Palestinian-Filipino American musician Hanni El Khatib almost quit music after his fourth album, Savage Times. He felt pigeon-holed as a blues rocker, with his distinctive style earning him a large fanbase, but taking him away from the early influences of his music.
With his new album, FLIGHT, El Khatib returns to those roots, reminded why he loved music in the first place.
“The stuff I’m hearing from 20 years ago, the stuff that I was making and sampling back then, sounds very similar to what this new record sounds like,” El Khatib says of FLIGHT.
Hanni El Khatib’s signature bluesy sound
El Khatib grew his fame in a niche of recent, but growing, interest – garage blues. This stripped down style has resulted in a multitude of distinct albums which, all until the most recent one, more or less fit within the confines of the rock-and-roll genre.
“I kind of view songwriting as curation, I’m more influenced by visuals than anything,” he explains, “I’m into the physical products of different eras. I get more inspired at the flea market than I do listening to records.”
- One of El Khatib’s classic garage blues rock songs, which he worked on with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys
- A more typical example of one of his earlier works
A break from music brings more inspiration than ever
After his 2017 tour for his album Savage Times, El Khatib was just about ready to give up. “Two years ago I had this meltdown, and I was like, ‘I don’t think I want to do this again,’” he recalls. “Music was just the byproduct of the job.”
At this time, he told everyone that he planed to quit music all together. But instead, “I just ran back to being creative,” he says.
Many musicians draw their best work from their most personal feelings and experiences. Not so for El Khatib, prior to his last two albums.
“I was always fond of story-teller singer-songwriters, like Dylan, Lou Reed … those kind of people who always interested me lyrically,” he explains to Bandcamp. “In the past, I would sneak in subtle things that relate to me personally.”
However, El Khatib began adding a focus on the personal in Savage Times. The song “Born Brown” was a “self-proclamation of my identity,” El Khatib says. As a Filipino-Palestinian American who speaks neither Arabic nor Tagalog, El Khatib has often encountered confusion and misunderstanding with regards to his identity.
“It wears on your psyche. Kind of like, ‘What am I supposed to be?’” he explains. FLIGHT, due to its cathartic nature, was also El Khatib’s ultimate expression as an artist. His record label, Innovative Leisure, describes the record as “one that taps into the adolescent spirit of creation that first stirred him to make songs in the first place.” They add, “Here he is on his fifth album, back for the first time.”
“I wanted my album to kind of feel like a collage,” says Hanni El Khatib
El Khatib falls into the same garage-blues categories as The Black Keys or The Blue Stones, with muddled vocals, strong bass, punk-sounding guitar and a bluesy beat to boot. However, El Khatib eventually felt limited by this signature garage rock style.
“I never felt heavily connected to that style of music, [but] once that genre stamp gets put on an artist, you feel an obligation to work within that realm,” he explains. “I can make a garage song in 10 minutes.” FLIGHT, on the other hand, departs significantly from the style listeners may associate with him.
This record consists largely of samples, which is how El Khatib got started making music in the first place. It’s an at times confusing mix of the same angsty lyrics, bluesy vocals, innovative beats, and unexpectedly changing melodies.
“I wanted my album to kind of feel like a collage,” says El Khatib, and he certainly succeeded. He made FLIGHT using an MPC sampler and a bedroom studio, purposefully echoing his high school bedroom where he started out making beats in the first place.
Listen to all of El Khatib’s music on Spotify or any major platform.
