Although all members are now in Germany, Zanjeer is, for all intents and purposes, a multi-national act. My buddy Hassan Tripsun, Lounar turned me onto the band, which then got me connected with Hassan from Zanjeer, who then got me in touch with Steve, the drummer, for a surprisingly robust round of Roll of the Dice. We rolled a SEVEN (and I want you to see how many times you can listen through their new EP while reading through this interview)
According to your Bandcamp bio, Zanjeer formed in 2020. Could you give us some insight into how the band formed, and what other acts we might recognize the members from?
The band started as an idea I had a couple of months into the very first COVID lockdown in the UK. Hassan had been an internet contact for about 6 years at the time. I first got in touch after hearing his grindcore band Multinational Corporations around 2013-14 I think. I remember being really excited to discover that people in that part of the world were making this kind of music. We had some very pleasant interactions, discussing and comparing various aspects of Iranian and Pakistani/South Asian culture, languages, politics and such, as well as sharing a LOT of music back and forth.
I first met Zuri at Ansia fest in Bogotá in 2017 after recognising him from a festival in Stockholm the previous summer. We hit it off instantly and spent some time hanging out in Colombia, as well as catching up in subsequent years when his bands Muro and Amenazas were touring Europe in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
They were people I liked and respected, both as people and as musicians, and both had since moved to Germany – Hassan studying in Münster, and Zuri was living in Bremen after relocating from Colombia.
Me and Zuri had been talking about doing a band for a while, and as Germany is relatively close to the UK, I linked them to each other’s projects and asked them how they’d feel about getting together to try and create something. They were both keen, so the onus was then on me to head over to make it a reality once restrictions on international travel had eased. I booked a cheap flight from Birmingham to Düsseldorf, stayed a few days with Hassan at his place in Münster, then we went to Bremen and blasted out most of the tracks that ended up on the EP in a few days.
In addition to the already mentioned bands, Hassan’s musical CV encompasses the crossover thrash of Foreskin, cross-border fastcore project Atif X Aslam, straight up punk Dead Bhuttos and hip hop crew Daranti Group back in Pakistan, as well as Bremen-based grinding hardcore Bitter Incision since moving to Germany.
You can currently find Zuri shredding in Ex-Dom and Inferno Perzonale, and Mommers plays guitar in Bremen’s premier party d-beat band Disconfect and goth-punks Cataphiles. I think he plays bass in Inferno Perzonale now too.
As for myself, I played drums in some fairly diverse acts under the DIY punk umbrella in the English midlands, namely fastcore wankers Huffin’ Paint, holy terror/Japanese hardcore worship Beast as God, and I showcased my emotional side in emo projects Akallabêth and Soul Structure. Huffin’ Paint called it a day in 2014, and I packed in the rest before moving to Chile in 2015. I wasn’t having much luck with bands since returning the following year – though it was never really the main driving force in my life – I had a stint playing guitar in some weird Brainbombs/Drunks with Guns worship project called Machiavellian Art, but was silently kicked out supposedly due to a ‘lack of enthusiasm’, which I could understand as I had no gear whatsoever, but you know, a message or conversation would have been appreciated.
In any case, I had this idea of setting my sights a bit further afield. I wanted to get a project off the ground with people whose artistic output I admired, where I’d also have a bit more input into the concepts and themes expressed, as I’d just been silently hiding behind the drum kit for most of my time in bands before. I wanted to try something fresh and exciting.
2) I know that Zanjeer is a band comprised of musicians from across the globe, but are you ALL located in Bremen, or is this also a long distance act?
Only Mommers and Zuri live in Bremen. Hassan is still in Münster as of now, about 3 hours away from Bremen by bus, and I moved to Potsdam near Berlin in October 2021 to further my education in Europe within the limits that the Brexit changes would allow, simultaneously escaping the miserable and corrupt shitheap that the UK has become. So we’re all in Germany now, but the distance and other commitments have meant we’ve only been able to get together twice so far in 2022. You could say that the logistics of it has taught us to work somewhat intensively, haha.
3) Importantly for the listener, Zanjeer sing their lyrics in Urdu, Punjabi and Farsi; which many “Western” listeners probably don’t understand. What was the reasoning behind the decision to sing in these languages, and what do you hope to see listeners who don’t grasp the lyrics themselves to take away from the music?
Punk ceased to be confined to the so-called ‘western world’ not long after its inception. Japan, South East Asia and Latin America in particular have had dynamic and active scenes since around the 80s onwards if I am not mistaken. Of course the majority of bands from these places don’t sing in English, but I don’t think that precludes anyone enjoying their music. My mom still enjoyed her Beatles records growing up despite not having a clue what they were singing about.
In my particular case, I used to visit family in Iran with my mom at least once a year since I was not even 1 year old, the last time being in 2009. I got into punk at around 11 years of age, and I felt a real contrast being so inspired and energised by this music and what it stood for – I’d make mix CDs for the trip and take my mp3 player (remember those things!?) every time – while being in such a socially restricted place where most people had no idea about punk and subcultures in general, and mainstream pop, metal and rap music seemed to be the foreign music of choice besides the traditional classical music and keyboard-centric party stuff. In fact, the first time I ever saw the words ‘Metallica’ and ‘Sepultura’ they were spraypainted on the streets of Iranian cities, haha. I mean, people always found ways around the restrictions to access prohibited music and films, with satellite dishes to get foreign music channels, pirated CDs and such. But there was not much youth subculture people could interact with. The internet was this shitty, slow dial up you’d pay for with these cards from corner shops, and most popular websites are blocked anyway. Nowadays the average internet connection is better (when it isn’t being shut down deliberately by the regime) and VPNs are widely used, but I haven’t been there in over a decade, this is just how I saw things visiting as a teenager in the early 2000s.
