Martin Bemberg is a Fayetteville native and a longtime musician. Ozarks at Large last spoke with Martin in 2018 during his time in the group High Lonesome. He recently came to Ozarks At Large to speak with Ozarks at Large's Sophia Nourani about his solo career in rap music and his most recent EP, "Heaven Is a Place Downtown."
Sophia Nourani: You're a voice that we've heard on Ozarks at Large before with another group, and we'll get to that. But first, can you tell me a little bit about how you first personally got into playing music?
Martin Bemberg: I don't really know. I think I've been trying to write songs since before I can remember, but I know I started taking piano lessons at 3 years old. Not that I am a virtuoso or anything. I took piano lessons for some years. I went to Fayetteville High School, class of '06. Met my bandmates there for Reed Indeed, my first band. Shout out to Reed Phatak and Mary Kimbrough, Patrick George, who are all still active in music, actually. I kind of had my high school band, my college band, Memphis Pencils. I met those guys in college at the University of Arkansas. I didn't realize this at the time, but I was playing with all music majors. I moved to Austin and was broke in Austin for about six months, kind of like microdose living there.
Nourani: But you eventually returned to Fayetteville. Tell me a little bit about High Lonesome. We mentioned the band had been on Ozarks at Large before. Give us the background of how you guys got started.
Bemberg: I had some trials as a solo performer and everyone just wanted to see me with a band. So I booked a show for a band in August of 2013, I think. I put a show together at Nightbird Books, which is where — it's like the back room at Puritan. The bathrooms are in between like this breezeway. I booked a show there because it was a place where I knew I could book a show, so I did, and I was like, here's my deadline now to get a band together. So I got the guys together somehow. Miraculously, I can't imagine that happening now. It's so hard to get a band together. Every drummer is in like three bands. I actually had to teach myself to play bass guitar and sing. That's probably the highlight. A lot of people — what people might remember, at least from what I contributed to that band — a lot of people would probably think of the bass playing, and that was a big component of it. But I was also writing songs and figuring out songcraft and doing a lot of experimentation with form within some structural bounds. We're trying to write three- to four-minute songs, keep it to three, three-and-a-half minutes while having as many different sections as possible — having like six distinct sections in a three-and-a-half-minute song. I was writing songs for my guys. I had them in mind when I wrote these parts, like, here's a chord progression Sean will really like and really enjoy soloing over. Here's a groove that Dick will really enjoy playing drums to. Dick makes it sound like — and still does — like he's just in love with every song and every part that he's playing.
Nourani: I've listened to both. There's a significant difference in sound and the lyrics there. And I want to talk about that specifically. There's a lot of time in between then and now. Maybe tell me a little bit about the process leading up to "Heaven Is a Place Downtown," your most recent solo album.
Bemberg: High Lonesome was basically active until about 2018 and I just dropped off, and then COVID happened. So I was already — these are like dark-night-of-the-soul type stuff for a lot of people. And I went without really taking music seriously for like four years, from like 2018 to 2021, 2022. But I came out the other side of COVID pretty slowly, as I think a lot of people did. I started from scratch. I started making rap beats because I kind of had lost or sold all my instruments except for this MIDI controller keyboard and I had GarageBand. So I had a computer and I had a MIDI controller and I was like, well, what can I do with this? I can make beats. This album — many of the songs on this album are just written to impress girls. It's been kind of a departure from previous work.
Nourani: So you'd say that Young Haircut specifically focuses more on the personal and on the self?
Bemberg: I'd say so, yeah. A lot of love and longing songs on this record. The title track, "Heaven Is a Place Downtown," is kind of like — what's the opposite of a love affair with your hometown? Like, I don't know what the opposite is.
Nourani: Maybe a toxic —
Bemberg: Just kind of like a, well, let me tell you what happened. I went to New York City and I just fell in love with diversity and public transit. And that's the short version. So "Heaven Is a Place Downtown" is kind of like adjusting to being in a place that's comfortable, but also wanting to live someplace with more trains and fewer white people.
Nourani: You also shared that you had recently converted to Islam. Maybe talk a little bit about that. Does that have any sort of relation to why your sounds and your themes have shifted in such a way?
Bemberg: I don't know. That's a really good question because I feel like my life as an artist and my life as a Muslim have been kind of distinct. There is a mix in like the song "The Switch." "The Switch" is like — the two meanings of "the switch" are like converting religions, like switching, like becoming something new, switching from Christianity to Islam. And then also it's like a combination of the sacred and the profane and the battle between the two and becoming a Muslim, the process of trying to be a good Muslim. And this may be the better answer: I have always had a really deep spiritual connection to music. Music is basically what got me in church — being able to sing what I thought was beautiful music every Sunday in congress with other people. Singing together was like a huge part of why I went to church. And I've always felt a connection to God when making music.
Nourani: Where can people find your music?
Bemberg: Younghaircut.com. And more Young Haircut is my handle on Instagram. I'm on other platforms, but I've kind of narrowed it down to having the website and Instagram.
Martin Bemberg, also known as Young Haircut, spoke with Ozarks at Large's Sophia Nourani about his career in music and most recent release, "Heaven Is a Place Downtown." Their conversation took place at the Carver Center for Public Radio.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
