Name: Asaf Avidan
Nationality: Israeli
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Recent release: Asaf Avidan's new single “Unfurling Dream” is out now. Full-length album Unfurl will follow October 10th 2025 via Telmavar.   
Topic I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: I’m vegan and own an animal rescue farm where I live in France. It’s called Different Pulses Sanctuary and you can check it out on Instagram.

If you enjoyed this Asaf Avidan interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, and  Soundcloud.



When did you first consciously start getting interested in singing? What was your first performance as a singer on stage or in the studio and what was the experience like?

I never came to music purposefully with an intent for it being anything other than a release of emotions that I couldn’t otherwise outlet.

I was 26 and had my heart broken and spiraled downward and out of control, and the only thing that helped was picking up a guitar for the first time and writing and singing songs about everything I was going through.

I guess I didn’t have money for a psychologist at the time, and something about hearing myself vocalize out loud into the world, all of these emotions in an un-castrated way, made them easier to digest. That’s how I started singing, and I still use this tool in the same way.

The first gig I did in some bar, a few months later. I was starting to strum the intro of a song, and not a single person in the bar was listening or interested, but something changed in the room when I opened my mouth and started the verse. A collective double take of people looking at the source of the vocals.

I only then realized that the way I was using my voice was different or unique or whatever. Until then it just seemed the way I express myself to myself.

If you're also playing other instruments, how does the expressive potential of these compare to your own voice?

I never learned to sing or to play any instrument, so I don’t regard myself as particularly good at any of them.

I do find that I can express myself more precisely with my voice. The other instruments I play are just a way of holding interesting harmony and tempo for the vocals.

I have to add to this that the vocals also have the added gravitas of the lyrics that are very important to me. I never feel I am “singing”. I am delivering the words and infusing them with emotion.

Singing is an integral part of all cultures, and traditions. Which of these do you draw from – and why?

When I started making music, I was first really drawn to the blues.

The use of singing to lighten the burden of a heavy reality. The fusion of different cultures, brought together by suffering and the hope for redemption. The very lenient use of melody, with a clear emphasis on honesty and emotion. It all spoke volumes to me.

Today I listen to a lot of Mexican and Italian folk music, much for the same reasons, but with a wider ranges of melody and instrumentation.

What were some of the main challenges in your development as a singer/vocalist? Which practices, exercises, or teachers were most helpful in reaching your goals – were there also “harmful” ones?

Wow, I went through a lot of trial and error, and all I can say is that the only “magic” that helps protect my voice through the hell I take it through is 8 hours of sleep and lots of water.

All the rest was just snake oil in my experience.

What are the things you hear in a voice when listening to a vocalist? What moves you in the voices of other singers?

I really only care for honesty. Someone that is conveying their true emotions. The genres or specific attributes are arbitrary next to that.

So I can listen to Bob Marley, Miguel Aceves Mejia, Leonard Cohen, Charles Aznavour, Thom Yorke, Billy Holliday, Howling Wolf and find a coherent thread.

One that is emotional and deep and honest about how they use music to depict what they need to outlet, even though their styles and techniques vary by lightyears.

How would you describe the physical sensation of singing? [Where do you feel the voice, do you have a visual sensation/representation, is there a sense of release or tension etc …]

I’ve never really thought about it. I guess there is a superimposition of tension and release working in unison.

In order for the emotional release I usually need to squeeze and tense and clench. There is an opening and closing simultaneously. But generally it always feels as though I am releasing something buried deep.

We have a speaking voice and a singing voice. Do these feel like they are natural extensions of each other, ends on a spectrum or different in kind?

Yes. I think our speaking voice is a very specific and narrow tool in a wider spectrum or arsenal at our disposal. You can convey a lot of information with it, and to a degree a lot of emotion.

But if you want to go deeper than the crust, and depict the wide churning nebula of the self, you have to broaden your vocal pallet.

How do you see the relationship between harmony, rhythm and melody? Do you feel that honing your sense of rhythm and groove has an effect on your singing skills?

I’ve never understood them as being different.

They are all attributes of the one thing. Music.

What are the potentials and limits of your voice? How much of your vocal performance can and do you want to control?

I’m fortunate that my voice does a lot of what I ask it to. Also, I write for my voice, so I know in advance where I can get to.

But I constantly push myself to check the boundaries. Many times, especially on long tours, the wear and tear and fatigue just make it impossible to be as accurate as I’d like. Songs with clear falsettos become next to impossible after 40 shows of gravelly wailing.

So I know my limits, or fail on stage sometimes. It’s not the end of the world. It’s human. For any honest artist there is a chasm between what they “want” and what they “can”. That human gap is where art happens. That failure and overcoming of it is what makes human art touching and beautiful.

I would have liked to do a thousand things I can’t. Through my effort and my solutions or resolutions I create something of my own.

As a singer, it is possible to whisper at the audience, scream at the audience, reveal deep secrets or confront them with uncomfortable truths. Tell me about the sense of freedom that singing allows you to express yourself and how you perceive and build the relation with the audience.

I don’t really know about any of that. It’s very different than how I perceive it.

Most of the time it’s really not about communicating with an audience. It’s about connecting with something real in the moment inside myself. The audience is there to witness that truth, and through it see and face their own truths.

The sense of freedom that you mention, is to me, always an internal search and struggle, and hopefully release. When I sing at my house alone, or in front of 30 thousand people on a stage, it’s virtually the same.

When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?

I sing my own lyrics because, for me, the connection between what I write and how I sing it is the magic. That place of squeezing out emotion and intention in every syllable, that’s where the performance and the release comes from.

I really see the entire composition and production as just an extension of the main focus, which is the lyrics.

How has technology, such as autotune or effect processing, impacted singing? Has it been a concrete influence on your own approach?

I don’t use it so I honestly can’t say. I think it’s a killer of the human soul.