What is Shmoné?
“I took a risk. I left my comfort zone and flew to the other edge of the world without any guarantee for success in order to play music for living. But I also knew it was bigger than that. I wanted to merge cultures, ideas and instruments, and unite people through music regardless of their colour or creed. That’s the goal for Shmoné, to create a cosmopolitan state through the shared experience of live music.”
The Idan Shoham Documentary
I grew up in Tel Aviv, always remembering myself singing and dreaming about playing guitar.
Since a young age, I remember my family struggling financially. This is mainly why I grew up with no brothers or sisters, although I did crave siblings and still do.
Most of my childhood was spent playing music at school with friends or sneaking to the blues night at the pub. Although I was clearly too young to attend, they really wanted a saxophone sound, so they let me in.
Due to our financial situation I knew I’d need to sort myself from a young age, so when I was 11 I started busking with friends. At the same time, I attended the boys scouts (pretty big in Israel) and became an instructor and manager.
A year after finishing high school, I recruited to the army for 3 years (a requirement for young Israeli adults) and here I wrote funny original songs about our super hard training.
They sort of became our division’s anthems. Even my commanders started to sing them and asked me to write more!
I made a call that once I had my freedom back, I would tour the world with my music to find more music lovers like me through the journey.
After the military, I started preparing my project. I couldn’t decide on a proper name because everything felt too literal, so I decided to go with my lucky number shmoné, or ‘eight’ in Hebrew. To gain experience, I returned to busking, I attended jam sessions and put the dust out of my saxophone - something I hadn't touched since high school!
After a few gigs, I had saved a bit of money, so I bought a one way ticket to Perth. On the 8th of February (lucky number 8!), I arrived in Perth, and less than a week later I had my first busking performance in the Fremantle Markets - or Freo as it’s colloquially known.
Watching my guitar case fill with coins and notes I was unfamiliar with, while people watched and danced, was absolutely incredible!
After two weeks I had my first gigs around town and a week after that my first collaboration. Unfortunately, COVID-19 arrived the next month, and so my busking spots and collaboration attempts were suddenly irrelevant. After my first weekend without any busking success, I was invited to dinner by a Freo café manager. Since I thought it wouldn’t hurt, I brought my gear and put on a show. The manager loved it so much, she invited me to perform in the café every morning. The café had limited capacity and could only sell takeaway coffee, but it was busy and nice to play for an audience again.
I think that the pandemic made people appreciate live music even more, and every performance I had at the café was special and loved by all that listened.
After the government’s decision to close the region’s borders, the café manager and the bicycle shop owner next door decided to give me a permanent parking spot at the back. This was a generous offer that came with keys to the café, Wi-Fi, a shower, and a space to make a living room. Most importantly, it allowed me to spend my 3 months of lockdown a mere 7-second walk from the ocean and the freedom to busk in Freo every weekend.
It was around this time that I started to collaborate with The Major Swing Project, and together (after the borders opened) we went on a tour from Freo to Kununurra and back - a journey that was over 7,000 km in distance and saw us performing in many special locations and events.
By the end of that tour I started to live, perform and work in Exmouth (my beloved Exy) for 3 months. I was performing Shmoné solo shows every weekend, and collaborating with an abundance of local and travelling musicians.
The connections from Exmouth meant I was able to perform every weekend for half a year in the Margaret River region, supporting many locally famous musos such as Tijuana Cartel, Ben Catley & more.
Currently, I am on tour with Benjamin Newton. We toured all the way up the west coast of Australia to Darwin (yep, I finally was able to cross a state border!). While my time in Australia is gradually coming to a close, the Shmoné project is certainly not over. With luck on our side, I would like to travel the east of Australia all the way down to Tasmania, and then who knows. Hawaii? New Zealand?