Hanni El Khatib, courtesy.

I met up with Hanni El Khatib roughly an hour before the former Bay Area resident took the stage last week at the Fox Theater in Oakland. Our interview wound from his interests in music and the creation of his new album, Moonlight, to other pastimes. It was interrupted a few times by passersby, which made for some fun storytelling for me. Read the full story in Paste. A couple of questions I found interesting but couldn’t squeeze into the story are below.

Do you have any desire to create more realigned covers, likes the ones you wrote for your debut album? (On 2011’s “Will The Guns Come Out, El Khatib used the original lyrics for three old tunes, including “You Rascal You” and “Heartbreak Hotel,” but rewrote the music to create more ominous moods).

Hanni El Khatib: I love doing it. … Lately I felt like when I’ve tried to redo something completely different, I felt like I’m wasting the music I could write (for myself). I’ve thought of a song, and I would try to tackle it, and the song totally goes in another direction, and I’m like, “Oh, I’m just going to use this for myself.”

I got denied on some publishing shit when I definitely rewrote all the music but just used the lyrics. The big publishers – they just want all the money to themselves, so they’re not trying to give me credit for it. The big dudes are taking all the money for several of the songs that I reimagined. Let’s just say that I’m not seeing what they’re seeing. I’ve not even seen a dime from all that stuff. When I’m doing a cover now, I’m like, “Oh, I should just do a ‘cover’ cover,” and pay homage to the song.

Coming from a world of creative design (El Khatib was the creative director for s skateboarding lifestyle brand, and helps run Innovative Leisure records), I’m sure you know how important image is to artists. Is your public persona your artistic image, or is it really you?

Hanni El Khatib: If you ask anybody who knows me, I’ve been pretty consistent throughout my life… The music element and the aesthetic behind it is the byproduct of my personality just coming out. I do think visuals, and I think about art the way my records are packaged and presented to people.