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Last update - 13:18 27/08/2008 'Inside, I'm a bird' By Noya Kochavi Tags: Music, Israel, Dana Lapidot "I wasn't aiming for a commercial success, but I was aware of where I want to go," says Dana Lapidot, whose eponymous maiden album will be released today. Over the past three months, two singles from it were released, "Moniyot" and "Meshuga'at," and both have been top-ten hits played frequently on the radio. "Mainstream is not a vulgar word in my opinion," she adds. "If you bring the truth, it works. Time will tell: If the album sits in stores and doesn't sell a single copy, I still stand by it. It's so me." Lapidot prefers to be described in two words: authentic and exciting. "I want people to understand me," she says. Awareness is a key word for Lapidot. She is the daughter of Hana Lapidot, a Jungian psychoanalyst and partner in writing most of the lyrics and two of the melodies on the album. "I'm very aware of myself, maybe even too much. This album was my therapy," she relates. "You feel that there's a kind of comfort in it. It was written after a very big crisis - my parents divorced, my father returned to religious observance and distanced himself from me, my sister left the country and I separated from my greatest love. I faced a very difficult financial situation. I didn't manage to recover the investment from my first album, which I buried, and for which I had taken out loans. I realized that the album was a lost opportunity and that I'm stuck in terms of my music, and that broke me." Advertisement After two years in Tel Aviv, which she describes as "the worst period of my life," she returned to her native city, Be'er Sheva. She started writing material for the current album, until her friend, the singer Dikla, sent her material to Udi Henis, the repertoire manager at the Hed Arzi music production company. Henis heard her at home, without a microphone and accompanied only by a piano, and decided to sign her on a contract. Moshe Debul, a member of the Lipstick group during the 1980s and recently the producer of albums by singers Orna Datz, Din Din Aviv and Shai Gabaso, handled the musical production of the album. "The moment I saw Moshe, I knew he would produce my album," recalls Lapidot. "He gave me complete freedom of expression as a singer. I didn't sit on the side. He let me bring myself completely." And what did you bring? "I'm a person who works from the gut. I like a lot of things, listen to lots of music and this variety is something I find nice. If I though that here it should be ethnic and somewhere else I wanted a rock rhythm section, that's what I did. I'm a soul singer. I grew up on Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin; my mother would shout out Janis Joplin songs in the living room. I follow things through all the way, do what I want on stage and don't skimp. I think it has to be authentic. That's why I think this album is very feminine and dramatic." The reviews of your first concerts included some that said you are even a little too dramatic. "In concerts, I still get very emotional. I think that people still don't really know me, and it will take time for it to come out. I'm a little hysterical - quite a bit of a 'drama queen.' You see it in the texts. The first to connect to the album are women and homos. It takes men a little more time." You are often compared to Rita. Are you pleased with that? "It's a tremendous compliment. I think she is wonderful. But I'm Dana. Our voices are different; I see a similarity in the ability to relate to every kind of audience. Both of us embrace and are warm." A form of release Lapidot, 25, says she is in the midst of a process of building up her self-confidence. At the age of 18, she decided to lose weight and dropped 40 kilograms. "I realized that the fat was protection. I changed my attitude to food; I decided that I don't want to harm myself any more. I knew that behind the chubby girl a sensitive, feminine, sexual and creative person was hiding, and that she had to come out. Then I would stand in an audition before girls who were half my caliber as singers, and they would move ahead of me. Today I go on stage and do what I want. The album has a feminine and sexy place. It's not something that's a given for me. I touched places that I hadn't touched in the past, I built up Dana from zero." Among her influences: Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Lauryn Hill and Mariah Carey at the start of her career, but she is in no hurry to join the ranks of the tragic songstresses. "I have some powerful forces, otherwise I wouldn't have reached where I am today. But I'm too sensitive, I break and react in an extreme way to things. I go through crises, but take care of myself. I touch the pain and let it be there. Sometimes I feel that I'm too exposed on stage, but I don't know any other way. I don't know how to lie." Nevertheless, she refuses to see herself as a strong person. "All my life people have seen me and thought I was radiating confidence, but inside I'm a bird, butter, a crybaby. It's something that's apparent in the album, but I don't let a lot of people be there. During my first concerts, I cried on stage and didn't manage to control it. For me, it's a release from the last seven-and-a-half years during which I worked on the album." Southern simplicity Lapidot is now preparing to return to Tel Aviv. She is sorry to leave Be'er Sheva, which provided her with space and freedom to create, she says. "For many people, Be'er Sheva is a stop on the way to Eilat, but it's a very warm, simple city. The artists who come from there absorb its simplicity. Everyone knows everyone; they jam together. My whole band is from Be'er Sheva. "Artists like David Peretz and Amir Benayoun live in the city and other artists are originally from Be'er Sheva: Dikla, Yehudit Ravitz and now also Yisrael Bar-On. They are all very talented. The question is not why I am planning to move to Tel Aviv, but why am I putting it off." Lapidot says she did not expect the success she has been having, but acknowledges that she enjoys the audience's love: "It's fun to be loved. It's easy for a singer to fall between the cracks. There's tremendous crowding and because of that, everyone is always looking for something different. Because I bring a kind of mainstream and a large voice, I could be swallowed up. That didn't happen. If I made it to this point, apparently there is something there. It would be strange for me if this truth were to be missed." Bookmark to del.icio.us   World War III A top Iranian general says an attack on Tehran would ignite a 'world war'. Raising the price Hamas says won't compromise, Israel must free 1,000 prisoners for Shalit.

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