A Glance over Metal from an Iranian's Point of View
| Written by: | Mephistopholes1 |
| Published: | July 21, 2013 |
Note: This is a somewhat brief look into the history of metal inside Iran, based on my own personal knowledge and experiences.
Being an active member of Metal Storm, you'd probably noticed the huge amount of Iranian users on this site - even though most of them use this site to add their collection and have a .txt file ready to send to potential buyers - but this goes without saying that the metal scene inside Iran is somewhat active. Despite all the cultural taboos and censorship, Iranians are open to Metal - sometimes even more deep into it than many European listeners - and eventually some Iranian bands come up with a very decent album, making their fellow countrymen metalheads proud, in a way. But it hasn't always been like this; the Metal scene in Iran started very late compared to even some of the Far East bands, partly due to the cultural exposure of those countries to the western scene. In this article I will try to go through the history of metal decade by decade, and compare it with the scene (if it existed) inside Iran.
While in the 1950s, the western scene was expanding with Blues guitarists such as Willie Johnson and Pat Hare, an Iranian pop sensation called Viguen introduced the guitar to the Iranian music scene for the first time. This started the era which is called the Golden Age of Persian Pop Music and lasted well up to the 2000s, with some of those artists still releasing new songs today.
In 1968, Blue Cheer released a cover of "Summertime Blues" which is considered by many to be the first ever heavy metal piece of music. While heavy metal was emerging with bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, KISS, etc., in the European and American scenes, Iranian rock music began to appear in events, such as Shiraz Arts Festival, where local bands would play covers of The Beatles, The Doors, Deep Purple and other sensational artists of the times. Although the main focus of the music scene and the youth was still on the Persian Pop scene, like any other society, some individuals started to focus on this new, harsh and bizarre sound that was taking the world by storm. Unfortunately, the Islamic Revolution of 1979 brought an end to a promising start of jazz, rock, blues and even the heavy metal scene of Iran, forcing many of those musicians to flee the country along with the pop stars, or resorting to opening a shop and selling instruments (although those shops were also raided by extremists in the first years of the revolution.)
Despite all the restrictions, those few youngsters who listened to bands like Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and such, kept their passion for the genre and despite the lack of internet and physical records getting into the country, managed to get their hands on the new albums of their favorite bands, passing those on cassettes and VHS tapes to the next generation. After the heat of the evolution and Iran-Iraq war wore off a little bit, a noticeable number of young Iranians were fans of heavy and thrash metal subgenres, especially bands like Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer. in the 1990s, President Mohammad Khatami came as a reformist, allowing for the music scene to be a little bit more open. During that time, copied versions of rock and metal music could be found within the streets of Tehran, and several underground rock or metal concerts were performed, although the audience was seated throughout the whole show, and sometimes shows were done without any vocals.
In the late 90s and up to the 2000s, rock, followed by metal, was doing quite fine in the Iranian Scene. The kids who were born in the times of war were now the youngsters. Heavily influenced by bands like Pink Floyd or Metallica, they were starting to record their own albums and perform underground. With the addition of the internet, Iranians were exposed to a huge goldmine of music they had never heard the likes of before, and it helped refine the taste of those who were starting their own bands. Progressive rock and metal became the craze of those in the scene, with some solid bands like Oriental Silence emerging, but failing to keep on recording new songs and the members eventually resorting to teaching guitar to the next generation, or recording with the new pop artists. With the help of the internet, some forums were made, dedicated to rock or metal, attracting the newcomers to the genre and introducing some fine new artists to them to explore. Because of the bans on the record sales in Iran, almost all of the metalheads here acquired their collection with the help of some Russian or South American blogs and websites uploading every new album there is.
Eventually Iranian metalheads became familiar with other subgenres of metal, and a wave of black metal and death metal bands from Iran started releasing new, mostly uninspiring, records. Certain bands were hits throughout the times. While Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and some other major heavy and thrash bands still being widely popular, newer generations fell in love with Burzum, Mayhem, My Dying Bride, Slipknot and of course, Anathema. Then there were some Iranian artists playing for European bands, like Mehdi Vafaei for Abandon, or Siavosh Bigonah on Slumber and Atoma and these bands seemed to have a huge Iranian following just because of that. Metal Storm was favored over other encyclopedic metal websites, probably because of the visual beauty it has over its competition, and as you may remember, the topic about MS being filtered in Iran a few years ago brought a new wave of Iranian users to the site. (Oh, the irony!)
