Interview: SAVAK

For a decade, Brooklyn’s SAVAK has operated on a uncompromising blueprint: zero nostalgia, endless motion, and an absolute refusal to stand still. Formed in 2015 by Sohrab Habibion (Obits, Edsel) and Michael Jaworski (The Cops, Virgin Islands), the NYC post-punk outfit has turned a lifetime of underground-rock knowledge into a restless, razor-sharp catalog defined by wiry guitars, motorik grooves, and impossible-to-shake hooks.

Now, to mark ten years of crooked trajectories and DIY ethics, the band is dropping Door Deals & Debt: An Essential Collection From The First 10 Years (out October 23 via Peculiar Works / Ernest Jenning Record Co.). Far from a standard greatest-hits release, it’s a guided tour through a career built on curiosity, dual-songwriter friction, and pure momentum.

We sat down with the band to break down a decade in the underground trenches. From curating the collection and digging into personal favorite tracks from their vast discography to their unique songwriting dynamic, recurring themes, independent ethos, and what keeps the SAVAK engine running, here is our conversation with Sohrab and Michael.

---

Reaching a 10-year anniversary with seven albums, an EP, and countless gigs under your belt is no small feat in the underground world. Looking back at the early days around Best of Luck in Future Endeavors in 2016, how close is SAVAK today to the vision you originally had for the band?

Jaws: I’m not sure I (or we) had a specific vision of the band when we first started 10 years ago. I think the main goal has always been writing and recording good songs that we’d want to listen to ourselves. Over the course of so many albums we’ve been able to stretch out a bit, and explore some different styles, but I think we’ve always had the goal of not limiting ourselves to one sound or particular sub-genre. The one thing I can say for sure that I didn’t expect, is that we’d have to work with so many different musicians to keep it going. I think when you first start a band, it’s fun to think of it as a “gang” that’ll stay close-knit. But the reality is that it’s hard to keep the same group of people together, especially as we get older. I’m just grateful that Sohrab and I keep grinding away, trying to figure out how to make the next record or book the next tour.

Sohrab: No band I’ve ever played in has had any awareness of what it was supposed to be, aside from a constantly evolving musical conversation with friends. Maybe if we were a ska band we’d be focused on all the things that make ska bands ska bands. In fact, maybe SAVAK should become a ska band and challenge ourselves to write a song as good as “Ghost Town” by The Specials. Stay tuned for SKAVAK, a band with a vision and goal!

The title Door Deals And Debt captures the unglamorous, grind-it-out reality of touring and independent music. What made that phrase feel like the right umbrella for your first decade as a band?

Jaws:  The album title shares the name with a song from our Beg Your Pardon album, and it seemed appropriate to use it for this collection.  When we first started out, most of us were in our mid to early 40’s and had been doing this in other bands for years. We were hilariously dubbed as a “super group” of some kind, but we’re not famous and we’ve never drawn big crowds. It is a little funny and possibly ridiculous that we’re potentially writing the best music of our lives and still doing this, because it’s hard to get middle-aged folks out to the club and the younger kids can’t be bothered. The creative process and the hang with friends is truly the only reward here. The reality is that we don’t make any money and have to self-fund a lot of it, so it does seem fitting to our grind-it-out approach.

Sohrab: That title captures the reality of our band—many of the shows we play are set up as door deals (so the promoter or venue takes no financial risk and thus is more willing to book us) and we are constantly in debt. I’m happy to report that neither of those truths diminish our desire to do this. Apologies to our friends and families, as we will continue to harangue you about our new records and upcoming shows for the foreseeable future. 

Culling a 14-track collection from an extensive, detail-packed catalog can be daunting. How did you decide what made the cut? Was there any friction over fan favorites versus personal picks?

Jaws:  Sohrab and I put together a list of our favorites from each record, and we also asked about 25 friends of the band to give us their picks. We tallied the picks for each song and pretty much went with the songs that accumulated the most votes. There might have been a couple “band favorites” where a second or third place song in the voting got the nod. We’ve heard from a few people who wanted a different song on the collection, which is really flattering. Hopefully nobody is too bummed if one of their favorites didn’t make the cut. There were a lot of songs to choose from!

Sohrab:  It was actually a lot of fun to figure out. And really generous of our friends to listen and submit their selections, sometimes picking tunes that weren’t on the list we’d given them. To start, Jaws and I chose 3 of our own tracks from each album, so we began this project with 42 songs and carved it down to 14. For a while we were toying with the idea of also releasing a cassette that had an additional 14 tunes, but figured it might be asking too much of people, particularly if the point was to whittle down a catalog of more than 100 songs to no more than 14% of that. The good news is that if you like what’s on Door Deals & Debt, there’s plenty of digging still to do!

I heard Eli Kasan from The Gotobeds wrote the liner notes and threw in his own tracklist suggestion, though apparently only four of his picks made the final cut. What was it like getting that outside perspective from a fellow underground musician, and why did you end up overruling most of his list?

