At Rock NYC, we have followed Hanni El Khatib since the beginning, back in 2010 when he released his 'You Rascal You’ single and played one of his first show at the Echo, and his music just got the Super Bowl treatment… You may have caught it, his kick-ass bluesy new song ‘Can't Win Em All’ was in an Audi commercial! I don’t know if it’s the dream of every rocker, but good for him!
The commercial was just a glimpse of his new material, but last Wednesday, Hanni El Khatib premiered his first full single from his new album ‘Head In The Dirt’ due on April 30th via Innovative Leisure, and the fact that the album is produced by Dan Auerbach will probably make him rise to the top even faster,… it’s not a coincidence if Khatib’s music had received tons of Black Keys’ comparisons in the past.
The new song ‘Family’ is very much in the same vein than his previous material, it works in-the-urgency with a devilish but sweet rhythm which is revisiting some old-school rock ‘n’ roll, engaging into some serious body-shaking thanks to crashing cymbals and tearing guitar, repainting the whole thing with a rawer and bluesier color.
Hanni told Rolling Stone that the track ‘was one of those songs that we just hit record and ripped right through. We had everyone in the room at once and just went for it. It was really loud in there. Those types of songs are the most fun to do.’ As the press release explains, Hanni El Khatib was ‘inspired by a long line of determined do-it-for-themselves musicians winding back through punk and psychedelia to rock 'n' roll and early r&b and finally the first scratchy years of the blues, he'd record song after bare-bones song-in between day jobs and night life-just because he had things he wanted to sing about’.
After his first album ‘Will The Guns Come Out’ came out in 2011, Khatib was already able to quit his day job to become part-owner of (and in-house Art Director) Innovative Leisure in Los Angeles, California. But his incredible story doesn’t stop there, while on tour, he met Dan Auerbach in a bar in Paris, and next, he was recording in Auerbach's studio in Nashville, ‘an album out of only raw instinct and inspiration’.
‘Head In The Dirt’ will feature 11 tracks (‘Head In The Dirt’, ‘Family’, ‘Skinny Little Girl’, ‘Penny’, ‘Nobody Move’, ‘Can't Win 'Em All’, ‘Pay No Mind’, ‘Save Me’, ‘Low’, ‘Sinking In The Sand’, ‘House On Fire’) which will carry on with Khatib’s rebellious-bluesy tone coated by the Auerbach’s touch, from what we can hear from this new song… Plus Hanni El Khatib is on tour soon, with a stop at SXSW and Coachella. Check out the dates below:
3/02/13 @ Underground Lodge – Mammoth,CA
3/08/13 @ Crescent Ballroom – Phoenix, AZ ^
3/09/13 @ Tricky Falls – El Paso, TX ^
3/11/13 @ Fitzgerald's – Houston, TX ^
3/12/13 @ SXSW – Austin, TX
3/13/13 @ SXSW – Austin, TX
3/14/13 @ SXSW – Austin, TX
3/15/13 @ SXSW – Austin, TX
3/16/13 @ SXSW – Austin, TX
4/14/13 @ Coachella – Indio, CA
4/21/13 @ Coachella – Indio, CA
5/02/13 @ Spanish Moon – Baton Rouge, LA Ω
5/03/13 @ Work Play Theatre – Birmingham, AL Ω
5/04/13 @ Shakey Knees Festival – Atlanta, GA
5/05/13 @ Mercy Lounge – Nashville, TN Ω
5/07/13 @ The Vogue – Indianapolis, IN Ω
5/08/13 @ The Firebird – St. Louis, MO Ω
5/09/13 @ Riot Room – Kansas City, MO
5/10/13 @ Boulder Theater – Boulder, CO Ω
5/11/13 @ The Depot – Salt Lake City, UT Ω
5/13/13 @ Neptune Theatre – Seattle, WA Ω
5/14/13 @ Commodore Ballroom – Vancouver, BC Ω
5/15/13 @ Wonder Ballroom – Portland, OR Ω
5/17/13 @ The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA Ω
^ = w/ Cold War Kids
Ω = w/ The Black Angels