TOMORROW’S RAIN – Interview with vocalist Yishai Sweartz

The album created by the musicians of TOMORROW’S RAIN is a dream of many fans of doom-death-metal sounds. What’s more, their compositions evoke memories of the giants of this genre, whose albums from the 90s crushed the hearts of many fans of extreme Metal. They also invited distinguished guests to cooperation, namely the vocalists from MY DYING BRIDE, PARADISE LOST, MOONSPELL, ROTTING CHRIST, ORPHANED LAND and some others…

Hello Yishai! Maybe we’ll start from the beginning… Was MOONSKIN a completely different band, or maybe just the name was changed? What was wrong with the old name?

Just a name change, I Formed the band in 2002 with Maor Appelbaum (nowdays a known mastering guy in L.A) and Guitarist Raffael Mor, i had my previous band NAIL WITHIN split up right after a debut album via Listenable Records and Maor had his previous band SLEEPLESS split up, we were both in serious crisis having to face with the lash strike of reality and shattered dream, we started to write material and it was clear from the first days that it’s gonna be a reflection of our lives back than and our lives back than was far from being nice, depression, drinking, anxiety, stress and panics attacks, you name it… 🙂 so the music turned this way as well.

We called the band MOONSKIN and played few gigs here (opened for Epica among others) but in 2006 i got married and wanted to leave my inner demons outside my daily lives, dealing with these songs on a daily base was digging in my own wounds, it was a mistake as i leanred to understand, 3 years after that i been through a painful divorce process and again i felt shattered, this time i took it differently, i called Raffael and told him “this time we make it” so we started from zero with a new name Tomorrow’s Rain and in baby steps started to build our dream, we played with Dark Tranquillity in 2012 and tried to find a solid line up which took few years, in 2016 things became really serious and from there we went into the process of writing the record, we never write songs just to write good songs, every song needs a meaning, a true authentic story behind it, so quality over quantity was always the rule, if you consider 2002 as the start than we beat “Chinese Democracy” as the longest album to write ever… 🙂 but for me things started bigtime in 2016.

What can bring tomorrow’s rain?

Maybe some hope.

How you said… Many concerts behind you and with different stars of Metal… You have huge musical experience. But only now, in 2020, you recorded first album. Why so late?

I think it’s pretty well described in my first answer, we been through some really problematic years.

There are many bands record a lot of materials. But a debut like yours is an enviable one. You have invited so many wonderful vocalists to cooperation… More specifically: Aaron Stainthorpe (MY DYING BRIDE), Greg Mackintosh (PARADISE LOST), Jeff Loomis (ARCH ENEMY / NEVERMORE), Fernando Ribeiro (MOONSPELL), Spiros Antoniou (SEPTICFLESH), Sakis Tolis (ROTTING CHRIST), Mikko Kotamaki (SWALLOW THE SUN), Kobi Farhi (ORPHANED LAND), Anders Jacobsson (DRACONIAN), Shlomi Bracha (MASHINA ) and Lisa Cuthbert (session singer of THE SISTERS OF MERCY)… Yishai, do you have such connections that you managed to get them all to sing? Hahahaha…

Such a party ha?…:-) seriously the idea was to welcome them with open arms to our place and have each one of them to leave something from his own into our body of art, we thought about each part and gave each guest exactly the parts I thought fits him, for example in “Misery Rain” I had almost a spoken part, telling a very personal story and every time I sang it in the studio I thought “it will be great to have Fernando from Moonspell” doing this part in the same vibe he did similar parts in “Wolfheart” which is an album I really love, so I invited Fernando and he did that part, for Jeff Loomis we invited him for a song about Warrel Dane, Warrel was a friend of us and was supposed to produce “Hollow” so inviting Jeff Loomis to play in this personal memorial song for his longtime friend and musical partner was a great idea, etc etc, I think you can easily recognize Greg Mackintosh special touch in “In The Corner Of A Dead End Street” and same goes to Aaron from My Dying Bride in “Fear”, they gave a small part of them and for this I will thank them forever.

We never thought “lets have many guests in the record”, it started with one or two and during the working process we found out we love the idea of working with people we like.

After all, without connection it would not have happened … How was the vocal recording done by so many singers? Did you all concentrate in the one studio, or maybe everyone was recording somewhere separately? Did you send files via the Internet?

Some of the guests did the parts in Israel like for example Sakis from Rotting Christ, Fernando from Moonspell and Anders from Draconian, some others recorded in thier own studios, its different from one to another.

And who wrote the lyrics for the songs?

I wrote all lyrics apart from the title track that was written by Shiraz Weiss.

Many people have not heard the album yet. Can you explain their lyrics matter?