Jaws: We love Eli and The Gotobeds and SAVAK’s very first show was with The Gotobeds at the Cake Shop. He’s been a true friend and along for the ride the entire time. Eli’s picks were great! Sadly some of the others ended up getting more votes so, no offense! Thankfully he has a GREAT sense of humor and is a total smart ass too.

Sohrab: Eli rules. He’s a lifer and he has exquisite taste in music. And along with a big heart, he knows where to get a good laugh. What more do you want in a comrade? We are delighted he was willing to put his name on paper for us.

A song like “Like Gary Wilson Said” or “Vis-a-Vis” showcases your knack for blending wiry guitars with stubborn, immediate hooks. Looking across the 14 tracks on Door Deals And Debt, is there a particular song that you feel best embodies the core DNA of SAVAK?

Jaws: Thank you! Both of those are among my favorites. It’s a difficult question though, because I’m not sure there’s one particular song of the 100+ tunes we’ve written that is that embodiment. I think we also try not to limit ourselves or go for a particular “sound” so I’m not sure I have an answer!

Sohrab: Thanks! This collection, like our regular albums, jumps around from track to track. My hope was that you could put the needle down anywhere and start from there with the same end result. I think between having two singers and remaining committed to expanding our musical vocabulary beyond just “post-punk,” our records are more like mix-tapes than adhering to a singular musical subgenre. So on the Door Deals & Debt mix-tape you get The Jam, Voidoids, Sonic Youth, The Church, REM, The Scientists, The Fall, Saints, Velvet Underground, Pailhead, The Sound, Saccharine Trust, New Order, and The Dream Syndicate. If someone gave you a mix with those bands and you were excited to listen to it, we have an album we’d like you to hear!

You share songwriting and lead vocal duties, which gives the band a built-in conversational quality. Over ten years, how has your writing partnership evolved? Do you still push and pull against each other’s ideas in the same way, or do you have a shorthand now?

Jaws: I’d like to think Sohrab and I have evolved as songwriting partners. I think our intuitions are more finely tuned to each other and I’d like to think that we’re better at communicating our ideas. We’ve been doing this together long enough now and I think we just know and trust each other. We also have similar goals in not limiting ourselves and we both push each other to explore new ideas or pathways to get to the final song. It also varies from song to song, as sometimes one person has a song that’s more or less finished when it’s introduced and sometimes it’s a more collaborative process.

Sohrab: As our friendship has evolved, our ability to sonically tune in to each other has grown as well. I know my songs would not be as good without Jaws’s input. He has top shelf musical instincts and is a ripper of a guitar player. 

Your sound pulls from everywhere, ’60s garage, ’70s pub rock, ’80s post-punk, and international grooves outside the standard Anglo-American rock canon. When introducing these influences into a track, how do you keep the arrangements lean and punchy without losing momentum?

Jaws: I think it comes down to trusting our intuitions and using our wide musical vocabulary as a reference when we’re writing and arranging a tune. There’s much to learn from so many great bands who came before us, and as huge fans of so much music, it’s a fun process to think about different touchpoints and try to craft them to our own vision.

Sohrab: We try not to overthink it and hope that whatever ends up in the stew adds to the flavor. Essentially we are distilling what we like listening to through a guitar-oriented rock music filter. So it doesn’t matter if I’m listening to Hamza El Din playing the oud or Johnny Burnette singing rockabilly classics—by the time those ideas make it into a Savak song they have passed through my particular lens and limitations.

Looking back at your vast discography, from Cut-Ups and Beg Your Pardon up through last year’s SQUAWK!, is there an underappreciated deep cut or weird left turn that didn’t make the collection, but holds a special place for you?

Jaws: Yeah, there are probably a few misfit songs that don’t seem to fit in as well, but I still like to think of them as a part of one happy family. For me, songs like “Living Will,” “Oddsmaker,” “Dealers,” and “Bad Omen” probably fit that description.

Sohrab: I always like the quiet songs most: “They Are Not Like Us,” “We’ve Been Disappearing,” “Dumbinance,” “Attribution,” and “American Vernacular.” I’m hoping at some point we make an album of just quiet songs. Something to listen to at the end of the night that has the beauty of the Mark Hollis solo record or maybe the delicate shimmer of The Blue Nile.

Running your own imprint, Peculiar Works, alongside releasing records through Ernest Jenning Record Co. has kept SAVAK rooted in a fiercely independent ethos. How vital has having total control over your output been to maintaining the band’s momentum over the last decade?

Jaws: It’s been really amazing working with Pete at Ernest Jenning, and he has been extremely supportive and helpful over the years. We have a great arrangement with him that allows us to be as productive as we want, and thankfully he seems to like us and what we do, so we don’t usually get any push back. This band has never been in the situation where we’ve had any friction against what we want to do, and we’re grateful that we can keep releasing new music and can keep on chooglin’.

