Posted on July 19, 2010 - by Editor

Al-Thawra: Leading a Revolution

Al-Thawra © Kim Ford

When an email was received at Distorted HQ some months back with the opening line “We’re a doom-crust punk band from Chicago, and one of the original Taqwacore bands from the Taqwa-tour in the fall of 2007” I don’t think more questions were ever raised by a single sentence or had peaked such curiosity. This of course led to a afternoon of scrambled online research into a whole bunch of terminology we had not been exposed to, Taqwacore at the forefront of this. The sender (or band in question) was Al-Thawra and they happened to be coming to the UK for their first ever tour, part of a select group of artists to perform at the Meltdown Festival at London’s Southbank representing Taqwacore.

Of course we wanted to see what this was all about, and how the band fit into Taqwacore and what that was exactly, even the online research left many questions unanswered, naturally. So on a sunny Sunday afternoon in north London the day after the bands Meltdown performance and on the eve of their first UK headline show we sat down with the four touring members of Al-Thawra and dug a little deeper. Sitting on the low brick wall outside The Others in Stoke Newington, the band standing in front of me, the initial thought was how exactly this collective, a mixed troupe of punk, country, blues and hardcore looking foursome were a doom crust band.

Marwan: I play guitar in Al-Thawra.

Adam:  I do all the samples and noise effects.

Matt: I’m filling in for Mario on the bass.

Micah:  I do drums and some other stuff here and there (which sparked an instant in-house joke and a collective laughter).

Steve: Correct me if I get things wrong, I saw your email about coming here to play your first UK shows and of course the trailer for the documentary on Taqwacore. So did this band exist before that documentary or was it inspired after the Taqwacore title came to the fore?

Marwan: Well this band was already conceived before and honestly I never thought it was going to be much of a venture, it was something we were just working on. And Michael Knight (Taqwacore writer and director) got in contact with us through MySpace cos I created that for the band, I guess we were doing similar enough stuff that I could see parallels.

Steve: Have you seen your involvement with that documentary giving you good relevant exposure, you mention that you have had mainstream press coverage because of it.

Marwan: Yeah but it’s a double edged sword though. In some ways it very tokenising?

Steve: Being pigeonholed?

Marwan: Yeah pigeonholed and it’s this weird change of Orientalism or something that suits exonification or something? And just being like “hey check out these weird kids playing fucking punk”. But I would rather concentrate on the music. While it’s able to give us attention it’s not taking away from the music or anything seriously.

Steve: But you are in London, UK, Europe for the first time and you did Meltdown festival yesterday which does get a lot of press. I don’t understand much about Taqwacore and what exactly it’s about, or even if I’m saying that right? (I did) Do you see yourself associated with that then or not?

Marwan: I think in terms of the identity of the band it acts as a starting point. For me as a Arab American from that perspective it’s already built in to whatever I say for the band coming from that point of view. I will always see it through Arab-American eyes; even if it’s just politics or something at the same time I don’t want that to be the ending point to a conversation but a starting point as that’s already built into who I am and who the band is. But I think everybody identifies with it differently. What do you guys think?

Matt: For me it’s more outside looking in, like I know all these guys and known them for a while, jamming with them, but this is the first time really playing with them so I can’t really say I’m really Taqwacore. I mean it’s an opportunity for exposure, and its cool I’m not knocking it, but like he said, you don’t want to get marginalised.

Steve: One of the first misconceptions you might have, even just using the trailer clip for the documentary as an example, is that everyone involved with Taqwacore has to be Islamic, be of a certain race or gender or whatever, and obviously that’s not the case (pointing at them causing laughter to break out).

Matt: Yeah and I mean for example I’m not Muslim, I may have a lot of Muslim friends but I’m not. And I’m not Arab obviously, but for me that doesn’t matter. Religion, creed, race, none of that matters, we just want to make some fucking music, but that’s not how everyone sees it, especially with the whole Taqwacore movement. And like yesterday was cool at Meltdown, I have never played a venue like that, it was great. But it was also a double edged sword and kind of a sideshow….everybody had seen the documentary and was like “ooh lets go see bunch of Arab kids or Muslims play punk

Marwan © Kim Ford

music” and they were probably in for a shock when they saw us get on the stage.

Steve: So how would you try and describe your music to someone who hasn’t heard it?

Marwan: I would say experimental crust-punk, I don’t know, and what would you guys say?

Adam: I don’t know? I hear the obvious old crusty influence and the stuff I incorporate into the band I take from my own noise background so there will obviously be more like psychedelic influence, prog rock or Japanese style noise, so everything gets put into a blender.

Matt: And I’m a blues and jazz player so you can throw that in too.

Micah: I think definitely we incorporate different Middle Eastern ideas into it, whether it’s the percussion, the rhythms, the scales? We try experiment more and more if you listen to the new cd there is an idea that Marwan had about taking this rhythm that was five beats but we still found a way to mix in the electric guitar, a full drum set and slamming on the cymbals, layering the percussion.

Marwan: Yeah I think it’s mixing like the traditional textures, more experimental and heavy textures, like taking a page from Discharge, crust punk bands like The Amoebics and mixing it in with these things. I think it really speaks for the identity of it, caught in this in-between. I think going back to your question with this Taqwacore thing; it’s really about an identity thing, being caught in this grey zone, neither here nor there? I think the misconception. We don’t even talk about religion at all and I don’t even know in punk how much of a place it has honestly. I think it’s more of an identity thing than anything else.

Steve: So how does the music help you find or forge that identity?

Marwan: I think even listening to it; it kind of builds this kind of place where it’s possible for both things to exist. I don’t know if it’s as much about bridge building as it is about creating a new way, just like, fuck everything, ya know?

