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I am Nour (closest to right of picture) and I am the front man of the band Anarchadia from Syria, yes Syria - bloody Syria. And this is the first installment of Anarchadia's monthly column so I hope you will be hearing from my bandmates soon too.

When Anarchadia came to being, the revolution had just begun. The story of revolution in Syria is a very long one and I don't want to start from there but as everybody knows, it was a peaceful movement that touched most Syrians and gave hope to the people of Syria, including me, that we might evolve someday and it wasn't that aggressive and hectic like how it is right now.

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I used to work in a coffee shop in addition to my college studies and had the freedom to go out and get back home whenever I want. On that time, we started working together in the band - Anarchadia - and I could spend as much time as I wanted with them whether it was composing, writing lyrics or just for the hell of it. But after a while, things started to take the wrong direction in here. The peaceful mode was off and weapons started to show everywhere, and the war began when rural areas started to get so fucked up and out of control and Syria sunk in the kind of war that never seems to have an end.

Unfortunately, I live in one of those areas where a lot of fire shooting happens, war aircrafts randomly shooting buildings etc... In short, violence started to take over the situation.

All of that has a major role in how and when I should move, because most of the ways out of that area are closed by army barricades, and you can't be out of your house after 8.00pm otherwise death, kidnapping or injury might be your fate. And that's a glimpse of what's going on in most of the areas in Syria now, not just my area.

And the thing that sucks most is that you can't really figure out when the shit could take place, a bomb might explode near you, the two armies might start fighting in the street regardless of how many children, women or men might be in the area of the fight and I have experienced that myself more than once.

Many times snipers tried to shoot at my feet or shoot randomly in the air just to make me run while walking out the streets, likewise, my brother had the same thing happened with him, and one of my close friends had a sniper bullet in his leg while getting back home with his family and that goes on and on.

And here is a story from a personal experience I faced last month that I'd like to share with you.

One day I was coming back home and I was at the check point, showing the army personnel my ID, when shooting took place and it was definitely one of the scariest thing ever that happened to me in my life. I tried to escape and run away as fast as I could but regular army soldiers stopped me and told me to take cover in a building. I went to that building only to find myself taken as a hostage along with 50 maybe 60 other men.

At that time I didn't know why I was taken as a hostage and why the regular army would do such a thing, but I found out later when a soldier told us to shout at the FSA soldiers telling them that one man from the regular army equals 1000 from the FSA. That's when I realized that the FSA has taken hostages from the regular army so regular army held us in hopes of getting back their men.

I spent like an hour and a half with my friend facing the ground and wondering if this was the end, confused that I haven't had the chance to say goodbye to my family my friends or anything from that dramatic bull crap.

Fortunately, in the end we figured out that the regular army was only threating and no one was harmed and we were lucky to get back home safe.

SO .. all of that affected me and the guys as a band, there was some difficulties in the recording, because the studio is kind of far from where we live and there were problems happening around there, moreover, we had difficulties in jamming, because the area where we used to jam in, is somehow far as well.

Anyway .. I don't wanna spoil the fun and I hope next month you will read more interesting stories, maybe more funny than this one from my mates.

Thank you

You can listen to Nour's vocals mixed with Jon Schaffer here...



...and listen to Anarchadia's new album teaser too...



You can also donate to charities trying to access and support those who are vulnerable in Syria as aresult of the conflict.

Donate UNHCR

Save The Children

Islamic Relief

Red Cross

Good luck Nour, we were sorry to hear Rafaat has left Anarchadia due to personal reasons and hope these are either resolved soon so he can rejoin or that you find a new guitarist soon. Making music is challenging enough and the MetalTalk community supports you and hopes for your safety and a peaceful resolution to the Syrian conflict very, very soon.


24.1.13