Interview with Daijor

Daijor is an up-and-coming Egyptian metal group, that recently released its latest single “Rosas w Harb” as a stand for the beloved Palestinian land and its people. After checking the music video, I became more curious to know more about their music, philosophy, and upcoming plans. Let’s get started!

• You started a year ago, tell me more about the group foundation. 

Well, let’s start from the beginning, I’m Khaled Elnahas the rhythm guitarist of the band, I met with Misara at the Zamalek Theater Rock Festival back in 2021, I was playing rhythm guitar with the band Ka3b Dayer at the time, and he was the vocalist and rhythm guitarist for Lagham. A couple of months after the concert, I saw a post on Misara’s social media that he wanted to form a heavy metal band, so I contacted him and started the project, we searched for a lead guitarist and found Micheal a talented musician who came from upper Egypt, 2 drummers joined the band and lest for creative differences and to pursue another musical endeavors as they were working with other bands and there scheduling was not favoring our interests as a band. Fast forward to now, we continued our journey the three of us and after our first track was released, we asked our producer to join our ranks as a bassist, so the band’s current lineup is Misara, Khaled, Micheal, and Adham, and we are still looking for a drummer Hahahaha ????

• By checking your Facebook page, I noticed a different line-up than in your latest single. Can you please elaborate? 

Our previous drummer Mazen Maghraby left the band because he was already dedicated to other projects, and he couldn’t keep up with us after Mohamed Talha joined our ranks and stayed for more than a year after we found that we didn’t share the same vision for the band musical approach, so we parted ways, and as for Magdy Hanafy, he told us one day out of the blue that he will not continue with his musical career and he quits playing music in general, so we asked Adham to Join us a bassist after that.

• “Rosas w Harb” a nice metal uprising for current events. Was it already one of the band’s previous goals or was it just to keep up with events?

This track is a special one for the band generally and for me personally, I wrote the riffs back in 2014 when I was just writing riffs and tracks for my amusement. Misara also wrote the lyrics sometime ago, and after we formed Daijor, it was planned that this track would be our fourth one, due to the current situation and what has been happening in Gaza, and the propaganda war that is currently happening, we thought that it’s our obligation as Muslims to use their weapons against them, and try to paint the written picture with what we can do. We believe that the powerful message that the song delivers will reach each and everyone who is concerned with the cause and maybe open some eyes to what’s happening.

• So in general, what are the main themes behind the band’s lyrics?

Life struggles, pain, sorrow, grief, and depression.

• What is the purpose of using various singing styles in one song? Won’t this be confusing for the listeners? 

This style of singing is common in metal, metalcore, and melodic death, which we are heavily influenced by, also the riffs are kind of aggressive and need these harsh vocals to add an extra layer of aggression and anger to the mix.

• Don’t you think using a multi-lingual lyric, would help you out more to deliver the message globally?

We are an Egyptian metal band, and we are proud of our language, and the Arabic language is a deep one with so many figures of speech and, meaningful words “Take the band’s name for example, it’s an Arabic fus-ha (Old Arabic) word that means darkness” also we tried to compensate for that by translating the song’s lyrics for non-Arabic speakers to understand, moreover, a lot of bands sing in their mother tongue and their music is quite enjoyable, and for that the fans go the extra mile to translate and understand their lyrics and lyrical theme.

• I noticed that you’re keen to do a merge between old-school and modern metal styles, curious to know more guys about your influences. 

So many genres and bands influence us, but the genres and bands that get us the most are thrash, metalcore, melodic death, symphonic metal, and doom metal from bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Kalmah, Parkwaydrive, As I Lay Dying, and many more.

• Since metal music isn’t a mainstream style, would you consider doing any fusions with other styles in your upcoming releases?

We understand that metal music is an acquired taste and that it’s not for everyone, however, we can see ourselves evolving by trying different approaches, and different musical styles, but it will be through fusion of course and not changing to a specific genre on it’s own.

• Finally, what are your plans for 2024?

We are planning to continue with our track releases, which will give us more exposure to the metal scene and metal fans, also we are looking forward to having our first gig at the beginning of 2024 because we believe that the Live sessions are as important as the recording sessions.

It was really an honor having this interview with you, and we are thrilled with your review of our track, thank you, and if you have any further questions just let us know.

• Thank you for joining us, and keep on rockin’!