We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erez Barnea. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erez below.

Alright, Erez thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Music is in my blood. My grandfather from my moms side was an Opera singer and my father used to write poems. When I was about 6 years old, cable tv just became a thing in Israel (I moved to LA 6 years ago but all my life I’ve lived in Israel), and I vividly remember flipping through the channels, landing on MTV right when the music video of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana started playing, and I told myself “that’s what I want to do”.
It wasn’t until after my military service that I’ve decided to REALLY pursue that dream. Writing became therapeutic to me as a way to deal with the trauma I’ve experienced in combat. I had a decent voice and knew how to play a few chords, so I said f*ck it, why not? We only live once.

Erez, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As I mentioned I grew up in Israel and I got very lucky there. I moved to a different city and on the same week I met one of my idols, Shahar Even Tzur, a super talented singer songwriter and drummer of one of the biggest rock bands in Israel Monica Sex. We became close friends and he produced and co wrote with me my very first album. Just a few month after I’ve released that album I moved to Los Angeles to follow my dreams.
It took a few bands till I finally founded my current band Utero, a punk rock band with hints of 90s rock.
Band members are: Mark Cross (of “Those Animals) on lead guitar, Conrado Gesualdi on bass, Tib Van Dyke on drums, and yours truly on vocals and rhythm guitar.
For the past year I’ve also been hosting a weekly open mic night at Naughty Pine Brewery in Westlake Village, a place that became my second home and where I was able to build an amazing artistic community that keeps growing all the time. All that thanks to the amazing owner Brittany Brouhard that really became like a sister to me.
One of my biggest achievements happened quite recently .
We just played the second annual EmoFest at Naughty Pine, which is one of the biggest local festivals of the summer and in front of the biggest crowd we ever played for, we had our best set to date! It was also because we featured our dear friend Oriana Cognata, one of the most amazing musicians I ever got to work with (y’all should definitely interview her!!!).
I’m still riding the hype from that event!
I think what mostly sets me apart from other musicians is my energy on stage that is wild and free and also the fact that I’ve got immigrant mentality . I came here to make it work and I’m super stubborn so I’m gonna make it work!
I also want to mention that growing up listening to the Seattle bands, it was always a goal for me to create a music scene and I feel like the community we’ve been building gets me one step closer to that dream.
So this is a call to anyone who wants to hop on the bus! It’s gonna be an amazing ride!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I think there’s nothing more powerful as a performer than singing a song to a room full of people and hear them sing the lyrics that you wrote back to you. And every single person in that room sings it from their own perspective and their own journey. And for a moment, you forget about all your problems and share this magic with your friends and with complete strangers.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Well first of all I’m a father so my success helps me provide to my child. I also think that as a veteran and as an Israeli immigrant I feel like I have a lot to say about everything and I think people relate to me pretty easily. As someone who grew up in a war zone and been in combat I feel I’m obligated to speak up about a lot of things

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/iamerezb
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamerezb/?hl=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ebarnea1
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7FIldw5oqHHzC7XznE55s1?si=PpZfT5iWSRK2t1zs9WtnKA&nd=1

Image Credits
Photos taken by Cris Taiach and Chris Garcia