Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

ARSAMES, formed in 2002 by Ali madarshahi, is an Ancient melodic death metal band from Iran, where Metal is illegal.  In 2010 the band released worldwide their first album “Immortal Identity”. Some days ago I had a chance to have a talk with Arsames-members… by this interview, ARSAMES wants to announce also their line-up change. Please, join our conversation…

Hi Guys, I’m Tarja. Welcome to Metal Shock Finland!

Hi Tarja, Thanks!

You define your genre as “Ancient melodic death metal”, please explain me better how your music is “Ancient”?

Iran, also known as Persia, is one of the biggest ancient empires that ruled the world. Most people do not know there has been a civilization in this land for more than 3000 years. There were great men like Cyrus the Great and Dariush the King who ruled with justice. Iranian people are proud of this history, and so are ARSAMES.This is why we use some stories and myths from that period in our music, in a similar way that Amon Amarth have done for their country, Sweden.

What does your band name mean? and how you came up to this choice?

Arsames was the King of Persia during the Achaemenid dynasty (520 BC), but gave up the throne and declared loyalty to Cyrus II of Persia. After this, Arsames most likely retired to his family estate in the Persian heartland of Parsa, and lived out the rest of his long years there peacefully, though he may nominally have exercised the duties of a “lesser king” under the authority of the “Great King”. We really love his personality and we believe he a was great Man. So we chose Arsames to entertain his name and his great work.

Please introduce me your band members and their roles…

Our vocalist and frontman is Ali Madarshahi, who is the only origin member of the band, our lead guitarist is Morteza Shahrami who plays guitar for more than 10 years. Ahmad Takalou is our another guitar player and Saeed Shariat is our drummer. Also we want to announce with this interview that Arsames has a line-up change and now Payam Ghasemi is our new bass player.

Tell me about your songwriting process and from where you take the song themes?

First Ali writes the lyrics and then we all talk about the parts of that story, to find out how the parts should sound in the song. If he writes something about love, war, peace and human rights, our guitar sounds and drums on that parts should sound like that. We want to show our feelings and send our sound to the heart of our fans! We always try to think each detail from the part of our fans, so in songwriting we think our fans’ feelings first.

I guess many of our readers don’t know that metal is illegal in Iran… but how is the Underground movement and live acts in your country?

Yes it is illegal, however there are many Metal underground bands in Iran who work hard and Arsames is one of the longest running Metal act in the country. The main problem for Metal bands here is lack of back lines and instruments and also a place to use as rehearsal room. And also management is another problem for the bands here, most of them don’t even know about the management of a band, that’s what we take care about in Arsames. We have a regular management team, for example Ali madarshahi is our general manager and it’s him who decides about the important issues, and Mohsen Fayyazi is our Booking agent and Promotion manager.

There are some webzines that support Rock and Metal in Iran but they are still young and need more experiences. There is no way for the organizers to setup a fest or a Metal concerts like you have there. However you can read in the media some news about some of the events in Iran, but they are all underground, set up in the band members homes or in a garage! But we would really want to play our gigs out, as we did before. We really need more support from the festivals and concert organizers around the world to help us and to let us play there and enjoy being on stage for our fans.

And just for the fact that Metal is banned in your country, in the early years you couldn’t release your songs, but you founded another way to promote them, tell me about it… and what was the reaction of your fans?

If you mean we could not release it in our country I can say yes ! but I have always followed the record labels and checked them out to find a way to contact and talk with them about our band and our music. In 2006 I created a myspace profile and started to promote Arsames, after a short time the reaction of the fans was amazing ! They didn’t believe the music came out from IRAN! Those years fans always asked me “Are you living in Iran and Play death metal? how it is possible?” …after these years some of them are our die hard fans and they follow and dig our lyrics and music. Now they know who was Cyrus the Great, the first Instructor of Human Policy in the world!… Via myspace our American fans asked me: “Do you have an electricity in your country that you can play Electric Guitar!” …you know they have never seen us like that. Unfortunately the media showed those years Iranian people in a bad situations always, specially the media in the US! But you see me and the rest of the band members always tried to show, instead, the good side of our country! I know we have so many problems but it’s not fair that some media destroy the face of an ancient Territory like our country. We are here and we play Death metal music! Of course we have some awesome and supportive friends like you, Tarja, in all of the world and we really appreciate their support ….

In 2008 you joined a competition between thousands of bands, and you won and played in Metalcamp…how this experience changed your possiblities to play live?

We won and we were invited officially from Metalcampers but we couldnt make it cuz the embassy of Slovenia asked us for a GUARANTEE about 25000$ from a resident who live in there and we found no one to help us! Metalcamp called the Embassy in Iran and they didn’t accept to gave us the visa without GUARANTEE!

What about the Turkey’s UniRock festival in 2009 where you played along with famous acts like Amon Amarth, Arch enemy, Kreator … what memories do you have about those moments?

After a day we came back from Teheran to Mashhad (our home city), we were very angry about Metalcamp. I connected to internet and checked my e-mails, and I saw that the Unirock organization had invited us to play there! We went and played with the icons of metal music! you know there we had awesome metal moments in ARSAMES history!

The year 2010 saw you headlining in Dubai… tell me about this experience.

It was cool to see some Iranian Metalheads, for the first time, in Dubai, were headbanging for a band from their country! You know many Iranians live in Dubai.

Last year you decided to re-record your first album “Immortal Identity” which was released worldwide in Nov 2010. Tell me how it differs from your original version?

We had some old tracks with bad quality, so we decided to re-record them and we added and played some new parts in the studio to be more near to our new tunes.

Last year you were also invited to India to headline the huge India Sikkim… so it seems last year was your true break-through, or how you see it?

Last year was amazing for ARSAMES, we released our album, we played in Sikkim India and Indian fans found us good! it was the first time we played as an heading act. It was a great experience to make and see Arsames in higher level! Day by day after those moments we have tried to be better and better, we are now working hard like a Rock and we want to show the power of Persian Metal music and ARSAMES to the Metal Music World.

What about the next plans you have?

We will release soon an EP tribute album with 4 songs of bands like: Amon Amarth, Sepultra, Kreator and Carcass. We are also looking for a good label for releasing. We will play in some festivals and in late 2012 we are going to start recording our second studio album, “Epic of the Kings”.

What are your greeting to your fans and to our readers?

We want to say that we appreciate all support of our fans, Their kind support always encourages us to carry on making our music. ARSAMES greets you! And we wish great Metal days for all of you!!

Interview by Tarja Virmakari – Photos: Mehdi Danesh

For more information, please visit:
*  Arsames on Wikipedia
*  Arsames official Myspace
*  Arsames official facebook page
*  Arsames on Reverbnation
*  Youtube!
*  Amazon

ARSAMES : IMMORTAL IDENTITY