Steve: Excuse the cliché but is it that element that groups you quite strongly within punk rock. You guys are niche within a niche within a niche? Which must make touring a challenge (as someone shouts out, “who you going to play with?”)

Marwan: A lot of times when you are playing punk, people think you have to sound like everyone else but it’s infinitely more punk just to play your own thing if that makes sense? You can make a million fucking Discharge band copies and all that shit and see six of those bands in one night!

Micah: I will say that I have never really played punk before I started playing with Marwan, I met him through the more Middle Eastern rhythm kind of things where he was working and I was playing late at night and I bought some of the drums I have and he was like “hey so you play percussion, you play drums, here listen to my band” and that was after the Taqwa tour thing and he pointed it out like “look we are in Rolling Stone, this is going to go somewhere” (slightly mocking and Marwan laughing at him) So I was like alright. The way it works, he will throw ideas at me and Mario as well and we will come up with different ideas with each other it’s not how I always play but I always find a way to compliment what he is doing.

Marwan: Yeah so Matt will probably be doing second guitar when we get back and work something out but our bassist Mario back home grew up in Mexico City and played with a bunch of bands over there.
They explain that Mario isn’t currently able to tour so I asked them if they thought this might affect the band in the future.

Micah: Well I would say, just that one fact is kind of what our album “Edifice” is all about- those walls. Having that fact and thinking about the borders and United States and all the borders we are putting up and the walls.

Al-Tharwa © Kim Ford

Matt: It’s affecting the band itself, sorry to cut in. Even like musically, I didn’t write these songs, I put my own flavour and style to them. It does change the dynamics for the band, having not have Mario here as he is part of the creation of it, you are getting Al-Thawra- Lite as opposed to the fully fledged Al-Thawra.

Steve: Ok and the album you mentioned, “Edifice” is that now out?

Marwan: Yeah it’s going to be out on the 24th June or something, the pressing plant took a bit longer than expected, so we have some 7” on sale on the tour, limited editions, we have sent one to Henry Rollins and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. We know this other band that those guys ordered the albums for so we are going to slip our album in there.

Steve: Good marketing!

Marwan: Going back to what you were saying with Mario not being to come on tour, the albums concept is those division that exist like dialectics of politics, it sounds really nerdy to talk about right? But at the same time we are building this idea like being Latino-American or an illegal immigrant in America or whatever, marginalised minorities and building parallels between the two so I think the album speaks to that.

Steve: But those issues aren’t necessarily contained to America itself.

Group: That’s why we are on tour, we are missionaries (they all joke and laugh).

Steve: Ok so quickly on this tour, the show you played yesterday was your first UK performance and then you have a mini UK tour coming up including tonight, so how did it all come about?

Marwan: Well when we were invited to play Meltdown I just thought fuck it, if they are going to pay us, let’s just use that money to get a van and tour the whole UK and make the most of it cos we don’t know when that’s going to happen again.

Steve: And then you head back to Chicago right, that’s where you are from?

Marwan: Yeah and we have a small east coast tour.

Steve: We mentioned it earlier, but what kind of bands would you tour with?

Marwan: I don’t know? I feel a lot of the kids that pick up on out stuff play experimental music; this is kind of like that tonight. But it really depends on where it is and what kind of crowd.

Adam: This tonight is more the kind of gig we would play in Chicago compared to last night. With Winters in Osaka even though it’s more like harsh noise, drone whatever you want to call it, I really don’t like playing shows where there are eight or nine dudes playing the same style of music. I would purposefully go with a punk band or metal band or whatever and ya know, it’s going to step on some peoples toes but at the same time it could open up some more doors.

Matt: Yeah cos otherwise it’s like four hours of hearing noise, like seriously?

Adam: Yeah I prefer playing shows like this.

Marwan: Cos the one thing you don’t want to do is sound like everyone else you are playing with cost that’s just fucking annoying.

Micah: This is the kind of show where we are going to get drunk beforehand (all laughing).

Marwan: I think we are just more comfortable at this type of show, Meltdown I didn’t even necessarily get fucked up.

Adam: It was just awkward with the huge stage and people seated and security telling them to sit down.

Marwan: And the guitar was just chain sawing through the entire room too. And equipment techs and shit too, like “please just let us put our stuff where we want to”.

Micah: I had to knock the floor drum out the way yesterday cos I cut my finger hitting it and this guy comes down and starts moving it around.

They all start chipping in with how people were ready to run on stage and correct things, very professional, and they felt awkward about it. Like with the stage- hands, as soon as a water bottle was finished like three guys were ready to replace it.

In terms of future plans, Turkey gets mentioned; they were doing some recording in Manchester, more experimental, dipping into other influences like reggae, jazz, motown and death-metal (joking).

Steve: Are there UK bands you were influenced by?

Adam: Old Napalm Death, Unseen Terror, this is 5th time I’m in the UK (playing with different bands), last year I opened up for Inside Warfare and

Al- Thawra - Edifice

they had the singer from Unseen Terror come on stage and I did a song with him, that was amazing!

Marwan: Extreme Noise Terror, older Heresy?

Matt: The Animals, Elvis Costello, Bloc Party, like I said this is my first foray into punk.

Micah: The Beatles!

The band crack up and the conversation ends up with other bands being dropped into the collective hat of UK influences. Al-Thawra are not necessarily Taqwacore by my pre-conceived definition although they are seen at the forefront of this new movement. But as Marwan points out Taqwacore is not identified by a sound but by a belief and a movement, and although my clarity of what exactly that is, remains slightly blurred, Al-Thawra are leading their own revolution and hoping to take you along for the journey.