MADANES Talks New Single, Music Video And More

Sep 1, 2025 | Interviews

Words by Glenn Sargeant

Feature Image Photo Credit: Supplied By Lisa Davies Promotions

A hopelessly devoted record collector since the age of 12, turned DJ for 19 years, MADANES adores hits with brilliant melodies. His latest single ‘Your Dog’ is released in September 2025 and he chatted to us about the track, music video and more:

What is your earliest musical memory?

In kindergarten, I stood on a car-shaped play structure and roared out a song. Still, it remains the greatest and most powerful singing experience I’ve ever had.

When did you begin songwriting?

In high school, I used to write secretly to myself.

You have your new single ‘Your Dog’ out now. What was the story/inspiration behind the track?

Not so long ago, I fell in love with a woman and she didn’t fall in love with me.

To my surprise, I fell in love with her dog.

At first, we didn’t connect. It took me some time to realize the dog was a genius. We went hiking in nature, and on the way back, he led us, retracing the exact path we had taken, right at the tree, left at the rock, that kind of thing. I began to respect him.

I realized he was far smarter than us.

We became friends. In fact, my immediate bond with him grew stronger than my bond with her. We even shared common interests, like longing for her.

One day, she surprised me by saying: “My dog is completely in love with you.” I was a bit embarrassed. I didn’t have an immediate answer, I’m a little slow around her. Only a few days later, after that sentence kept echoing in my mind, I thought I should have answered right away: “Learn from him.”

One night, sitting by the piano, it simply poured out, a sad song, melodically and harmonically tangled. I was about to leave the piano when my body and heart suddenly cried out what I had been suppressing. Such a scream of pain:

“Owwww. Owwww, it hurts. Owwww, it hurts that you don’t love me.”

Did you solely write the track or was it a co-write?

I composed everything by myself, and then during rehearsals with my band, just before the first recording of the song, in its sad version, not the one that was eventually released as a single, Nir Geva, the producer, improved one of my lines. I felt obliged to share the credit with him, because it truly elevated the song.

The song was originally written in Hebrew, and Michal Tauber, Gilad Cohen, and Diana Olarczyk helped me translate it

Was it a difficult song to write?

Hard in training, easy in battle. The unrequited love for the song’s amazing heroine… that’s the hard part. Writing it… that’s the easy part.

The single is accompanied by an official music video. What was the thought process behind the video and who directed it?

Director Lior Molcho and his wife, photographer Danit Sigler, longtime friends who also create brilliant music videos for artists like Sia and David Guetta, brought this stroke of genius.

Where did you record the single and who produced it?

In Ran Shem-Tov’s home studio, from the band IZABO: an unusual and fascinating drum set, all sorts of instruments, some with his own adaptations, special microphones, vintage and modern preamps and compressors. A mad scientist’s laboratory. To me, he’s a kind of Arthur Rubinstein.

Do you have any interesting, funny or memorable stories from the recording sessions?

There’s something very liberating about Ran Shem-Tov’s studio and its atmosphere. It feels like creating together with Yorgos Lanthimos, nothing will ever be too strange.

Did you use any particular instruments, microphones, recording equipment to help you get a particular sound/tone for the record?

It’s a home studio with an impressive pile of gear. Everything is constantly routed through compressors. Ran Shem-Tov calls himself a ‘mouse artist’, a computer mouse artist. He records all kinds of parts, sometimes completely illogical, and edits them in Cubase. It’s not the kind of session where you come in, play, and record. He builds a groove and creates strange sounds from unconventional sources, which then become the foundation of the track.

Which of your new tracks hear you at your a) happiest, b) angriest and c) most reflective?

I don’t remember if anyone said this before… but never trust a happy song. In my vegan and political songs in Hebrew, there’s a lot of anger. As for ‘reflection’, well, I reflect a lot. But when I sit down to write, it’s usually after those reflections have already reached their conclusions.

Do you have any further music releases planned for 2025/2026?

Yes. Still reflecting on what to put out.

What two things do you hope to have achieved once you have left the stage?

Literally, a message of veganism that convinces the audience to go vegan and save animals, and a melody they’ll be humming to themselves for days after the show. Metaphorically, exactly the same.

Do you have any favoured stage instruments, effects, pedals, microphones etc?

I hate standing on stage… I’d rather hide behind a Roland electric piano. An Hammond melodica, and a Telefunken USA microphone. What’s funny, probably only to me, is the roll of toilet paper on the mic stand.

How do you look after your voice?

I don’t…

You are given the opportunity to write the score for a film adaptation of a novel that you enjoy. Which novel is it and why?

I don’t read many novels. Two vegan books that have deeply influenced me are Animal Liberation by Peter Singer and Eternal Treblinka by Charles Patterson. In the documentary film the world still needs to see—one that would combine the messages of these two books—I would want to reach the melodic beauty in describing animals, their joy in becoming, and the terrible sorrow in their abuse and slaughter. Alongside that, I imagine annoying, harsh, and foolish music to depict the ‘human’ who inflicts the worst upon them.

Where is your hometown and could you please describe it in five words?

Ramat-Efal. Small neighbourhood, far yet near.

Do you have any live dates in the UK/Europe planned for 2025/2026?

At Wembley, when I turn 28.

Who are some of your musical influences? Do you have any recommendations?

Elton John, Ian Dury, Frank Zappa, Naomi Shemer, Nachum Heyman, and Nurit Hirsh. having 6,000 vinyls at my house, learned something even from the bad and embarrassing ones that used to buy.

What makes Madanes happy and what makes you unhappy?

I’ve never been, and probably will never be, a ‘happy person.’ I feel right and good only after writing a strong song or after a truly good concert.

The governments in Israel and the U.S. worry and sadden me. the evil, the cynicism, the indifference to blood. The realization that the world is foolish and moving backwards, and the knowledge that all the evil happening now has already been happening to animals for thousands of years. There’s something deeply despairing in the fact that even my friends on the liberal left are complicit in a Holocaust against animals on their plates. And that I have no power to stop it and the war.