We reached the Heavy Metal band Metalholic from Bahrain and talked with Wolve Rine the vocalist. He started the interview with: “The Arab Metal scene can be as good as any other international scene only if it gets the right support, we need more Arab based labels, distribution labels as well as more shows this would definitely help the good bands tour around and get to more and more listeners.”
Metaholic has grown quite popular among the youth in Bahrain. What do you think makes Metaholic special and how did it gain so many followers?
Hmm, what makes us special? It’s the raw sound associated with raw energy and originality all wrapped in a pile of hair and 80s looks – Lol – maybe that’s what gained us the following we have today, specially after the release of our first music video ‘Lucid Dream’ OST of Silveraven (2012 movie) which was the first music video of rock/metal genre in Bahrain and was proudly shown on the silver screens of Seef cinemas, which is an achievement to the band, and we were the first rock/metal genre band ever to play under the ministry of culture on their event of “Bahrain Summer” so all this gained us quite a following.
How did you guys get started?
We started back in 2011 as a band who was supposed to play for Valentines day at one of the malls in Bahrain, back then we didn’t have decided the name or the style for the band, and the show got cancelled and the line up changed, so we changed the style to heavy metal and came up with the name.
You’ve recently released a new music video for the OST of Dead Sands. Tell me a little about it. Was there a reason for which you waited to release the video after the movie was released?
Well, we wanted to do the music video long time ago but due to circumstances we got delayed to the point where we couldn’t do it. After all this time we were quite hesitant, but eventually we felt like getting it over with, it’s a shame to leave something you had the capability of doing unfinished. And we couldn’t have done it without our friends: Ahmed Al Zayani, Abdulwahab Basil, and Hasan Fulath, so thanks to them for helping us with the project and encouraging us and being on our side.
Do you plan on releasing any other videos? What’s next for Metaholic?
Well, so far we don’t think so. It required a lot of time and dedication and constant work, we spent the past 4 months doing this one, not to forget we re-recorded the track at the studio for the best quality then we started working on the shooting which took us a while too. Our least favorite parts were the editing sessions. They exhausted us out since we contributed in editing with our main editor Mr. Zeeshan Shah, the professor of computer graphics in UCB.
You’ve previously released an album. Where can people buy It or listen to your tracks?
Yea we’ve releases a demo album and it’s available online for free to listen to, you can refer to our Facebook page for that and post your feedback their too
What’s your opinion about Bahrain’s music scene? Do you think it receives enough support? How could it improve?
Bahrain’s music scene in our opinion is the best “local” music scene in the gulf, we have a lot of talented bands with different musical genres, filled with enormous talent and energy, but as usual because of the lack of support they can’t make it outside of Bahrain, which kills them over the years. It can be improved by introducing the bands through ministry of culture and providing them the support they need and proper venues to play in with advertisement around the roads for better exposure.
What would be your advice to musicians just starting off?
Follow your heart and believe in yourself, even if people opposed you and you were left all alone be proud that you stood up for something you loved. No lame excuses.
Do you guys ever plan on going regional/international?
Yeah, if we got the perfect chance, why wouldn’t we? Guess going big is always good and we’d proudly represent the place we are from, they were surprised to know on our last visit to Kuwait that there were people we never met and they heard if us. We also got couple of offers to play at Argentina who showed our previous music video ‘Lucid Dream’ so yeah there are future plans if we got the perfect support we needed
Do you have a message for your fans?
All we need for you guys is support, without it we can’t achieve anything so be there always supporting the local talents, and we promise you to not to disappoint you.
We also sincerely would like to thanks COEDS family for having us here, you guys totally rock!
Interviewed by: Yassine Siyaf
Edited by: NJ Bakr
