In late 2013, a new thrash metal band was added to The Egyptian music scene. No one can deny the lack of Thrash Metal bands in our scene, so these bands such as Excimer and Gorynov are highly welcomed among the Egyptian Metalheads. Excimer rocked the scene with their first Ep Serial Killer and Gorynov conquered the scene with their first 2 original tracks ‘Unleashed Hell’ and ‘Divide And Conquer’ through their YouTube channel. Both bands shared in successful concerts in Cairo and Alexandria which is the hometown of most of The Egyptian Metalheads . Through this interview you will know more details about Gorynov.
When and how did the idea of forming a band come to your mind?
It was about 2 years ago, when Mohammed Ibrahim (Vocals) and Muhammad Khaled (Guitar) used to jam together in their hometown in Ismailia. They were very crazy about thrash metal, so they used to cover fast thrash metal songs. Then the idea of forming a thrash metal band and creating their own original songs came across their minds, but they couldn’t find suitable people to join their band in Ismailia. So, they decided to invade Cairo in order to find band members.
Why did you choose thrash metal as the band’s genre?
Simply because we are all thrashers. We love the topics that Thrash Metal discuss, we love its evil badass riffs, fast drumbeats and its powerful vocals. You know, this massive energy that Thrash Metal got.
How did the members meet?
Mohammed Ibrahim and Muhammad Khaled first met in Ismailia. Then Muhammed Khaled found Sara (Drums), Omar (Bass) and Aly (Guitar) through the Internet.
So, now we know that every member from the band is from a different place. Did you face any problems about communicating or dealing with each other?
Yes, and still facing that distance problem. Every rehearsal Mohammed Ibrahim and Muhammad Khaled have to travel for 3 hours from Ismailia to Cairo to meet Omar, Sara and Aly in order to jam and compose music, then they travel back for another 3 hours from Cairo to their hometown Ismailia. It is very exhausting for the guys, but they won’t surrender and they are still fighting for the band.
Why did you choose this name for the band and who chose it?
We all chose the band name, as it was Muhammad Khaled’s suggestion. Actually we named it after composing our two originals ‘Divide and Conquer’ and ‘Unleash Hell’. We are so inspired by the war tales and the weaponry especially that was used in the WWII. We searched for a band name that suit the titles of the songs we compose; a name that got a deep catchy meaning, a name that express the heaviness and the speed of our music and finally we didn’t find a name better than “GORYNOV” as a thrash metal band name.
So, what does it mean, and what does it symbolize for you?
Gorynov or Goryunov is a Soviet medium machine gun that was introduced during the Second World War. It was introduced in 1943 and was mounted on wheeled mounts, tripods and armored vehicles. This weapon is Russian but it’s very well known here in Egypt, it actually suits our attitude and our heavy and fast music.
Talk to us about your first single ‘Divide And Conquer’?
It is that first track we composed. ‘Divide and Conquer’ explains how a nation can easily defeat another nation through diverging them and convincing them to fight each other till they weaken them and become easy to occupy. Unfortunately that’s what we are living in right now.
At a national level, our country now is divided to many parties or groups fighting each other, every group or individual wants to be the leader, forgetting that our country needs much development and hard work, and we can’t continue to be divided like this.
At an international level, our biggest enemy plants hatred among us and tries to break down our unity, so the enemy can stay lonely at the top while we will stay suffering from disputes.
So we’d like to take your attention that there’s no time for conflicts and disputes. Let’s stick together and keep our unity tight. Let’s save our power for the useful hard work.
God Bless our homeland Egypt!
Any new band faces a lot of problems. Tell us about yours.
We always call ourselves “Na7s-NOV” HAHA! We always face problems, but the distance problem is the biggest one. We faced many problems during the recording of ‘Divide And Conquer’. We faced many problems that we don’t even remember them but we are getting over all of them.
Tell us more about your last concert at “Groovy aid”.
It was extra- ultra- over- awesome; many friends came and gave us huge support. They were heavily headbanging to our music and shouting “GO-RY-NOV..GO-RY-NOV”. After the gig many of them took many photos with us, and we even met fans that came travelling from outside Cairo just to see us perform.
Special thanks to our friend Wael from Enraged who really worked so hard to produce that event!!
What is the upcoming step in the band’s career?
We are working now on the recording of the upcoming EP. Get ready; it will be released very soon. Hope you all like it!
Interviewed by: Rana Atef
Edited by: NJ bakr
Photography brought to you by: Lina ElGohary
