ما 4569 مهمان و بدون عضو آنلاین داریم

By: Azad Karimi

I’m a guitar player since I was seventeen. I also took singing lessons for three years and I can play bass for fun!

 

Interview

Italian Guitarist Matt Thrasher Bellezza

By Azad Karimi

 

Saying these things may be a little strange and far-fetched for you, dear reader.

I say that because I think it is very useful to enlighten the minds of the new generations. I am sharing my experiences.

In the early 1990s, I was in high school and college. In high school we were teenagers, but our adolescence was different from that of our peers all over the world ...

Pop music was banned in Iran. The ban began in 1979. Kurdish music was also optional. For example, Naser Razazi and Sivan Perwers music were problematic, and if someone was arrested with these tapes, he would face imprisonment and torture... West Music, and Persian pop music just like Kurdish music, was a political issue ... Huh!

In other words, just imagine that the songs of George Michael an Englishman, Aretha Franklin an American, and Fereydoun Foroughi a Persian, were forbidden, illegal to me and my friends, and hearing them were examples of enmity with God and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Now, imagine if I was arrested with a cassette of Israeli Zohar Argov or Samira Al-Saeed Arab and the Turkish Ajda Pekan in my pocket!... Certainly, I was treated in prison with beatings, punches, insults.

Of course, we could always listen to the Top and favorite songs in different ways. Fortunately, the Iranian government could never deprive us of listening to world music, but we did not enjoy it as much as the young people of the world enjoyed it because we heard these songs in our homes. There are no nightclubs in Iran ... You will never hear world top songs on Iranian radio and television because they are banned.

When Metallica's music came, it was amazing. It was new and unfamiliar. It was a kind of aggression and protest with long stretched notes of electric guitar.

Think that in some areas of Kurdistan, people get rhythm by clapping and dancing with it or beating Tapll, Daholl, and Daf ... but in the United States, it makes make an electronic instrument that plays long, shock-resistant notes.

Cultural differences are interesting... None of this is humiliating or forbidden. . I have a problem with contemptuous views of art and cultural manifestations, and I oppose it.

Please pay attention to the text of the interview. Matt's words are interesting and clarify a lot.

I wish success and happiness to my dear friend Matt.

 

Thank you!

Vestland-Norway

 

 

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1.Please present yourself: (Name, education, Civil status and...)

. Hi, my name is Matt, graduated for the first time in 1996 and for the second time in 2003, bachelor with no children.

 

2-What is your artistic specialize?

.I’m a guitar player since I was seventeen. I also took singing lessons for three years and I can play bass for fun!

 

3- When and how did you become interested in this field of art?

. When I was very young I used to listen to the music spinning at home. That’s how I discovered bands like Queen and Pink Floyd for example. Then I started to look for music by myself and when I was 13/14 y.o. I fell for bands like Europe, Iron Maiden, Metallica, etc. At the age of 17, I bought my first guitar!

 

4- Who was your motivator?

. No one, just the urge to express my inner self and the difference between me and the rest of the world! What pushed me to play guitar in the first place was an “against” mood: I was against clichés, status, shallow and predictable people, consumerism, ostentation, etc. I felt the need to define who and what I was in opposition to the majority of the people around me. Then I found a way to channel my creativity and to share my passion for music with my bandmates and with all the people involved in the music scene of my hometown.  

 

5- What was your parent’s reaction?

. They thought my passion would have been faded away sooner or later, but I’m still here with my music and the will to keep on writing, recording, and playing live!

 

6- When started you such as professional musician and Guitarist?

. When I joined Enemynside in ’97 (when the band name was Scapegoat) I found a different approach from all the other local underground bands: there was a planning and the will to achieve goals in order to make the band gaining more opportunities, live shows, and collaborations with insiders and promoters. It’s been 20 years and we still have a professional approach because we wanna release our music always at its best!   

 

7- Are you thankful and happy because of your activities as musician and Guitarist?

. Music made my life better and has always been a cure to me: I had the chance to express myself, sometimes to “hide” from an environment I didn’t like (mostly regarding the high school years). Because of the music, I met people with the same passion to share and thanks to the music I’ve seen places where probably I would never have been to!

 

8- What is music culture? What is music logic?

. Music is something that allows people to withdraw from reality to travel far away with the mind, it helps to connect people and it’s a way to express people's emotions. In Italy, we have a prestigious history of composers which made my country famous in the world (Vivaldi, Verdi, Rossini for example). But it’s something mostly sealed in the past because now 80% of what Italy gives to the music industry is garbage. You have to search in the niches of the underground to find something worth listening to…

Now the logic of the music industry Is just something like “hit and run”. Streaming services like Spotify or I-tunes make it easy to listen to music and skipping songs/artists whenever you want. This way doesn’t provide a full experience of listening like it was back in the day with vinyl or CDs and focusing on a full-length album is something young people aren’t used to do anymore.

 

9- Why does some melody become immortal?

.If I knew the secret I would be rich! I’m joking, of course, when this happens it’s because a certain song or melody has reached a massive audience due to different factors and has entered the general culture. But it’s not something always linked to the greatness of the melody itself, there are tons of great songs/melodies that will never reach the lights of the music industry remaining mostly unknown or just for few people….

 

10- How you see the Music, art and culture in your perspective? I mean your prediction for the future of music!

. It’s an interesting question, too bad I don’t have an answer for this: I don’t like the way it is now, I mean all the streaming / downloading way of listening to music. It’s easier than before to discover new music and to have any song ready to play whenever wherever, but we lost the magic of the wait for an album to be released for example. You can find anything on the web (music, pictures, paintings, movies, etc.) but not everything you find on-line worth it and often you get confused by all the things available when trying to look for something. I don’t know how it will be in the future but I don’t think it will get better than now…. 

 

11- Can you become one part of the cultural movement for motivation in youth or new generation in your country and so than?

.We play our music to please ourselves in the first place and to share it with as much people as possible, anything else happens for us is a gift. I know guys who grew up listening to our demos and to our first album and it’s an honor for us but Italy is not the right country to plan a cultural revolution by playing thrash metal! 

 

12- How can you help our world become a better place to live?

. Trying to do my best as a human being and as a musician. With my band, the goal is to entertain people by giving good powerful music to listen to. We don’t wanna deliver just aggressive music like tons of bands already do, we wanna make music and write songs you can remember and love because of the melodies of the guitars and/or the vocals. Anybody can hit hard his instrument, play fast or scream in the mic…..but how many bands can write a real song like bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Testament, and Anthrax used to do? Even with other bands, I was in the main goal was to create songs with catchy melodies.

 

A side Enemynside (https://www.facebook.com/Enemynside/)

and several cover bands, I played with New Babylon:

 (https://www.facebook.com/NewBabylonRock/)

and Dogs In The Garage (https://www.facebook.com/DogsintheGarage/),

but Enemynside has always been my main band.

 

13- Have you more word to say or suggest for our readers?

. To all the people looking for something worth living for: look for something that gives you good vibes and gets you in a good mood, gets focused on something creative which helps you to express yourself, your different way of seeing things, something you can share with other people like you. That’s the only suggestion I can give to help to live a better life!

 

 

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