Todd Herzog is a mellow, down-to-earth Jewish singer-songwriter from Phoenix, Ariz. His songs are sung with such passion and sincerity, which leaves you listening to them over and over. Here’s how I got on during an interview with this spiritual guru.

Can you tell us about your music background?
I never imagined myself going into the Jewish market; that’s something that happened organically over the past couple of years. I sang in choruses, was in a band in high school, sang in an a capella group in college and studied jazz at New England Conservatory of Music. After college I decided to give the music industry a go and headed to California, where I put out my first album.

What inspires you when you’re writing your music?
Recently, I’ve kind of gotten onto a more spiritual tangent. Initially, I was writing a lot of secular music, and even then there was always this underlying spirituality that motivated the songs. I always incorporated images of nature, so definitely images from the natural world inspired me. Now I’m doing more overtly Jewish types of music. For my album Proverbs, I took quotes from the Bible and from different rabbis and philosophers and incorporated them into my music.  

Can you tell us a little bit about your Jewish background?
I grew up Reform. I never went to Jewish summer camps, but I went to Hebrew school starting in the third grade. I really enjoyed the academic side of things, learning Hebrew and preparing my bar mitzvah portion, but somehow it just didn’t connect with me. After my bar mitzvah, I thought I’d fulfilled my responsibilities and I went away from it. I wasn’t involved much in the Jewish community throughout college, but the experience of having lost somebody made me come back and search for a deeper meaning in life.

It wasn’t until I met my wife, Karen, that I really became involved in the Jewish community again. I went to some events with her and ended up meeting a singer-songwriter named Craig Taubman, who introduced me to other people in the Jewish community. I started traveling and performing with him a little bit. Now I’m a cantorial soloist and I travel around the country, doing services and concerts. It has really developed into a big part of who I am, and it’s as much of a surprise to me as it is to anyone else who knew me previously!

Which song do you like performing the most?
“Tree of Life” because I feel that it’s certainly not a new subject matter, but there is a new perspective on it. When I take stories from Hebrew texts and make them personal, people really get a kick out of it since they’re not used to hearing Jewish music that speaks to them in the same way. When I returned to the high school I used to work at, the students’ celebration was based on this idea of the tree of life, and ironically I created the song without their knowledge. When I performed it, they really enjoyed it. They said it’s such cool Jewish music because it’s not overtly religious or preachy, and something that “if we didn’t hear a couple of Hebrew words in the chorus we would think that we could hear it on the radio.” I like seeing the reactions, especially from younger people who aren’t used to hearing that kind of Jewish music.

What do you do when you’re not writing or performing?
We spend a lot of time at the barn. We don’t have kids yet, so animals are our family. We have three horses, two dogs and a guinea pig, so a lot of our time is spent taking care of them. We like to do yoga, run, hike and swim, go out to eat or have coffee together, see movies and spend time with our animals.

What other projects are in store for you in the near future?
I’m currently working on a new recording, which will be more overtly Jewish than Proverbs. The goal of this album is to bridge the perceived gap between religion and spirituality. In addition to that, I’m working as an artist-in-residence at Vocal Music at the JCC Maccabi ArtsFest in Minneapolis in August. I’m also an artist-in-residence with four local Jewish day schools here in the Phoenix area. We are working together to create more awareness for the arts, so we’re starting this year with the musical portion of things. We’re working on creating a song that will be about the 60th anniversary of Israel. I’m interested to see what Israel represents to American Jewish children, and how that varies whether they’re in grade school, junior high or high school.

For more information on Todd and to listen to his music and view performances, visit his website at toddherzog.com. To enter to win one of five copies of Proverbs, click HERE.

Mandy is 18 and currently at university studying journalism and psychology. She loves fashion, travelling, learning new languages and going to the movies.