I write only about my own personal life, I am coming from a poetry background, I released a poems book back in 1993 called “Rage Prophet” in Israel at the age of 18 so writing for me was always the way to express what I feel, I write songs since I was a kid, even when I write about Warrel Dane in “Into The Mouth Of Madness” I write about my personal feelings through the last period of his life and the day he passed away, digging through the album’s lyrics is a journey to my soul, but of course people take the song to the place they feel like and it’s great, it’s the strength of art if you ask me.

But the lyrics in “Hollow” is my life story, painful as it is, but its also a story about strength, about face the fears, writing the songs in this album is a great tool how to use this pain for a good and creative cause, and it’s more important than how many cds you sell or how many tickets or t-shirts you sell, its the ability to wake up early in the morning without feeling panic attacks, without wanting to stay in bed for the rest of the day.

Who are these children at the beginning of the first track?

The lyrics tells 2 storied bonded to each other, one is the childhood story of Yossi Elephant, an Israeli post punk/new wave musician who passed away on stage in Sept 1991, he head problems in his heart since he was a kid and around the age of 25 he fell to hard drugs addiction, the second story in the song is my own childhood story as Yossi lived almost next door to me when I was a kid, his father was an Auschwitz survivor, my grandfather lived also there was a partisan who lived at the age of 13 few years in the forests of Belarus after his family killed, they both became really close, I’m talking about the 70’s here, so the story goes back in time, and through the 80’s when Yossi became a popular musician in Israel and I started my babysteps too, it’s a story about the beginning of the 80’s in Ramat Gan city where we grew up, a story about being young kids with a survivor mentality discovering post punk and new wave in realtime, it’s a story about addiction, about the hope to heal, about the memories that will never be forgotten and made us who we are, it’s a tribute to that period in time and it’s an honour to Yossi and both our families, the video reflects it all, we went back in time to the house we grew up, to the school, to the old almost non exist buildings, even to our apartments, and filmed it again, in 2020, it was super emotional, the voices of the kids from school were recorded outside the school we been in as kids, in the same area, all authentic, I was not interested in recording a random kids from random school, I wanted to go to the same school we been and record the kids there in 2020 more than 40 years after, the kids symbolize the new generation, the new circle in life, here we are in 2020 paying respect to the past and staring into the future filled with hope.

TOMORROW’S RAIN is moving in Gothic Doom Death Metal regions. But there are also inserts of Folk Music straight from Israel. Who makes the whole music? The band or one musician?

We write most of the stuff together but some parts and songs were done by specific member.

TOMORROW’S RAIN’s music is very melancholic, depressive, but also full of aggression. Are you also such deep melancholy at your heart?

Sometimes, especially in the last years to be honest.

Shiraz Weiss is the only woman permanently in the team. The function of the keyboards often falls to women…

We never paid attention to these things.

But temporary next woman was invite to the band. Why Lisa Cuthbert was chosen?

Because she been in Israel, we got along very well, she is great and i love her voice.

You also released the album in Hebrew-language. Were all the texts sung in Hebrew?

Most of them in hebrew apart from 2 songs.

As far as I know from the label, unfortunately Fernando was not be available in this interview, because he is recording a new album of MOONSPELL… I was curious, how did he sing in Hebrew? Hehe…

He did only the english version, the hebrew part was done by israeli rock singer and artist ERAN ZUR.

You are concert band. Do you use playback for the guest vocalists’ parts?

No, never, I sing the parts. A live concert is a LIVE concert. What you will hear in our show is what the guys on stage play, it’s rock n roll.

Do you always wear hooded habits at shows?

We stopped with it few months ago, we did it for 3 years, enough.

The current pandemic has its effects in your touring…

Of course, the whole touring market is dead, and it looks very bad at the moment.

Do you have own opinion on the coronavirus?

I really liked the debut “Spreading the Disease” it was pretty raw, than they kinda slowed down with “Terrible Certainty” but the third album “Slowly We Rot” is a killer!

Did you think about Fernando would appear in the video for “Misery Rain”? So far, this is just a lyric-video, like most TOMORROW’S RAIN videos…

There are no plans to release a videoclip to „Misery Rain”.

Why was Art of Propaganda Records chosen?

Because they are honest, serious, easy to work with, and full of motivation, a really great label and trusted persons.

And what is the contribution of the Spanish label Blood Fire Death Promotions to your promotion?

They help pushing the album and they do it great.

Could Fernando to make an exception and take this album under the wings of Alma Mater Records?

Alma Mater is mainly for Moonspell related stuff and L.P versions of other acts (Tiamat, Terror etc). And Fernando is a dear friend of us. We were signed by A.O.P already. But I invite all of you readers to check the Alma Mater releases and buy the great editions they released to Moonspell albums and great albums as Tiamat’s “Clouds” etc. Check it out! Top stuff!

Yishai, what are TOMMOROW’S RAIN’s plans now?

Continue promoting “Hollow” and write the second album, we have 4 new songs already.

And I think that’s where we’ll end this interview. Thank you very much!