A musician from Harrisonburg is now playing venues from Madison Square Garden to arenas in Australia and Europe with mega-star singer-songwriter Billie Eilish. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
I'll let David Byrne of the Talking Heads introduce the subject of this report.
[percussionists playing]
DAVID BYRNE: Harrisonburg, Virginia – Abe Nouri! [audience cheers, Nouri plays bass riff]
That's Abe Nouri, a 28-year-old multi-instrumentalist now living in Brooklyn, New York – when he isn't on tour with Billie Eilish, that is. He stopped in to the WMRA studios around Thanksgiving to talk about his career and new EP.
ABE NOURI: Yeah, I had a really, I would say, rich musical education here in Harrisonburg. I did the Shenandoah Valley Children's Choir when I was younger. I did theater and musical theater … band, marching band, choir, jazz band. I had my own band with some of my best friends here. It was called "Help Wanted."
Nouri studied jazz trombone at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, and graduated in 2018. When some of his friends moved to New York City, he followed them –
NOURI: … just started doing random music gigs, odd jobs, whatever, and then in 2021 … I got a phone call out of the blue from a friend of mine, and he was like … "there's this musical on Broadway, and it's David Byrne's musical."
As it turned out, the bass player for the theatrical concert, "American Utopia," was looking for an understudy for their second Broadway run.
NOURI: So at the end of the phone call he was like, "you're a bass player, right?" And I was like, "uh, yeah!" … I had to borrow a bass, and I like learned these songs, I practiced a lot and took a video, and I guess it was good enough, because it got me the audition!
Nouri ended up performing the last three weeks of the show – singing, dancing, and playing on stage alongside Byrne.
[clip from 2021 performance of "Burning Down the House," courtesy of Bob Adamek]
From there, Nouri's multifaceted talent continued to open doors. The "American Utopia" bassist asked Nouri to fill in for him on a tour with Carly Rae Jepsen. Then her keyboard player needed a sub. Then, Billie Eilish was in the market for a keyboard and synth player and a rhythm guitarist. They started touring this fall. He said one of the most awestriking shows thus far was performing on Saturday Night Live in October – squeezing past comedians such as Andy Samberg and Maya Rudolph in the halls of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
[clip of Billie Eilish and band performing "BIRDS OF A FEATHER" on SNL]
NOURI: It was kind of nerve-racking, because it's, you know, very live and a lot of people watch that, and it's happening in real time. … The song "BIRDS OF A FEATHER," I have a lot of kind of exposed synth parts and stuff that are pretty hot in the mix, so I was just like, I knew that I would be very heard!
Another performance that moved him was playing in Nashville the day after the election.
NOURI: That was just heavy on a lot of people … and regardless of how you felt about the election, I think just hearing great music by a great entertainer and sharing in this joy was kind of something that was needed at that time.
So, what do Billie Eilish and the band do for fun while on tour?
NOURI: We've been playing a lot of pickleball. … Sometimes we go to rock climbing gyms, which is – that's new to me. … When we were in Colorado, we went to this horse rescue.
One of Nouri's early mentors saw his skill and hunger for music from a young age. His childhood best friend's father, Bob Adamek – who calls Nouri a "bonus son."
BOB ADAMEK: You know, it's been an absolute blessing having Abe in our lives.
Adamek is himself a bassist, and a concert photographer who's shot everyone from Paul McCartney to Lauryn Hill to Willie Nelson. He would take the boys to music festivals, including Crawfish Fest in New Jersey – where Nouri got his first taste of playing with the pros. Adamek encouraged Nouri to take his instrument along to go see Trombone Shorty's cousin – Glen David Andrews – perform.
ADAMEK: And this woman saw a kid standing there holding the trombone, and she just walked right up to him, grabbed his arm holding the trombone and shoved it up in the air. And the second he did, Glen David pointed at him and said, "come here!" [laughs] And he winds up going up on stage … and he was, he was really hooked!
When he's not wowing crowds of 20,000 people, Nouri records his own music in his bedroom.
[clip of "Live For The Weekend" by Cheb Brahim]
His new EP, "Live For The Weekend," came out last month. Nouri performs solo under the name Cheb Brahim.
NOURI: My dad's side of the family is from Morocco, and they're Amazigh Moroccans, like Berber Moroccans. … I grew up listening to different types of Moroccan music, but one that really resonated with me was this music called Raï. … It's basically like this fusion of traditional North African singing, but with more electronic instruments. … I don't know, it's this music that I really get down with, and all of the male singers use the prefix "Cheb" as like, their artist name … and it kind of means like, young, or of the new generation. … So my name is Abraham, which, on my dad's side of the family, they call me Ibrahim, or Brahim is the shortened version of that. So I just decided I would take the "Cheb" and then do Cheb Brahim.
You can find his work on all streaming platforms.
