Abed Hathout

Interview By Ali Blackdiamond

Oriental metallers from Israel, ORPHANED LAND are pioneers in the metal world, wanting nothing more than peace, in the midst of all the religious unrest, so much so that fans started an online petition a couple of years ago for the band to be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“I could never imagine in my wildest imagination that one day an Israeli band would be followed by thousands of Muslims from all over the world,” previously stated frontman Kobi Farhi, noting that Orphaned Land are the proud recipients of four Peace Awards issued by their Turkish brethren. “If we do a show in Istanbul, Turkey – which is the only Muslim country where we’re allowed to play – people come all the way from Iran, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan just to see us. These are enemies that are fighting each other coming to see us as one group of people. I’d say that historically the Jews and Arabs are brothers because we are all descendants of Abraham, but the conflict and the differences are so big that we’ve forgotten that. Discovering the fact that our music is the instrument to remind people that we are all one is shocking to me. I never imagined that blood enemies would open their eyes because of it. That’s why the title of the album is All Is One.”

I caught up with Kobi and KHALAS guitarist Abed Hathout at last week’s Metal Hammer Golden Gods awards in London. ORPHANED LAND shared the ‘Global Metal Act’ award with their brothers from KHALAS.

Both guys were extremely humble and so happy to be given this recognition, and Kobi expressed:

“We’re very excited to be here, we feel that our efforts, the songs that we write, all those shows that we’re doing, the message of the band – it’s great to be rewarded for it, especially far from home. Just imagine, we’re an Israeli and a Palestinian, but above that, we’re brothers and that’s a story to be told.”

You can hear the full chat on the audio player below: