Country: Bahrain
Date: December 2004
By: Olivia Middleton
Ever wandered what the kids are up to nowadays. Well three young intelligent lads from Dubai have just completed their first EP /Album. Sam Kazerooni was telling me all about the young local bands in Dubai, and the hidden Metal scene that exists. For a person like myself who appreciates those sublime yet raucious screams and growls in between sorrowful lyrics, it held an interest. I got a number for a guy named James off Sam who told me he was in a band called Nervecell. I got hold of James through the glorious beauty of text messaging. After finally arranging a time and place, I got in a taxi and headed to French Connection café, along Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai. As I got out the car low and behold I saw our resident agony aunt Katy from Katies Korner. After the usual his and how are yous, Katy decided to join me at the interview. Now Katy listens to Dance and I to metal and since I had in the past gritted and beared the burdens of the dance scene with her, I decided it was time for her to get a bit of education on the kind pf scene I am into. We ordered some coffee and then came to meet James Khazaal (Vocals and bassist) and Rami Mustafa (lead guitarist) of Nervecell. The third member, Barnaby Ribiero was not able to meet us.
Nervecell formed in early 1999, at that time the band played pure hardcore. There have been a number of changes in the line up during the last two years with only two original members still remaining in the band. Barney is one of the founding members of the band along with Hatem (former drummer) and Brogan (former vocalist).
I began to ask the boys about their debut album Human Chaos, released in October of this year, and the kind of music that people can expect to hear from them. Rami began the interview:
Our music is a combination of Death metal and Hardcore. Hardcore was actually our old style back when we started. Then we wanted to create our own unique sound, that's why we progressed into a heavier band by playing death metal, but we kept our roots at the same time. Something that is ours. James, Barney and myself used to be in bands before coming to Dubai, and what we want to do first and foremost is show people what we are made of.
James, who wrote many of the lyrics, also commented on the subject.
We take a lot of our influence from a number of bands like Cannibal Corpse, Testament, Pantera, Death, Slayer and a lot of early Sepultura's stuff. What we love about these bands is that they have great technical ability and they are original.
I found out that other than being in the band these guys also take courses at American University of Dubai (AUD). James has been studying E-Commerce for four years, and Rami Information Technology (IT) for three and a half. I asked how important for them it was to achieve a degree as well as maintain a successful metal band.
We are all very focused on achieving our degrees. One because it gives us something else to fall back on. The reality of it is that it may not happen for us. We want to be able to play our music and also have a career. In Dubai, however long we are here for, we have to face up to the fact that the metal scene has a very limited scope.
I continued by asking about how their parents thought about them all being in a heavy metal band. Rami began first.
My parents initially did not support the idea of me being in a metal band, but a big factor to their change of heart is that when I took the album to them and showed them that I had gone out and done something I had set my mind they began to see a lot more respect for us."
The band played Turbulence 3 in 2003 of this year, a very popular alternative rock festival in Dubai, which saw over 1,700 people turn up to support. I asked them how it felt to play to that crowd. I asked how the album was doing on a worldwide scale and whether they had had good or bad feedback from people.
We have sent a lot of copies of the album to labels and websites. They were mainly shocked to hear that an extreme band from the UAE was around, and were impressed. That really motivated us. The websites and labels all pointed out that they love to hear local bands.
"This band in Canada who bought our CD, have actually covered one of our songs live. That felt really good, really motivated us and pleased us that they respect our music and appreciate it.
I always ask bands what they feel makes a band work well together Rami and James both had suggestions.
The best way to achieve success in this line of work is to stick to each other. Create stability within the band, make sure you have equal goals and have good communication.
The guys are still young and have so much more to look forward to and I proceeded to ask about their future plans.
We are hoping to collaborate with another band out here called Morgue, a side project that we are looking to call Pain Entity, which the bassist of Morgue came up with, the name means basically that as we are we are only a small fragment of pain. It will be something different that will combine the strengths of two bands. We also hope to tour Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
At the moment we have a major UK based record label called Roadrunner Records interested in our music, which all happened through a website called Blabbermouth. That would be amazing to get signed to, because they carry a lot of the bands that we ourselves grew up listening to. It would be a good step for us, and even if it doe not happen it has given us a lot of high hopes for the future.
Nervecell are young, talented and focused on what they want to achieve from not only their music but also from their life. They have much potential to help the market for heavy metal music in the UAE and around the Gulf grow.