About the Band

The Gil Ofarim Band!

    Since youth, Gil has shown immense musical talent, richly influenced by his father and manager, Abi Ofarim, a famous singer from the late 60's and 70's, who, together with Esther Ofarim, produced the hit Cinderella Rockerfella, and has over 60 gold records to his name. At age 3, Gil, after having watcheda video by the band "The Who", went to his fathers guitar and re-enacted it, smashing his father's most valuable guitar. Fortunately, Abi was so happy about his son's interest and musical talent, and from then on, he supported and promoted Gil to work on his love of music.
     12 years later, Gil was a much accomplished musician, though little thought was put into making it a career at that point of time. Till one day when Gil was spotted at the subway by a talent scout from German magazine - Bravo, and was given an offer to appear in a photo love-story. Gil being an adventerous person took it up and was cast as Tobias in the series "2+2=Liebe.
     Soon after, due to Gil's immense popularity as the result of the role, it was decided that this was the best time for Gil to consider taking his music to a higher level, thus Gil released the single "Round 'n' Round (It Goes)", released in November of 1997. The entry of the single into the Top 40 charts in Germany was just a sign of thing to come. Then, Gil had to make a decision - whether to pursue a career in music, or in his other passion, tennis, at the current time he was playing for the German National Junior team and doing well.
     The debut album, aptly called "Here I Am" was set out on shelves in May of 1998, shortly after the 2nd single "Never Giving Up Now" was released in March of that year. By this time, Gil was already making his mark all around the world, "Here I Am" getting gold records in Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, and Taiwan, and plantinum records in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philppines. Two more singles were released in 1998, "If You Only Knew" in May, a collaboration with The Moffatts, and "Talk To You" which was released in November. With that, Gil became the first musician to have three titles in Thailand's Top 5 simultaneously.
     In between all that, Gil was also acting in the popular German soap "Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten" meaning Good Times, Bad Times, and sang in the charity singles "Let The Music Heal Your Soul" as well as another song called "Children Of The World" for an organization called charity '98.
     The first singel from the second album was "Walking Down The Line" released June of 1999 and was written by Leslie Mandoki and Laazlo Bencker. "Out Of My Bed (Still In My Head)" was released later on in September of 1999, with a music video that showed a more mature and rockier Gil. The song was initially written for another more well-known singer, but Gil was asked to do a demo and he impressed the writers so much, that the song was given to him instead. Gil aslo did a hugely popular cover of "It's Your Love", which was released as a special single in Korea only.
     After many delays, the 2nd album - "The Album" was released in Asia in February of 2000 months later than the forecasted summer of 1999 that it was supposed to have been released in. The album was set in an entirely different sounding collection of songs as compared to the 1st album, it was what you could say a distinct change in direction.
     Gils 2nd album offering was hugely successful in Asia, the only continent it was released in. "The Album" enjoyed high record sales in various countries, namely the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. However, flagging sales elsewhere prompted BMG Germany to drop him from their label. However it was also said that disagreements in management and the lack of support supposedly led to Gil's departure from BMG Germany.
     BMG put out Gil's last single with them "Live Your Dreams" in May of 2001 and with that, a music video shot in Indonesia. Later, the label also put forth a "Best Of Gil" album, containing 13 of Gil's most popular tracks from the previous two albums, and 3 unreleased songs. In late 2001, Gil managed to do a duet with Karylle, a singer from the Philippines. The song - "Calling" can be found on her debut album.
    Now Gil has found his new record company which happens to be Neotone, and has finally released "On My Own" in May of 2003 he is much happier with Neotone he says because they let him write the music that he wants to play. All music on the new album was written or co written by Gil he was in charge through the whole process and is now happy to have finally released something he can truely call his own work. With that also being meaning to the name of his new album, meaning he is free to write and have his music heard. And yet again the sounds have changed from his last album in this one as well, he is set more to a rock sound than a pop but you still know it's Gil.