Nowadays with the metal scene exploding with new bands and mixed genres, the Iranians seem to still be big fans of death and black metal, in addition to Metallica, metalcore is becoming the new favorite of kids these days, with bands like Bullet For My Valentine and As I Lay Dying leading the scene, probably because "that guy has such beautiful tattoos" or "he looks cute even when he's screaming".
In conclusion, with bands like Angband (being the first ever Iranian band to be signed to a European Label) and festivals like the first Iranian Metal Festival, and tribute albums to Metallica and Pink Floyd being recognized by the bands and their fans, the future of the Iranian Metal Scene seems to be a good one; not a great, full-of-gems one, but a good one to be keeping an eye on. So I'm sorry if I sounded repetitive or dull throughout this article, but I had this epiphany that I should write about what I knew, and although its not quite what I was expecting it to be, I hope you enjoyed reading about it. Cheers!
P.S. If you are into progressive music, you should check out Oriental Silence, you won't be disappointed. Most of their work can be found on Youtube. Here's a little preview:
P.P.S. If you are interested in looking into the Iranian Metal catalogue, you should check out this, or this.
Guest article disclaimer:
This is a guest article, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest article, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Comments
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Comments: 34
Visited by: 146 users
| Mephistopholes1 Shawb Posts: 30  |
Written by [user id=35732] on 22.07.2013 at 22:52 Well it's true, hell I even used my old account to do so for a while!  I remember meeting a guy from here, who would send out a PM to new Iranian users about his DVD collection, he even had some original ones. he was a rip-off though!
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| mz Posts: 4825  |
Glad you eventually posted it here. Very good and informative article and as I stated before I agree with it
---- Giving my ears a rest from music.
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| Mephistopholes1 Shawb Posts: 30 |
Written by mz on 23.07.2013 at 21:07 Thank you for letting me know I can!
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| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 62017  |
Great article  )) I like it Evoke Efrits , Sorg Innkallelse, From the Vastland my fav Iranian bands
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| mz Posts: 4825 |
Written by Bad English on 24.07.2013 at 02:44 try 1000 funerals if you have not already. They are lighter version of shape of despair, yet an enjoyable act
---- Giving my ears a rest from music.
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| mz Posts: 4825 |
Written by Mephistopholes1 on 23.07.2013 at 22:07 my pleasure sir:)
---- Giving my ears a rest from music.
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| Mephistopholes1 Shawb Posts: 30 |
Written by [user id=130727] on 24.07.2013 at 11:20 Jeeez will you relax! I just said Viguen introduced guitar, no one said anything about him being part of the metal scene, being influential in any way, etc. I've mentioned Pink Floyd fairly enough in the article, so that's that. I agree on the GNR and Europe missing from the list. my bad. But you need to note that although a fairly similar list of bands were being played back then, some of us (including some of my friends) didn't start by watching a video of Europe or did even hate Slash for his poser styles. so opinions and experiences differ, don't you think? I mean if I want to tell my story, and probably the story of my generation, the first bits of heavy music we heard were Nu Metal, with the addition of Metallica. So see, it's really a wide range of bands, and I can't go around mentioning them all. I've seen almost the whole SDS show, and it's horrible. yes, they were one of the very first to cover metal songs, but they are horrible. I mentioned some underground concerts, but to me, with all the respect I have for them for their works, Kahtmayan and SDS don't harbor enough talent to be mentioned, and I can discuss that with you if you want. I wasn't aware of the Park Laleh thing, I was a kid back then, so thanks for giving out information. And Oriental Silence, I didn't ever said they are progressive METAL. They are a progressive rock band, they were actually, and they are by far the most talented musicians I've seen working in Iran and not making a lot of noise about what they do. there is a lot of Progressive rock in here, let there be another one! EDIT: and in case you missed, there is a note at the beginning of the article. it is based on WHAT I KNOW! If I don't know what you first-handedly experienced, then enlighten me and everyone else, but do it proper. will ya?