Sohrab: Having grown up with Dischord Records as the model for how things are done, running our own operation just seems like the natural way to do what we do, and our arrangement with Ernest Jenning suits us perfectly, as it lets us proceed as we wish.

Brooklyn’s venue landscape and music scene have shifted dramatically since 2015. How has the city influenced your evolution over the last ten years, and what does it mean to celebrate this release with a home-turf afternoon party at Mama Tried?

Jaws: We’re fairly small-time, so luckily we’ve been able to stay insulated from much of the big money / venue consolidation BS that has shaped the venue landscape. It’s always a drag to hear about venues closing or being bought by Live Nation, but thankfully we have good friends at places like Mama Tried and Union Pool, and they always seem to let us play when we’re looking for a show. We love Mama Tried and the people who work there, and we’ve never not had an incredible time playing there or going to a show there.

Sohrab: The corporate disassembly of the arts is always a drag. Doesn’t matter if it’s venues being bought up by global entertainment conglomerates or DIY spaces being converted into high-end condos. That said, I think the reason we usually play at Mama Tried or Union Pool or their equivalent rooms around the world is that those are the places we feel most comfortable. It’s where we like to see other bands play, where we share cultural and political interests with the people who run and staff and attend events in those spaces.

You’re a group of underground-rock lifers with deep history in bands like Obits, Edsel, The Cops, Virgin Islands, and Holy Fuck. How does accumulated experience change the way you navigate the practical, day-to-day realities of being in a touring band today compared to when you were starting out?

Jaws: I think the short answer is, we just have a better idea of how we like to do things, what’s realistic, and what our bodies and brains can handle. I think, in some of those earlier bands, we had some aspirations of being a “bigger” band, on a bigger label with a team of people working to help the band’s audience grow. But realistically that ship has sailed for us, and I think we’re more at home playing DIY shows with friends and keeping it real. We obviously don’t do this for a living, so we’d rather make it fun, interesting and rewarding to us as humans.

Sohrab: We are lucky to have made lasting friendships with people in Nottingham, Lyon, San Diego, Melbourne, etc. These cornerstones are what allow us to do what we do. The folks who help us book shows, lend us equipment, open their homes to us, and make inspired and inspiring music are the lifeblood of bands like Savak. And that’s something that gets built over time.

Right after the Brooklyn release show, you’re heading across the pond for a UK tour. How do you translate a “decade retrospective” into a single live set list? Will you be leaning strictly on the Door Deals And Debt tracklist, or digging deeper into the vault?

Jaws: We are definitely going to lean heavily into the Door Deals and Debt tracklist for our UK tour, but we’ll play some other live favorites as well.

Sohrab: We swapped out some of the Door Deals tunes for things that we thought would be particularly fun to play with Alexis on drums, since he is thumping the tubs for us on this tour.

How much room do you leave for spontaneous jamming or changing arrangements on stage when you’re on tour?

Jaws: Very little! Although it does happen sometimes! Our friend, and sometimes SAVAK tour drummer, Alexis Fleisig will be on the kit for this tour, so we’ll see what he’s up for!

Sohrab: Though the tempos don’t always match the recorded versions, we usually play the songs pretty straight. But there are parts of several songs that can stretch out if we’re feeling it, which we usually do to some degree.

Once the celebratory release shows and UK dates wrap up, are you already writing the next chapter, or are you allowing yourselves a moment to pause and take in the milestone?

Jaws: Our next record is already finished! We flew to Tasmania and recorded 12 songs with Michael Beach and our friends Nick Brown and Mat Watson played bass and drums, respectively. We’re calling them our Melbourne wrecking crew, and it turned out really great. We recorded at this magical studio about an hour outside of Hobart and had an incredible time. Currently working on tour plans for next year!

Sohrab: I’m hoping the next chapter involves visiting some places we have yet to see. I really love the traveling part of being in a band. Walking around, getting a coffee and a bite to eat, check out the local happenings.

If you could send a message back to yourselves in 2015 when you were first forming SAVAK in Brooklyn, what advice or warning would you give?

Jaws: I don’t think my perspective or expectations have changed much in the past 10 years. I’m really happy for all the experiences I’ve had and people I’ve met since we’ve started. I think the only advice I’d give is that, if you want to sleep on tour it’s probably better to stay at a hotel over someone’s house and don’t forget to bring earplugs for sleeping! It’s also always worth it to hang with homies and definitely do the work to stay connected to the good people you meet along the way!

Sohrab: Trust few, fear none. Just kidding. I’ve never been good at listening to advice, so remain reticent about doling it out.

Thank you so much for your time. Anything you would like to say to our readers before we wrap this up?

Jaws: Thanks for taking the time to ask these questions and thank you to everyone who’s bought a record or come to a show over the past 10 years! Here’s to 10 more!

Sohrab: Thanks for giving us your time. There are a lot of options out there for what to listen to and read and pay attention to. We appreciate anyone who is willing to direct some of that headspace towards us.