Hank and Cupcakes

Hank & Cupcakes
Hank & Cupcakes on stage at Voodoo Experience 2015. Photo by Haskell Whittington
Background information
Origin	Tel Aviv, Israel
Genres	Alternative, Indie pop, Indie rock, grunge, Post-punk
Years active	2008 – present
Labels	BMG Rights Management
Website	http://www.hankandcupcakes.com
Members	Sagit Shir (born September 5, 1980) Ariel Scherbacovsky (born October 27, 1979)

Sagit Shir (born September 5, 1980)

Hank & Cupcakes are an Atlanta-based indie rock-pop duo formed in 2008 in Tel Aviv, Israel. The group consists of husband-and-wife Ariel "Hank" Scherbacovsky (bass guitar) and Sagit "Cupcakes" Shir (drums, vocals). They took their name as a reference to Hank Chinaski, the literary alter ego of American writer Charles Bukowski and one of his real-life lovers, Pamela "Cupcakes" Wood. On October 22, 2012, the band released their Ain't No Love EP on BMG Rights Management, with the first single "Sweet Potion" being premiered by MTV Hive on October 9, 2012. Their full-length debut album, Naked, was released July 2, 2013. The group's second LP, Cash 4 Gold, followed in 2014. Their third album, Cheap Thrill, was released July 1, 2016.

The couple first met when they were nineteen years old while playing in a band in the Israeli Army in 1999. Shir was a singer in the band, while Scherbacovsky was the sound technician. The couple continued to play music together in different projects following their time in the army, starting with a cover band performing songs by The Beatles, Suzanne Vega, Tori Amos and Paul Simon. They eventually founded a band called Maim Shketim (Hebrew for "silent water") with guitarist Ronnie Reshef in 2002, and began writing original songs and developing their own musical style, eventually releasing an album entitled Observations. The trio broke up four years later when guitarist Reshef relocated to New York City to study classical composition in 2006. Shir and Scherbacovsky were married that summer in Tel Aviv.

In 2007, the couple decided to study Cuban music in Havana, Cuba and enrolled in Spanish classes at Havana University to obtain student visas. Once there, they studied privately with drummer Ramses Rodriguez Baralt, who has played and recorded with world-renowned jazz musicians such as Chucho Valdés, Ibrahim Ferrer and Roberto Fonseca. Shir and Scherbacovsky practiced four to seven hours a day in addition to studying music theory and attending classes at the university. Originally, they had planned on staying in Cuba for an entire year but the stress of living under a totalitarian regime became very difficult for the couple and they returned to Israel six months later. During this transitional period, they began working on new material together (which would later become the music of Hank & Cupcakes) and realized they needed a change to expose themselves to new things in order to continue growing and evolving as artists. They set their eyes on New York where they assumed they would meet other musicians to fill out the rest of their band. However, after rehearsing daily for several months together, Shir and Scherbacovsky discovered that they had found their musical style and didn't need other musicians to complete the group. Shortly thereafter, Hank & Cupcakes had their first-ever performance at Sublime Club on April 23, 2008 in Tel Aviv.