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| Mephistopholes1 Shawb Posts: 30 |
Written by Bad English on 24.07.2013 at 02:44 Thanks!;) I just read on MA that apparently the guy behind From the Vastland has relocated to Norway permanently, hopefully that would mean more quality music out of him, perhaps even a group rather than a one-man band.
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| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 62017 |
Written by Mephistopholes1 on 24.07.2013 at 12:51 well I hope so
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die" I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| Mephistopholes1 Shawb Posts: 30 |
Written by [user id=130727] on 24.07.2013 at 13:18 You made your point a lot more valid with the old 70's kid approach! Yes I didn't go through all of that, I went through my shit, and believe it or not, the essence was not that different, only the scene was softer and more open. I mentioned underground shows, haven't I? why would I call out the name of a band whose live show/studio album has little to none musical appealing to me? It's my article after all, It has to reflect my opinion, hasn't it? SDS and Kahtmayan were both mentioned in Global Metal, and I think it's safe to say if someone was to judge the metal scene we have here, many people have seen that instead of reading this, so the "legacy" is safe! And about your "authentic" writing, be sure to do that, I'll make sure I read that. I don't get why do you think this is some sort of a competition or why my writing should be a flawless walkthrough to all that has happened in the metal scene of Iran for the past 50 years or so. Its a GLANCE from AN Iranian's POINT OF VIEW, so you can have your own, all of the people who read this and disagree can and should have their own stories written and have a right to ask for them to be published. Frankly, I think the more people share their views, the better the understanding of all of us will be of the history and the situation of the scene. I didn't write this article to promote the music, I don't get that satisfying feel in my stomach as I see a fellow Iranian mentioned in some place global, I wrote it at a midnight as a draft, ended up submitting it the next day, because it's a fun thing to do, you may disagree with my views and you have pointed them out, in your way, no please go ahead and write your own version, just for the fun of it, or maybe just to prove how idiotic I wrote, that's fine! Oh and I don't consider myself to be a man of genius when it comes to styles, and I don't really care that much about the labels we put on music, but Prog Archives and a lot of others consider them to be Progressive, and I tend to take their words over yours, no offense!
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| Mephistopholes1 Shawb Posts: 30 |
Oh and let it be known, I've edited my comment already before you replied to it, so you might just want to re-read it again, it's kind of refined more than what you replied to!
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| Mephistopholes1 Shawb Posts: 30 |
Written by [user id=130727] on 24.07.2013 at 13:48 Compared to the amount of noise they are making, they lack originality in my opinion, and the vocals they introduced recently in their songs is just artificial and imitative. I'm not saying they are bad, I'm just saying they aren't living up to the level of expectations and hype built for them by the fans. I'm awaiting the new album with the new members, hopefully they can come up with an exciting approach!
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| Mephistopholes1 Shawb Posts: 30 |
Written by [user id=130727] on 24.07.2013 at 14:01 I agree with you to some extent, although we see some improvements in some repetition cases, and some bands have established some sort of a signature sound if you will, so they explore through that. and the thing is, in a lot of countries, the seen has been established, and the bands, no matter how shitty they are, get some sort of revenue out of touring and contracts and merch and etc. but to be able to make an impact on the global scene from a country like this, you need to be extra creative perhaps, or have a good marketing manager.
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| psykometal A staff guy... Elite Posts: 6101  |
@Fritillaria & Shawb: Cut down on the nested quoting, would ya? There's no need to include 3+ nested quotes on each other, especially when your responses are that long.
---- ~Zep, Database and Forum Moderation~ 
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| psykometal A staff guy... Elite Posts: 6101 |
Written by [user id=35732] on 24.07.2013 at 23:40 Not really 'mad' about it. And Fritillaria has been here and used the forums for long enough, and Shawb admitted (in his own article) he had a previous account, so neither of them really fall into the category of "newbs". So that was just a reminder from your friendly neighborhood Staffer-man. 
