Who hasn’t heard of Like Jelly!? They’ve been entertaining crowds all over Egypt with their satirical music shows for a while now, and after covering one of their latest concerts at El Genina Theater we decided to interview the band about them, their music and what they have in store for us!
Please introduce yourselves.
Mumahamed El Quessny, Guitarist
Mostafa Talaat, Bassist, a.k.a moose, moosenator, moosetache, moosetarda, mooselim, moosetakeel, moosetawrad, moosetashfa……
Youssef Atwan, a retired chemist turned musician, vocalist
El 3am Selim, percussionist working I make, serve and drink tea!
What is Like Jelly?
Like Jelly is cup of creme caramel! A combination of a show, music, comedy, story-telling, social commentary, observation of life and human beings.
How long have you guys been performing together?
Since 2005, so 7 years!
Tell us more about the history of the band, how did all come together?
We met in university, realized that we shared the same love for music. Some of us were in and out of a couple of high school bands. Other than that we were friends before anything.
So what do you guys do when you’re not on stage?
Moe: I’m a nature protector, working in a NGO called NCE and, on an initiative called the Nile Project.
Youssef: Currently only my music and on a couple development projects.
Moose: Just quit my corporate job and concentrating on a personal start ups
Selim: I work as an executive producer at El Wekala Productions, I usually work, travel, walk get lost, drink tea, and sometimes I sleep.
We’ve realized that you changed the style of performances from when you started to now, tell us more about this transformation.
At first, we started out covering bands and musicians such as Dave Mathews Band, Bob Dylan, Dispatch and so forth.
We then moved on naturally to originals that hold the same style and we got bored of the normal song writing and decided coincidentally getting into satirical music and mixing it up. We cant really say that there was a transformation point but if we had to, we’d have to say it all started with Shee Ya 7mar.
Last March, we started calling ourselves a “music comedy show” which we believe is a double edged sword, because once you say comedy, the crowd is expecting to laugh. ” We want you to think more than we want you to laugh” – Youssef
We see that you have the talent of singing in Arabic, English and now you’ve added Portuguese to your list of languages, are you planning to reach out to international crowds?
Going international is and always been a dream that we have, but we’ve covered Portugese songs after a couple of us came from Brazil as an appreciation to the culture that we were touched by there. We concentrate mainly on Arabic songs now trying to tap into the regional space first and because most of our “stories” are very hard to transcribe in any other language.
We are also trying to tap in to the DANCE scene! We are currently working on a project called “كجيلي الواد فالديسكو”. “It’s fun seeing people laugh but we think it’ll be more fun seeing people dance as well!” – Youssef
It’s no secret that you got signed to a record label lately, how do you see this affecting the band, for good or for worse? And Why?
Well, we got signed to a booking agency, Eka3, who are great group of people whom we have a very clear agreement with them on how we operate so it is a very good win-win deal. They operate in 5-6 Arab countries, and they are responsible for all our gigs and they facilitate everything for for us and have a been a blessing till now. We don’t see any bad outcome from this really, they have been pushing us to do much more and have placed us in a very good network of Arab performances.
You’ve come a long way since you started, where do you see the band in the next 5 years?
We want to put on a full musical show including live music, dancing, audio-visual art, acting…all sorts of performances blended into a great show! So if you’re interested please contact us, we want to do this!
Why the name “Like Jelly”?
There is no interesting story really, it just came about. At the end of the day who doesn’t like jelly.
Like Jelly performing @ El Genina Theater (accompanied by Youssra El Hawary)
Photo credits: Farida Hammad/Nariman El Mofty
You’ve had several band members in and out the band over the years but some of you have stuck around for the whole journey how do you compare you’re experience from back then to now?
Rule #1 for anyone that is joining our band is that we have to be comfortable with them on all levels because we get to spend a lot of time together. That being said, we’ve had some really great musicians come in and out of the band. Some had to leave because life just happened like with “Beesy”, our x-percussionist and who has also written a lot of of our originals who had to travel to continue his education. Others, we just didn’t have any chemistry with them so that’ why had to part ways but then again we don’t regret any member that was part of the band because they all have added a certain flavor over the years that made us who we are today.
El 3am Selim, you’re the latest addition to the band, tell us about how you feel to be part of like jelly?
I think that Like Jelly is the happiest band in the world!
We’d love to catch you soon on stage again, when can we do that?
On the 3rd of October @ Darb 1718 with Zeid & the Wings and on the 4th of October at El Itihad Square in Maadi @ El-Raseef Festival
WE SAID THIS: You Heard it here people, head on town to these shows for a great time of laughter and indulge into their satirical world of music shows!
Also keep in touch with this band, their funny, talented and will be near you soon so follow them on twitter @likejelly and like them on facebook here!