‘The Road to success is never straight…’ and taking the longest and curvy routes, breaking all stereotypical ‘spoiled brat’ image of a heavy metal music band is METAHOLIC. Giving the kingdom its first original heavy metal music video, are the four young men who can give any girl a complex with their natural long hair. And of course it’s the talent and love for heavy metal (above the love for long hair) that has bought this gifted team together. As BTW sat down with the members of the band to know more about their journey since 2011 as Metaholic, it was an eye opener to the prejudice that our society still keep towards genres of music that we are unsure about. “It was the cancellation of our first show as a band during the valentine’s Day of 2011, that made us rethink about the type of music we had to concentrate on to seriously form as a band with a name.” – the lead vocalist of the band, Mohammed Hussain (aka Wolverine) noted on their initial days. The lead guitarist Yousef Zarka joined the band a year after it was formed. “I used to play guitar since long and had a band in Kuwait. But I had stopped playing guitars for sometime as I wanted to do something original in heavy metal rather than doing just the covers.” – Zarka remembered his decision he had made to join the band. “When I saw their first original video, I didn’t think twice before going in for the auditions.”
“Our first video was the OST for Silveraven in 2012 and it was shown on the silver screens of Seef Cinemas. It was an achievement for us, as people had started recognizing us and the kind of music we play.” – Wolverine said. The band had recently done another music video for the OST of Deadsands, a movie from the NYIT campus. The video had gone viral over social media and even got mentions from outside Bahrain. “We were really honored when we got this opportunity to play at Bab Al Bahrain under the ministry of culture and also at BIC on the national day of Bahrain 2013.” he added.
“Heavy metal music has been long associated with cults and anti social elements. But that is not true anymore. If you listen to our lyrics, you’d know it speaks about hope and enlightenment. The genre style is about taking ones stand and that is what we are trying to do in here.” Naji Al Mousawi, the base guitarist of Metaholic detailed about the effort the band is taking to break the notions people have in their minds about their music. “It takes lot of hard work and time to deliver any kind of art form and our music is one among them. We would really love to have people accepting us and our music just like any others”, the drummer Mohammed Alam (aka Joe) joined in.
With their full time jobs and studies taking more than half of their lives, this awesome foursome is taking a stand for the music they love. And with the support of their families and music lovers, Metaholic is on their way to create history and take the name of the pearl nation to an international music pedestal. On behalf of Bahrain This Week, we wish you all the best and Rock On!
To find out more about these metalheads, check out the band’s facebook page and their instagram.