METAL MUSIC in IRAN by Jeremy David Prindle a Thesis
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THE DEVIL’S PRAYERS: METAL MUSIC IN IRAN by Jeremy David Prindle A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Middle East Studies Department of Languages and Literature The University of Utah May 2014 Copyright © Jeremy David Prindle 2014 All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF THESIS APPROVAL The thesis of Jeremy David Prindle has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: Soheila Amirsoleimani , Chair 2/25/2014 Date Approved Chris Lippard , Member 2/25/2014 Date Approved Margaret Toscano , Member 2/25/2014 Date Approved and by Johanna Watzinger-Tharp , Chair/Dean of the Department/College/School of Middle East Center and by David B. Kieda, Dean of The Graduate School. ABSTRACT Metal music is a highly misunderstood style of music that is dismissed and demonized all over the world; even in the US and Europe where it originated it is still vilified and viewed as an unsophisticated style of music. In the Islamic Republic of Iran the same views are amplified to the extreme as a very foreign and Western style of music is growing in popularity. I explored the history of metal music to show where this genre originated so a better understanding of this music could be attained. Through an understanding of the genre it is much easier to understand how this music has spread across the globe like a wild fire and people in third world and oppressed nations are being inspired and motivated to become musicians and stand up for themselves and their beliefs. Iran is an excellent country to examine a growing metal music scene because of its status as an Islamic Republic. Music in general is a very controversial issue in Iran and metal music takes this controversy to another level because it is completely forbidden. This has not stopped many Iranians from attaining instruments and starting their own metal bands even though they are harassed and demonized by Iranian authorities. I conducted qualitative research using solo and focus group interviews with eight Persian metal bands and many fans and friends of these bands that identify themselves as metalheads. I had very long and detailed discussions canvasing many aspects of their lives, how they live as outcasts within an Islamic society, their goals in life, and what they want people outside Iran to understand about them. I analyzed the data I collected using a critical ethnographic and grounded theory method which allowed me to experience their lives with them and create life-long friendships. This thesis is the story of thousands of metalheads in Iran that are right now, as you read, playing metal music far underground where no one can hear them. As they play they are envisioning the uncertainty of their lives and the hope they have of a future where they can play in front of a crowd and feel the energy that music generates. Metal music fuels the fire that burns within their souls like gasoline and I hope that this thesis can help stoke that fire into a raging inferno. iv Dedicated to my best friend, who must remain unnamed, without his influence this thesis would never have been written, and to all my metal brothers in Iran, you know who you are, this is for you. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................................. viii CHAPTERS 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 Origins of Research ............................................................................................. 3 Aims .................................................................................................................... 6 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................................. 9 3: METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................... 63 Theory .............................................................................................................. 64 Critical Ethnography (Method 1) ....................................................................... 66 Grounded Theory (Method 2) ........................................................................... 69 Research Setting .............................................................................................. 70 Informant Selection .......................................................................................... 71 Conceptual Framework .................................................................................... 76 Data Collection Methods .................................................................................. 78 Observation ...................................................................................................... 78 Interviews ......................................................................................................... 79 Protection of Human Rights .............................................................................. 80 Analysis ............................................................................................................ 81 Participant Observation .................................................................................... 83 Field Experience .............................................................................................. 84 4: ANALYSIS: ORIGINS OF METAL MUSIC ............................................................. 114 5: ANALYSIS: MUSIC, POPULAR CULTURE, AND IRANIAN SENTIMENT ............. 120 6: ANALYSIS: THE IRANIAN REGIME AND METAL MUSIC .................................... 132 7: ANALYSIS: THE METAL MUSIC SCENE IN IRAN ................................................ 152 8: ANALYSIS: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS IN IRAN ................................................... 170 9: ANALYSIS: METALHEADS IN IRAN ..................................................................... 178 10: ANALYSIS: BAND ACTIVITIES: PRACTICING, CONCERTS, AND RECORDING .............................................................................................................. 195 11: ANALYSIS: THE INFLUENCE OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE IRANIAN METAL SCENE........................................................................................................................ 207 12: ANALYSIS: THE FUTURE OF THE IRANIAN METAL SCENE ............................ 220 13: CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 225 APPENDICES A: BAND PROFILES .................................................................................................. 232 B: SONG LYRICS ...................................................................................................... 243 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 278 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the members of my committee, Soheila Amirsoleimani, Chris Lippard, and Margaret Toscano for reading this thesis and helping me organize it. I would like to thank Roxane Farmanfarmaian for giving me a lot of great advice concerning the methodology of my thesis. I would like to thank Caren Frost for her help with the logistics of presenting my research project to the Institutional Review Board (IRB), without her help I would have never been able to travel to Armenia to conduct my research. I would like to thank Arash of TarantisT for allowing me to come to Los Angeles and film a video with him that helped me gain credibility with Iranian musicians. I would also like to thank my beautiful wife, Chereen, for all of her help in formatting this document with me. I don’t know what I would have done without her help. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The culture of metal music is universal. There is no racial, linguistic, or cultural barrier that separates one metalhead (an avid metal music listener and/or musician) from another. This is why metal bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica, for example, can perform for crowds in excess of 100,000 people anywhere in the world. Through metal music people come together and cross boundaries that would normally stop them from communicating with someone they share nothing in common with. It is how a person like myself can travel halfway around the world to a country I have never been to, meet and interview people I have never met, and despite our language and cultural differences, be so comfortable with each other it was like we had known each other for many years. Metal music is a very Western phenomenon, but over the past forty years metal music has branched out to countries all over the world. For example, there is a metal music scene in Vietnam with bands that cover a wide range of genres from power metal to death metal. There was even a metal festival in Hanoi, Vietnam called Hanoi Death Fest 2013. There is a metal scene in Nicaragua, Botswana, Lebanon, almost every country in the world has been penetrated by metal music but there is one country that has a very unique metal scene because of its status as an Islamic Republic, and that is Iran.1 Iran is different from the other three Islamic Republic’s in Mauritania, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Of these four countries none of them share the same idea about what an 1