez have been doing it for 12 years. It’s not something that started yesterday, you know? And if you check out the Infected Mushroom tour schedule, it’s crazy. So it’s bringing the word to everybody and especially with no radio mainstream presence it’s really hard to become a big band. We have the crowds, we have the people, we just don’t have the mainstream radio hits. It’s a completely different approach so it’s not been easy but it’s cool—it’s our way.

CU|I: So, along those lines, let’s talk about music videos.

Duvdev: Yeah, music videos. I like them, most of our videos turn out pretty cool, not exactly as I want it but it never does. Our last video was pretty cool because I had Jonathan Davis from Korn there, you know Paul Oakenfold was in the Roxy in L.A., shot for Smashing the Opponent, with all the people [that] were our fans there, so, it was pretty cool. And, yeah, more videos for this album—“Killing Time”—more videos coming soon.

CU|I: Are they profitable?

Duvdev: Profitable? They are not. Shitloads of money that doesn’t return, but you gotta do it.

CU|I: Do you enjoy it, though?

Duvdev: Uh, well the last video I enjoyed it because the director, Petro [Papadopoulo], which is a really cool director from L.A. I became friends with him and he’s a cool guy, you know? And he went and did a documentary with us in Burning Man this year, which will come out next year. Uh, great but, and it went really fluently—not like a director taking it long and stuff, so it was cool.

CU|I: What success do you expect or hope to have in the future?

Duvdev: Infected Mushroom is growing every year, you know, and getting many more chances than before, headlining most of the big festivals this year in the States, the Coachella, the Lollapalooza, you know. I’ve been given the chances for mainstream at the moment so let’s see how I prove myself over there, because it’s a different ball game over there. So because I come from the underground scene I know the underground scene really well. When you go mainstream, like, say I will succeed, a lot of my fans will say I will sellout.

CU|I: Can you elaborate a little on being a sellout? Which mainstream artists do you respect, which do you consider to be sellouts?

Duvdev: I don’t consider nobody as a sellout because let me tell you something. Let’s take for example, a pop artist. Let’s say Justin Timberlake. I don’t consider him as a sellout; he loves what he does. He is a pop artist and he’s a really cool funny guy. And he’s the most possible mainstream ever, but I still respect what he does, because that’s what he is. He was never portraying to be something else, you know? I don’t consider nobody as a sellout—music is music. There’s so many people that like this and that and that, so, everybody does what he thinks is best. I consider myself, when I judge myself, I judge my music, you know? And sometimes when I do a track I will think, “This is a bit too much,” you know?

CU|I: So do you think within a certain realm your music will continue in the same direction?

Duvdev: I dunno because you know what, you ask my fans from the old days from 10 years ago; they’re gonna go like, “Infected Mushroom, are you crazy they sold out completely,” for them. That’s all cool and fine. They’re all 35 to 40, with kids at home and they don’t go to parties. I play for the young generation. This is for me what I think about; I care about young people dancing.

CU|I: So any advice for the young generation on life, school or becoming a musician?

Duvdev: Let me tell you my story. In Israel we go to the army before college, so when I was in college I was 21, learning whatever like industrial management bullshit or whatever. So I had a decision, I was a musician and I had Infected Mushroom but kind of in an amateur way. So I had a decision either to pursue that or to pursue my college thing. I started pursing Infected Mushroom a lot, and after two years in college, I became really famous and I started flying all over the world. So the dean of the school said, ‘What the [expletive] is that? You cannot be at school,’ so I left. I am not saying you should do that, but I believed in what I was doing and I went with it. For some people it can go badly but if you really believe in your music and you want to be a musician you have to give it 100 percent of your time; that’s what I did. But if you want to do music for a hobby, today that’s the easiest thing. You can buy a home studio for nothing.

CU|I: Finally, I’m curious about your stage presence. I’ve just noticed it’s almost as though you are conducting the audience; they are really responsive to you and you are really responsive to them. How did that develop?

Duvdev: Really slowly, you know because when we started to do the shows, me and Erez, we had kind of like a Chemical Brothers set up: two guys set up behind massive machinery tweaking stuff and nobody knew what the [expletive] we were doing. Kind of like Daft Punk, you know? They’ve made their show visually so outgoing that you don’t care what they’re doing within the pyramid, it’s just a cool pyramid, you know, it’s great. Me and Erez got fed up from that, so, slowly I added a mic behind the keyboards, and then, when I came to the States my first manager at the time said, ‘I don’t understand this table that you are standing behind.’ Then I started a little bit communicating with the crowd so it’s been a process for me to feel really comfortable on the stage. Today, I go on, I party, I do whatever, you know, and keep the crowd going. That’s my role in the band. It gives me a lot of rush.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Ana McIntosh at [email protected].