Michelle and Noel Keserwany are two highly intelligent young musicians, and sisters (if I believe what they tell me), who became overnight Youtube sensations in Lebanon. Before they had ever played their first serious gig, they had over 300 000 views on their Youtube page and were being invited on major Lebanese television stations. Basically they were stars in the making. This led us to wonder what the hell their PR strategy was and how we could follow in their footsteps. I met with the Noel half of the group at an unnamed coffee shop in Kaslik to ask for her advice and talk to her about other cool things.

Following the success of their first video Jagal el Usek (2011), Michelle and Noel decided to one up themselves with their next video/song/really cool stunt called 3al Jamal bi Wasat Beirut (On a Camel in the Middle of Beirut). They went up to Baalbek to find what are probably the only two camels in all of Lebanon, and then take them down to Beirut and film themselves riding the camels through the middle of Beirut’s glitzy downtown. Basically they were fucking with people’s perceptions and that was a winning effort in our books.

Adrian: “So what was the idea behind 3al Jamal bi Wasat Beirut?”

Noel Keserwany: “Well it was two things. One was that Michelle and I had both recently travelled abroad, myself to the United States and Michelle to Spain. While we were abroad we were shocked to find that most people had never even heard of Lebanon. If they had, or once we explained it to them, they would ask us if we rode camels. I mean it was funny, but it got really annoying. I would then usually ask them if I looked like someone who rode a camel. So that’s where the camels came in.

We chose to ride the camels through downtown as way to say that we feel that downtown is not for everybody. For us, downtown is only for a certain [rich] social class of people and it’s not for all Lebanese. It’s very fake and we thought riding the camels would be a good way to demonstrate this in a funny way.

We basically go the camels from the famous camel guy in Baalbeck, Abdul Aziz and took them to downtown Beirut. When we got there the security didn’t know what to do because we were two innocent girls; they didn’t know if they should stop us or laugh at us. At one point when they tried to stop us we would just say that this was what we ride in our village and we didn’t know it wasn’t allowed. We would just say that the camels were like our cars [laughs]

At the same time we had a whole group of friends spread out over downtown with the iPhones to film all of the different reactions of people. This worked really well. We had two normal cameras as well, following the camels, but the friends really played a big role.

Michelle and Noel [right] Keserwany performing at Metro al Madina

Adrian: “So you guys have had this success on Youtube with over 300 000 hits. You’re basically superstars now, right?”

Noel: uuuuuuhhh [hesitation] we are kind of aiming for that [laughs]….yeah we would really love to be superstars you know…[laughs]

Adrian: “What’s the goal with your music?”

Noel: “For us we are trying to write about everyday problems in a funny and positive way, and in a way which is constructive. People are always wining and nagging and we don’t think this helps and it won’t get our message across. We want to highlight important issues for people in an effective way. If you use a little bit of humor your message will reach a lot more people.

You know, I know your website (www.2famous.tv). It’s cool, you guys are funny, but the message is serious. This is what we are trying to do as well.”

Adrian: “Are you not afraid to put your foot into politics?”

Noel: “No, not at all. We are actually planning some new projects which will deal with the [possibly] upcoming elections [in Lebanon]. We are trying to encourage people to be involved in a reasonable and responsible way. If you are not caring about politics it is either because you are afraid or because you are lying. All you hear today from young people in Lebanon is how they don’t care about politics and that it has nothing to do with them. But, that’s not true because when you pay taxes or even fill your car with benzene it is tied to politics. So, it’s important, but it should be dealt with in logical way, not a fanatical way.”

Adrian: “Your first video, for your song Jagal el Usek, was relatively simple. You shot it with one camera in an empty theatre. However, the video received hundreds of thousands of hits on Youtube. Were you planning for this? Were you aiming for this kind of attention?”

Noel: “You can’t imagine how unplanned it was. The song itself is Michelle’s. We would always write songs together and play with friends on Saturday nights and stuff. We would just pass a guitar around, and one night Michelle played Jagal el Usek. What happened was one of the friends recorded her playing it and that recording began to get passed around. One year later, Michelle got an email from a friend who told her to check out this awesome song. The song was Jagal el Usek and Michelle flipped out because it was her song. Basically the song had just circulated for one year without us even knowing. At that point we had a friend who decided he was going to make a video for us and that was it. The video itself was basically just an edited casting reel of all of our friends who came out to audition for the video. So even that was pretty unplanned.”

Adrian: “Once the video was made and it was put on Youtube, what did you do to gain so much attention? How did it circulate?”

Noel: “For this I really have no idea. We didn’t do anything. We are not good at promoting ourselves, but we are lucky to have friends who really spread it around. Plus, right now this is the case of social media. Even with the Arab Spring you can see it. Either people love you and everyone knows you, or nobody knows you. The only thing we really did was build the Facebook account and the Twitter account. We are using Twitter and we are using Facebook.”

Adrian: “So is the bottom line fun as well?”

Michelle: “Of course, we trying to enjoy ourselves and also to work. It’s not only me a Michelle that our having fun, it’s also our friends and the people who come to see us. We are really trying to make this a contagious thing for people to enjoy themselves. It’s like a little workshop [of fun], and it’s really working.

Adrian: “Are you guys actually sisters?”

Noel: “Well actually we are not too sure about that [laughs]. I think so….hahahaha.
Yes, we are sisters [smiles], there are four of us. We have an older brother who’s 29 and he’s cool…”