Yossi Sassi

Early years

Sassi grew up in Petah Tikva, Israel. His father was a firefighter who enjoyed singing, and his mother Tamara a housewife. Sassi's father, David, comes from a family of 10 brothers and sisters, all of whom play an instrument, sing, or do both. His grandfather and namesake, Yossef Sassi, played the oud and chanted traditional religious songs. At age 7, Sassi learned to play the flute, and later sang in the school choir, and his interest in music grew when he encountered the guitar around the age of 14 during a visit to his uncle. Sassi borrowed the guitar, took some lessons from guitar teachers, but eventually decided to teach himself, practicing for 8 to 10 hours per day for years. Sassi dropped out of high school at age 17 to focus on his band Orphaned Land, combining Middle Eastern elements with metal music.

Career

Yossi Sassi blends East with West, Rock with world music, melodic tunes with progressive passages, and traditional folk instruments with electric riffs. Sassi, signed to Warner Music/Verycords, has over 20 years of experience as a producer, composer-arranger and founding member of Orphaned Land.

Yossi plays 17 different types of guitars and traditional instruments, and has been invited to play live and share the stage with artists such as Metallica, Marty Friedman, Steven Wilson, Yehuda Poliker, and others.

Yossi Sassi is a first level endorsing artist of PRS Guitars, Engl Amps, Elixir Strings, and Electro-Harmonix.

Yossi Sassi has cooperated and recorded with artists from Kuwait to Portugal. He has hundreds of global shows and major festivals under his belt, including approximately 100 shows in 30 countries performed in 2010.

Orphaned Land

Unusual for a band from Israel, Orphaned Land has built a following among Muslims and Arabs.

Founded in 1991, the band released the demo The Beloved's Cry in 1992. The band was signed by Holy Records and Sahara (1994) and El Norra Alila (1996) were well-received by reviewers. Later the band signed with Century Media USA and released Mabool in 2004, garnering over 250,000 copies in sales.

The band's 2010 release, titled The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOR, was recommended by Kirk Hammett of Metallica in Metal Hammer magazine.

On January 6, 2014, Sassi released an official statement in which he announced his decision to part ways with his life work in Orphaned Land, due to various reasons, and focus on "new dreams" and "creative, innovative, authentic music that unites people".

Solo career

Since 2011, Yossi Sassi founded his own solo group, with musicians from various genres, including Ben Azar on guitars (jazz/fusion guitarist), Shay Ifrah on drums and Or Lubianiker (Project R'n'L, Marty Friedman) on bass guitar. In his solo work, Sassi merges rock with traditional folk music, blending instrumental pieces with melodic vocals. Yossi's debut release as a solo artist was titled Melting Clocks.

His solo work featuring musicians such as ex-Megadeth member Marty Friedman, this album incorporates traditional instruments such as saz, bouzouki, oud, cümbüş and others.

In January 2014 Sassi announced the album Desert Butterflies, a conceptual piece, rich and diverse, continuing where he left off with his debut solo release, Melting Clocks, and the "oriental rock" genre he's been pioneering and redefining. It includes musical collaborations with Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal (Guns N' Roses), Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth), Mariangela Demurtas (Tristania), and more. Desert Butterflies was released in May 2014 worldwide, and welcomed with very positive reviews from leading industry magazines ("Truly progressive, truly original, demolishing boundaries ..." – Prog Magazine's Rich Wilson). The 3rd album, Roots and Roads, was released on May 25, 2016, receiving highly commendatory reviews from the media. Roots and Roads was submitted for the 2016 Grammy's award consideration.

Creative process

Sassi composes intuitively, seeing music as "layers". His compositions and arrangements account for parts of the orchestration such as rhythmic patterns, melodies, and harmonies. Sassi prefers to compose the song in its entirety, from drums to vocal arrangements, although he has done arrangements for other artists such as Diana Golbi.

Sassi prefers to compose while playing acoustic instruments, mainly his nylon-string or acoustic guitars. He has also composed songs while playing the bouzouki, oud, saz, cümbüş etc., and later arranged for modern instruments. Sassi admitted that this is his "secret" formula for the unique sound of Orphaned Land's metal music.

Sassi is influenced by American guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani, Turkish multi-instrumentalist Omar Faruk Tekbilek and the world-music duo Dead Can Dance.

Shows and touring

Sassi has performed hundreds of global shows and festivals worldwide. He has been quoted saying that his opening show for Metallica was one of the top moments in his career, together with his Guitar Universe Tour alongside his friend, ex-Megadeth guitarist, Marty Friedman. The Guitar Universe Tour is a G3-like tour of guitarists from around the world giving their own interpretation to the guitar (Middle Eastern, Japanese etc.).

Bouzoukitara

In 2011, Sassi decided to create an instrument that would later become an "embodiment of his musical journey". What first began as seeking an efficient way to switch between his acoustic Greek bouzouki to his electric guitar gave birth to the "bouzoukitara", a unique instrument that combines a traditional acoustic bouzouki with an electric solid-body guitar. Together with luthier Benjamin Millar he was able to transform his idea and design into reality. The double-neck instrument has a shared surface, so when one guitar is played it resonates to the open strings of the other guitar, thus it allows Sassi to produce some unique sound layers, for example when playing the electric guitar while recording the bouzouki going through a pre-amp or overdrive, capturing the overtones it generates. In the summer of 2013, Sassi announced he had begun working on Mark II of his design, to be completed in early 2014.

Philosophy

Alongside his successful musical career, multiple peace awards, etc., Yossi Sassi is a former employee of Microsoft and other organizations, who one day decided to fulfil his musical calling. He now pursues music production of his oriental rock music. Today he travels the world to share his knowledge, life, and professional experiences.

Yossi Sassi believes in the power of music to bring people together by bridging cultural differences and national strife. During his career he has witnessed how music influences people in unusual ways. Yossi Sassi has a large Muslim following in the Arab world that appreciates his ability to produce and create authentic and respectful oriental music in spite of personal perils they might be exposed to in their homelands.