Music
The school assignment was simple: bring something to class that describes you.
Bar Yosef Ashkenazy — now known as Bar Bionic — brought headphones.
“I realized that I have so many broken headphones that I used because I used a lot of headphones growing up,” he says.
He didn’t just wear the headphones to listen to music, but to block out the noise around him. Bar says he was bullied in school, so he turned his music to full volume so he wouldn’t hear the insults.
“It was like my safety, like a bubble that I used to live in to protect me from the world,” Bar says.
The second half of the assignment proved more difficult: become the thing you brought.
“How the hell am I going to become headphones right now?” Bar remembers thinking.
That class assignment would unknowingly set Bar on the path to creating the Bar Bionic art project — and a visually striking wig made of headphones.
The wig has since taken on many lives. The first real version of the wig, made by hat-maker Lisa Shaub, took nine months to create. Shaub sewed the headphones into a cape, with Bar doing a fitting every 20 or so headphones to make sure the wig fit.
“The first wig was a nightmare,” he says. “We changed a lot of things. We had so many ideas that didn't work. We had to redo everything a couple of times, so it was a long process.”
But when he put the wig on for the first time, it was like discovering his “superhero self.”
Now based in Los Angeles, Bar worked with Jack Hunter to create a shorter — and lighter — version of the wig that he calls his “cyber wig.” It’s all part of the performance.
“I'm a storyteller. I'm a writer. I like to tell stories through art performance,” Bar says.
His stories are honest, and painful.
“There's a lot of pain when I'm doing music because I'm opening traumas. This is how I deal with mental health,” Bar says. “I just write about everything that bothers me and I make art out of it.”
That art took shape as his 2025 debut album, BiPAP Tempo.
A BiPAP machine delivers people oxygen at night when they can’t breathe on their own, whether from sleep apnea or heart failure.
“What gives me oxygen is tempo, it’s music, it's dance music,” Bar says. “It's a mental health album where I talked about all my issues, and now I feel like I'm more healed.”
Because of that, Bar is changing his name.
“I'm no longer attached to that name anymore. I don't feel numb anymore,” Bar says.
Upon the release of his sophomore album, which he’s currently preparing, he’ll be known simply as Bars.
Bar says the new album is completely different from anything he’s created before.
“I come from theater. Be careful. I like to change a lot.”
Bar is bringing his performance art to Whisky a Go Go on Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard on June 17.
“The show itself is going to talk about what Hollywood doesn't talk about, which is show business,” Bar says. He’s inspired by what people are willing to sacrifice for fame in Hollywood.
If it sounds exciting, that’s exactly what Bar wants.
“Pop music is fun. It's not supposed to be hard. And I want to bring that excitement back.”
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