Rami Fortis

Rami Fortis (; born 7 July 1954), or simply Fortis, is an Israeli rock singer. Born in Tel Aviv, Fortis became known as a pioneer of Israeli punk rock. Due to his behaviour on stage he was nicknamed The Madman (HaMeshuga).

Apart from his work in music, Rami Fortis served as a judge for the first season of The X Factor Israel.

Biography

Rami Fortis is of Italian-Jewish and Iraqi-Jewish origin. He served in the 1973, Yom Kippur War and was influenced by his experiences at the front. He began his musical career in 1975 as a lighting-man in the shows of Tamuz - one of Israel's prominent rock groups at that time. The band would get him on stage to sing one or two songs in their concerts.

His 1978 debut album, Plonter, is considered a breakthrough in Israeli music. It was regarded as one of the wildest and noisiest albums ever to be recorded in Israel, way ahead of its time. Influenced by such artists as The Clash, Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop and The Ramones, it was characterized by topics and a style that were unfamiliar and unconventional in Israel at the time.

A group of his Tel Aviv friends, guitar player Berry Sakharof (with whom Fortis had played in S.O.B), bass player Malka Spigel (who was Fortis' girlfriend at the time) & singer/ poet Samy Birnbach (who had contributed lyrics to Plonter) formed Minimal Compact in 1981 in Amsterdam. The band established itself as an alternative rock band in Europe, signing to Belgium's Crammed Records label, making two albums and adding the Dutch drummer Max Franken. In 1984, Fortis was asked to join and stayed with them up to the first split in 1988. He was part of the line up which produced the band's two best known albums: Deadly Weapons produced by Tuxedomoon's Peter Principle and Raging Souls produced by Wire's Colin Newman. Later albums included a collaboration with Mashina's Shlomi Bracha. Since 2004 the collaboration with Berry Sakharof has been revived with the reformation of the duo Fortisakharof.

When Fortisakharof disbanded, Fortis started a new band, first with drummer/producer Yuval Shafrir, then joined by Oren Kaplan on guitar and Amir Rosiano ("Jango") on bass. The band was named Fortis Brothers and recorded two albums, Cop, Criminal and the Whispering Giant (1994) and Where Are The Horses? (1996), at their own studio FAFA near the Carmel Market with sound engineer Dadi Tal, who also mixed both albums.

In September 2001, the film 1999?, directed by Israel Yerushalmi and documenting Fortis during the 1999 elections and the political turmoil of that year, was screened at festivals and cinematheques.

In 2008, Fortis was featured on the documentary movie On the Move about Ehud Banai and the Refugees.

In 2011, Fortis released an album called The Friend I, influenced by Nikola Tesla. His band for the album consisted of guitarist Ido Agmon, bassist Gil Smetana, and Yuval Shafrir on drums (the latter two also having been part of the original line-up of Fortisakharof), and the album was recorded and mixed by Shafrir at his studio in Tel Aviv.

Discography

1978 – Plonter (Tangle), 1988 – Sipurim Mehakufsa (Tales from the Box), 1990 – 1900? (Fortisakharof) 1992 – Lehitraot Bechalomotai (See You in My Dreams), 1992 – Kshehagitara Menaseret Et Halaila (When the Guitar Saws the Night) (Live, Fortisakharof), 1994 – Shoter Poshea VeHa’anak Halochesh (Cop Crook and the Whispering Giant), 1996 – Eifo Hasusim (Where are the Horses) (Fortis Bros.), 1998 – Ratz Al Haketzeh (Running on the Edge) (With Shlomi Bracha), 2001 – Hatzi Otomati (Semi Automatic), 2006 – Al Hamishmeret (On Guard) (Fortisakharof), 2009 - Fortis Meshulash (Triangle, also meaning Triple) (3-cd set), 2011 - Hachaver Ani (The Friend I), 2015 - Toldot Hackoteret (History of the title), 2017 - Mador Feiyot (Fairy section),