13.10.2008 - Ahoora - Metal in Iran
About the band, metal and iran.
Ahoora
Ashkan, you are playing at AHOORA, a band from Iran. Iran is not very well known as a metal country. Why are so less metal bands coming from Iran?
The main reason of this sad fact is the quality of the musical activities in Iran. This country is suffering from a misunderstanding of art. Except for traditional and pop music which are not even half the normal supported and facilitated too, the necessary things like music schools, conservatories, and live performances are too limited, therefore there’s almost no real market even for our popular and traditional music; let alone the other genres and subgenres like heavy metal. Knowing these facts, only a few people do risk their lives and spend their time on developing something that is fully banned and one can’t count on it as a serious job to earn a living.
In Iran Metal is prohibited. Where are you rehearsing? Do you have to make sure nobody hears you?
Unfortunately it’s been a while that we haven’t rehearsed. But places like our ex drummer’s place and the guitarists’ own rooms used to be our rehearsal places. Not only in our country, but in every corner of the world it may be difficult to find a place for rehearsing the music that is too noisy and not favored by the common people. Mainly it depends on the neighbors, but here, this western music perform prohibition puts us in a situation that even after persuading the neighbors we have to be worry about the police and the related stuff. But totally it’s not too difficult to set practice sessions if you got the place.
What will happen if the police catch you while performing metal?
Luckily it hasn’t happened to us but as long as it’s not a common case and there are no clear rules and punishments set for these illegal activities they will treat the miserable arrested artists as they like! But the story is usually the same and they will be fined, their instruments will be taken, they’ll be probably convicted to be whipped and after all they should promise not to do such activities again. It depends on the situation and there may be harder punishments too.
Are you looking like metal-people? Mean, can you wear metal-jackets, patches or metal-shirts in public?
It’s forbidden too but some guys wear these kinds of clothes. The main problem is that Iranian media is somehow focused on social behavior’s disorders in the recent years and they use stupid TV programs and newspapers articles to relate the western cultures to demonic and satanic things. So if you wear your favorite band’s shirt and appear with long hair, tattoos and … in the street, knowing nothing about the different cultures and art, police can treat you as a Satanist or a wicked person! They look at things in an unbelievably foolish way, so wearing simple clothes and having a particular hairstyle might lead you to have bitter experiences.
In the western world we associate a metal party with drinking lots of beer. How are the metal parties in Iran? It's a Muslim country, and as far as I know it's prohibited for Muslims to drink alcohol.
There may be guys that like to arrange special parties as they do for different occasions and some of them serve alcoholic drinks. Although all these things are prohibited, people secretly do them. There’s no official metal party and we’ve never associated a metal party here.
Do you have anti-Muslim or state critical lyrics?
No. In lyrics writing we usually focus on literal and artistic beauty, conceptual stuff and the sounds that fits the music more; with almost no critical attitude.
How much people do you know in Iran who loves metal music?
Metal is the favorite genre of a lot of our friends, we also know some bands and head bangers; less than 50 persons.
You have released a CD. How are the feedbacks yet?
We have unofficially released 2 CDs. To be honest the feedbacks were so good from inside and outside Iran, the people who bought or anyhow listened to our works were so supportive and encouraged us a lot.
Did people support your band in the western world?
It may be strange that most of our supporters are from U.S. and the European Union. These people have been great to us and have helped us the best they could. There are several magazines, webzines and record labels from the west which have supported us in different ways like reviewing our album. All the feedbacks have helped us and made us feel so good about what we’ve been doing for years.
You cannot sell your CDs, cause of the restrictions of your country. Well, labels seem to be overrated these days. Are you glad with the options of download?
Well by the time our first album was out, some music stores of the capital started to sell our CDs illegally through a so-called underground market, but after months due to the new governments’ rules they stopped doing it. Almost a year later we were supposed to sell our first album worldwide with the help of a British label but before that and for the second album, uploading and downloading the files through the net helped us a lot and made it possible to send our music to the persons or labels who wanted to listen to our work.