In the eye-opening documentary The Persian Underground (World Service), presenter Behzad Bolour meets musicians who have made huge sacrifices in order to continue making music despite Iran’s ban on it.
The story of Anahid, a singer in metal band Masters Of Persia, is particularly dramatic. After rebelling against the rule that women cannot sing in the country, she was captured by secret police, accused of being a satanist and then abandoned by her family. In Masters Of Persia she combines crunchy riffs with lyrics in ancient Persian and English, all sung with a blood-curdling roar. After unleashing the kind of horror movie-esque screech that Pantera would be proud of in Bolour’s face – you’re sort of pleased; Bolour’s interviewing style is basically “drunk uncle at a wedding pointing out you’re not married yet” – Anahid dedicates it to “the women in Iran who have always been suppressed”. It’s a great tribute to the unheard that puts the dunderheaded testimony of all those X Factor hopefuls (“It’s my dream”, “It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do,”) into sharp relief.
Unexpectedly, the genre too often associated with Derek Smalls and leather trousers is revealed to be a kind of life raft. “Metal is not just long hair and drugs,” Meraj, Anahid’s co-vocalist explains. “Eastern metal” as Bolour calls it, combines the pre-1979 revolution, Zoroastrian history and hysterically angry rock. Bolour also meets exiled rockers Orang and Mehr who are living out of suitcases in Stockholm and making their own instruments. We hear snippets of their songs (they sound like a Slipknot tribute band) but when Orang explains their aggressive style (“our life was so brutal and the music was a reflection of the life we had”), it immediately silences your inner critic.
More than that, the documentary makes you ponder the what ifs. Specifically, when Mehr summarises his philosophy as “art is freedom and I’m a soldier in the cultural war”, it makes you balk at what would happen if a similar ban happened in Britain. How would Professor Green or the chap from London Grammar with the lovely hair stand up under torture?