---- ~Zep, Database and Forum Moderation~
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| psykometal A staff guy... Elite Posts: 6101 |
Written by [user id=35732] on 25.07.2013 at 00:24 FAQ: Forum and members - 1.2 - The rules of posting, second to last paragraph... "When quoting other users, please delete any nested quotes (quotes within quotes) you don't want to comment on. If you feel you need to post a nested quote, please see to it that it doesn't go above four layers of nesting. When quoting posts containing images or videos, please remove all images and videos in your quote unless you are directly referring to the image or video. In these cases, please avoid quoting more than one item at once." Technically the rule is not to go over 4 nested quotes, which they have not done yet which is why I didn't say anything reprimanding. But still, there really is no point in quote nesting beyond just a single quote because it just makes the page longer and looks unsightly; it can also be difficult/frustrating and slightly deterring to some users to have to muddle through such posts when the nested quotes are as long as those 2's are (took me a while to get used to and have a desire to engage in the forums, as a newer user, because of such silly non-sense). 
---- ~Zep, Database and Forum Moderation~
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| psykometal A staff guy... Elite Posts: 6101 |
Written by [user id=35732] on 25.07.2013 at 00:46 It's not possible because of how the notification is generated. I made this recommendation once not too long after becoming Staff. Next time you click Quote, look in the URL line, you'll notice it says: http://www.metalstorm.net/forum/post.php?topic_id=45970&action=reply"ed_user_id=35732&message_id=840985&topic_page=1 which is what generates the 1n notification for the quoted user. We're way off topic though so if you have any further questions about it PM me directly or continue in the Quick Questions thread.
---- ~Zep, Database and Forum Moderation~
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| Mephistopholes1 Shawb Posts: 30 |
Written by psykometal on 24.07.2013 at 23:22 Wasn't really a man of forums before and neither am now, but will do!
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071  |
Written by [user id=130727] on 24.07.2013 at 13:18 completely true. I for one hate Venom, Hellhammer, early Bathory and they were terribly bad bands as well, but if I were to write a history about extreme metal I cannot leave those bands out because they were immensely influential. Even though they are still shit to me and loads of others they were extremely important for extreme metal.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996 
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| Guib Thrash Talker Posts: 3220  |
I really liked reading this. Thanks for posting it. Also if any of you guys wanna know more about other countries and their views on metal and how it fares you should watch this: Metal: A Headbanger's Journey the guy goes around the world and dig into the metal scene he even goes to china and all. Anyways I found it very interesting.
---- - Headbanging with mostly clogged arteries to that stuff - Guib's List Of Essential Albums - Also Thrash Paradise Thrash Here
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071 |
Written by Guib on 01.08.2013 at 02:52 He doesn't do that in Headbanger's Journey You're confusing that one with Global Metal, there he goes to China and all
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| Fritillaria Account deleted |
Fritillaria
Account deleted Written by Guib on 01.08.2013 at 02:52 I think he didn't go to all the places around the world, but yeah that movie was kinda amusing to watch, I really want to do something like that someday if I ever get the chance,to make a movie about metal
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| Spirit Molecule spirit molecule Posts: 1918  |
Written by Guib on 01.08.2013 at 02:52 That was Global Metal. A Headbanger's Journey was the first part in the series. I met the guy when he was here in India. Seemed like a cool chap. But I think it's quite hard to do a movie in under 2 hours focusing on the metal scene all over the world. Interesting movie nonetheless. The best part was watching the Maiden show in Bangalore and knowing that you were part of that massive crowd  It's actually quite crazy that there are so many Iranians on the forum. You'd never think that so many people listened to metal there. Same like here in India, you'd never expect there to be so many bands and so many people who listen to metal. If you compare it to the population though, it's a very small percentage that do listen to metal.
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| Guib Thrash Talker Posts: 3220 |
Oh well sorry for the mistake y'all, at least you all know what I'm talking about lol It was nice to watch.
---- - Headbanging with mostly clogged arteries to that stuff - Guib's List Of Essential Albums - Also Thrash Paradise Thrash Here
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