There’s a fuck-all attitude to Hanni El Khatib’s music that makes his relatively straightforward garage rock so enjoyable. Maybe it’s that his songs are really catchy, pairing rock ‘n’ roll swagger with actual hooks. Or that he actually seems like a really cool guy, which I learned he is after interviewing him. Check out his second album, Head in the Dirt, produced by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, which is out now on Innovative Leisure. He’s at S.F.’s Fillmore May 17 and L.A.’s Mayan Theater May 21, both with The Black Angels and Wall of Death.
PST: There’s a hint of desperation to the lyrics to some of these songs. I’m thinking of how “Family” starts with the lyric “I wanna be somebody else today” or the lyrics of songs like “Nobody Move” and “Pay No Mind.” Where do you get your lyrical inspiration?
El Khatib: Most of my lyrics are written in a very spontaneous way. Total stream of consciousness that I try to loosely connect to an underlying mood or theme. They usually reflect the mood I’m in at the moment, and since the record was written and recorded in such a short time-frame, I guess that’s just the place I was at.
