Interview with the Syrian Metal fighters..Maysaloon

Maysaloon is one of the rocket-speed rising Metal bands in the Middle East, It has its distinctive sound, and outstanding performance. 

During the Syrian Seven year civil war, Maysaloon struggled against war-torn mood, destruction, suffering,  continuing its Metal-passion road. 

Amazingly, the band will participate in the upcoming edition of Beirut Metal Festival 

this September, that's why we contacted the guys of Maysaloon for interview.

Maysaloon interviewed by: Rana Atef ``Dark~~~KniGhT

Originally published on 16/8/2018 at 5:07 pm

Firstly, it is really a pleasure to me to interview one of the real examples of 

determination, music passion, and strength, so How could you manage to keep the band active, and productive from the heart of the war? 

 It was nearly impossible for any band to go on during the times of war, due to displacement and random mortar shells, and moving around different cities was difficult, and of course financial issues and such..

However, the only choice we had is to adapt, you know? We weren’t going to give up that easley, and we managed to keep the band active during those hard times.Now it became somewhat easier, things got better and we were able to stay in the same place and work with more determination.

We saw Maysaloon performed in different Metal acts in Syria, How did you organize concerts during war? 

 In 2015, we organized our first ever concert in the “Adawy” cultural center, and back then, we simply tried out if they were going to agree, and they did somehow, but after that concert we were denied and the war was raging so we couldn’t think ofperforming.However, in 2017, we tried and contacted this beautiful place which is called “Mustafa Ali Art Gallery” which is an old roofless Damascene house, and they welcomed us and became our favorite venue to perform in.

All of the metal events we did were self-sponsored; we had to rent standard quality gear because all the good equipment were insanely expensive, but we pulled through and did our best to stay active and performing live.

Can you us more about Maysaloom musical influences, themes, concepts? 

 Maysaloon’s musical influences were mainly derived from the death metal scene generally, bands like Death, Behemoth, Dissection and many other.On the other hand, we rather developed our own concept through the music we play; we dug deep in our ancient history (Old Syrian Mythology), and found inspiration from it, so we decided to pay tribute to our ancient gods and deities who ruled these lands in the past.

So, moving to the Syrian Metal, How do the bands deal with each other inside a war? Actually, I want to you to give us a clear, detailed image for the Syrian Metal scene since the War in Syria? 

 Since the war in Syria, nearly everything halted, many musicians suffered hard timesand live shows were out of the question.However, The Syrian metal scene saw a dramatic improvement in the last couple of years, more and more bands are emerging and supporting each other, and you can see that there are many live shows recently in the live metal scene in Syria.

I found that you have many supporters here in Egypt, do you have any contacts with Egyptian Metal bands, or Arabic Metal bands? 

 Some Facebook pages helped us reach the Egyptian metal society, then we got introduced to that scene and we were in contact with bands like CRESCENT which are an incredible Death metal band. We are very fond of the Egyptian scene and metalheads.

We also contacted bands from other Arab countries like LELLAHEL from Algeria, Dark Phantom from Iraq and Blaakyum from Lebanon.

We saw the Maysaloon name is listed on the line up of Beirut Metal Festival, How did you get in contact with the organizers? 

After our first album, media outlets helped us get our name to Lebanon, we drew theinterest of one of the organizers from (Groove Machine Entertainment), so we invited him to attend a Maysaloon live show (Metal United World Wide), and he attended and we met and got offered this amazing chance to perform in Beirut MetalFestival 2018 next to bands like Decapitated and Destruction and many other bandsfrom Lebanon and the region.

Did you receive any feedback from European Metal labels, or bands? 

We received good reviews from many organizations and Webzines and radios from around the world, such as Castle Black Radio (band of the month, band of the year),and Global Metal Apocalypse’s (global metal icon, release of the year in Syria).

Also we featured Phil Tougas from First Fragment band which is located in Canada.We got contacted by many other musicians such as Karl Sanders from Nile, Niilo from Insomnium, Achraf Loudy from Aeternam, Linus from Obscura\Alkaloid and Hein from ex-Legion of the Damned\SplinterBomb, and and all of them were very surprised and supportive.

What are your future plans?  

We are currently writing new material for our next album and planning to move to Lebanon to record and to stay there among the beautiful Lebanese metal society.The next step from there is to try and perform there and to perform in other countriesabroad, to take the band to the next step in its evolution; maybe getting a good record deal is one of the main goals ahead.

We would like to thank the Egyptian Metal Archive, The Metal Sister (Rana Atef) for this lovely interview and their support.Best wishes from all of us in Maysaloon band.

Best of Luck guys..!