Celebrating the release of their catchy and hard-driving new album, NYC’s Savak returns to the Avalon in Catskill on Thursday night June 19th, the only Hudson Valley show of their spring/summer tour.
Like previous Savak albums, their latest effort, Squawk, grabs you from the get-go and takes you for the full ride, equal parts classic indie rock, power pop, and punk rock manifesto. Thirty five minutes later, dust settling in your living room, you’ll be wanting more.
Splitting frontman and songwriting duties are Sohrab Habibion and Michael Jaworski. This double firepower is perhaps the secret to how they’ve managed to crank out seven full-length albums in just ten years.
“We were born to churn,” Habibion says. “Honestly it’s just the way I like to spend my free time. We are all constantly taking in lots of information and this is my favorite outlet for mulling over and responding to it. The only real secret, if you can call it that, is to set deadlines. Otherwise things just drag out and nothing ever happens.”
Solid advice for whatever your artistic pursuits might be. Jaworski concurs:
“I don’t think there’s any real secret to it. We have a lot of fun, enjoy the process and like to work at a steady clip. Sohrab and I both write and contribute songs to the band in equal measure and we like the collaborative process. We’re both motivated and like to push each other’s ideas along.”
Savak has a bit of a pedigree. Coming out of DC in the 90s, Habibion cut his teeth in hardcore band Edsel which laid the groundwork for his approach to music. After Edsel, he swapped one Washington for another, joined Obits, who put out three albums on Sub Pop. Jaworski (himself in Seattle’s The Cops at the time) was working around the corner from Obit’s practice space in a record store, which is how he met Habibion, and they went on to form Savak in 2015.
Savak is for sure a killer name. Some people don’t realize just how killer it actually is.
“I’ll get the ugly part out of the way first, Savak was the name of the Iranian secret police during the Shah’s regime,” Habibion says. “Why would we pick a name with such a horrible association? Well, a few reasons, really. Before we had a name, when we were still just jamming in the practice space, trying to see what this group would sound like, we read about the band Viet Cong choosing to change their name because they couldn’t deal with the repercussions of having a sobriquet that bothered some people. This seemed really weak to me.
“The point of art is not to capitulate to outside forces when there is a misunderstanding. The point is to look more closely. When I was a kid, living in Iran, Savak were hated and feared. Giving the band the same name was a way to reclaim that. If someone can’t tell the difference between actual historical events and art, then let the artists be a reminder of the power of imagination.”
Considering that they tour a bit internationally, I wonder if going through TSA checkpoints with a name like this is a concern?
“I’ve been wondering that lately myself,” says Jaworski, “how absolutely ridiculous it would be if we had any issues because of it, but here we are. I was talking to a friend recently who took a family trip to Europe and he deleted all the text threads that spoke negatively of Trump before he left because he didn’t want his family to have any issues coming back to the US, and he’s a US-born white guy living in Omaha, Nebraska. It might not seem like that big of a deal, but it’s one more proof positive behavior that we’re living under authoritarian rule.”
That said, after five more east coast shows, Savak will head to Europe on a tour that will take them to Germany, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
“We enjoy the different cultures and I also think there is a genuine appreciation for music and art among a larger audience that feels different and less hype-focused than it is here,” Jaworski says.
Habibion is quick to add, “Also, Alkmaar, Netherlands is our last stop on the tour, and is famous for its traditional cheese market. This has Savak crucial tour stop written all over it.”
Meanwhile, still safely at home in NYC, Savak has their own recording studio in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, they’ve named it Affordable Luxury. The process of recording tends to change from album to album. They prefer to do as much full-band, live tracking as possible, but it’s not always the quickest option since their drummer, Matt Schulz, now lives in Ohio.
The songs are eventually all handed off to someone else to mix at another studio, which changes from album to album. For Squawk, it was Travis Harrison at NYC-based Serious Business Music.
“Thankfully it’s affordable and relatively easy to record and release music these days,” says Jaworski. “There’s no one way of doing things and I think every artist just has to figure out what works best for themselves. We’ve always worked with a label, but there’s never been a recording budget, per se. It’s fun to imagine having the money to spend weeks in a great studio in some exotic location, but we get by just fine in our own studio.”
Coming out of the 80s hardcore scene in DC, Habibion agrees:
“Doing things yourself means you learn all aspects of what’s involved. We make our own records, we book our own shows, we jam econo. I think that’s the most sustainable method and, if you like it, you can do it as long as you want. The minute other people are in the mix, things change, so you have to figure out who the good people are and stick with them. That’s why the folks we engage with we consider to be our friends. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Another incredibly inviting dimension of Savak’s music is that they crank out videos like it’s the 90s and MTV is still on the air. You can find them all on YouTube. Vis-a-Vis showcases the band at their Minutemen-style tightest. Another fun one is My Book On Siblings, which features a friend of the band effortlessly executing some of the finest tricks with a Duncan Imperial witnessed since the 1970s.
The show at the Avalon on the 19th isn’t just Savak, there are two other great bands on the bill as well. The evening opens with Lupo Citta, featuring Chris Brokaw (also of bands Come and Codeine.) Up next will be The Whimbrels, naturally a band favorite because it features Savak bass player Matt Hunter, also of King Missile and a variety of other bands. Basically, it’s a mini indie festival on a single night. With tickets at about 20 bucks, Fugazi would be proud.
“I’m looking forward to playing The Avalon Lounge again,” Habibion says. “We’ve been there a couple of times and Liam who runs it is a really nice guy, the room sounds good, and the Korean food they serve is spot on. Kind of the holy trinity of rock-n-roll!”
The Avalon Lounge is located at 29 Church Street in Catskill. Show starts at 8pm. For more info on Savak, see their website: https://www.savakband.com/
Join the family! 