Pre-revolution things were very different. Psychedelic rock was hugely popular and there were local psych bands and singers – Kourosh Yaghmaei being a famous example – and even a burgeoning avant-garde, electroacoustic/acousmatic scene. The takeover of the backwards hardline regime really fucked things up for creativity and freedom of expression, among many other things. The consequences for being involved in anything deemed contrary to the regime’s ideals are severe. Confess and Arsames are two Iranian death metal bands whose members have been arrested and handed lengthy sentences for playing ‘the devil’s music’. Confess managed to escape to Norway, and Arsames fled as well. I thank them for their contributions and their bravery and wish them all the best.
There’s a film called No One Knows about the Persian Cats about the problems musicians in Iran face when trying to do bands and succeed. It’s fictional but loosely based on some real events. The indie-pop band featured in the film was real. The filmmakers and musicians also fell afoul of the authorities as a result and are living in exile. I watched it at an independent film festival I was volunteering at in Birmingham some years ago and would recommend. It is very moving.
The decision to use these languages was simply that they were available to us due to our respective backgrounds; Urdu and Punjabi are Hassan’s native languages and I picked up Persian to some level as a heritage language from my mom and the time spent in Iran during my formative years. Having lived in and travelled extensively around Latin America in my 20s, and reading up on modern history when laziness allowed for it, I noticed more than a few points of comparison between the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America with regards to aggressive foreign policy from the ‘greatest country in the world’, European colonisation and its after-effects, constant interference in internal affairs, exploitative and ecologically destructive extraction of resources and large rates of emigration due to a chronic lack of opportunities and prevalent injustices at all levels of society. It naturally made more sense to address these issues in the corresponding languages, as well as doing something a bit different; there are plenty of well-loved bands singing in English, Spanish and German, and as a linguist and general language enthusiast myself, we thought it’d be cool to make a contribution to the small catalogue of punk bands singing in the Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages. I suppose I was also inspired by bands like Heimat-Los from France and Dutch anarcho-punks the Ex, who wrote songs in different languages.
As for the listener, it’s up to them what they take away from the tracks. If they just want to enjoy the riffs that’s absolutely fine by me, but the lyrics are printed with their English translations in the record anyway. The themes we touch upon are emigration, religious, specifically Islamic oppression, environmental destruction, resistance movements in Latin America and the Middle East – drawing parallels between the Kurdish and Mapuche struggles for autonomy – and kidnappings/forced conversions of young non-muslim girls in Pakistan. So a wide range of wholesome topics to consider over your afternoon coffee and cake.
4) While some Europeans welcome immigrants with open arms, it is no surprise that some truly don’t like them. How does anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as Germany’s politics (and EU politics in general) inform Zanjeer’s songs?
Not very much. To be honest we formed this band more with the intention of addressing issues from ‘back home’ that your average western listener might not have been aware of than things affecting Germany. I mean, I grew up in England so I can’t pretend I know what it’s really like to live all your life in Iran, but I’ve definitely had some insight and lived experience of the causes of people’s frustrations. Of course we strongly oppose white nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment, but if you read the lyrics, these are not really the issues at hand. We’re not writing from a European perspective, so while we’re fully aware of the rising tide of refugees and immigrants being scapegoated by politicians for their own failings, it’s not so high up on the list of priorities, you know? Never mind the fact that there are plenty of Hitler admirers, xenophobes and fascists within Colombia, Iran and Pakistan’s borders anyway.
Hassan moved to Germany in 2019 I think, and still wears shalwar kameez (traditional male dress in parts of South Asia) due to comfort and practicality. Living in a city as conservative as Münster he has had some unpleasant experiences and confrontations with people, not all of whom have been ethnic Germans themselves.
As for German or EU politics, I can’t speak for everyone, but ¾ of us moved to Germany within the last 4 or so years. I’m the most recent arrival, and I’m generally quite happy here. I have Berlin and all its weird and wonderful delights a short distance away, I’m halfway through a Masters degree studying a subject that I love, for a tenth of what it would cost in the UK, and my career prospects have also improved considerably. Thinking back to how miserable I was trying to get ahead in life before moving, I have very little to complain about. Things have become alarmingly bad in the UK after 12 years of devastating Tory (Conservative party) austerity and mismanagement, including the rhetoric towards foreigners and immigrants, which was absolutely a factor in deciding the Brexit vote. The former (or is she back already? Things get shuffled around so much and so quickly I lose track) Home Secretary Suella Braverman said her ‘dream’ was to witness a deportation flight to Rwanda, referencing this shockingly weird and inhumane idea of rounding up all asylum seekers arriving to the UK and flying them out to Rwanda for processing. And she’s from an immigrant background herself, as is former Home Secretary Priti Patel and the now prime minister Rishi Sunak. These people don’t give two shits about the general UK population (i.e. not the super-rich) no matter what their origins are. Priti Patel’s discourse on immigrants and refugees was practically neo-fascist, she saw this stupid Rwanda thing through and even showed up in person to oversee people getting kicked out of their homes and deported, as if she got some kind of sick pleasure from it. I don’t see things getting less hostile for new arrivals in the UK any time soon, but some people will no doubt be happy with the superficial – but ultimately meaningless – ‘representation’ aspect of it I suppose.
Of course not everything is rosy in Germany either. The bureaucracy is a massive pain in the arse, and some sub-sections of the German left have some really bizarre ideas, and can be staunchly authoritarian about them. Things that only make sense to them in their very specific German context and that are accepted as truth now because some people decided it was the case in a meeting 20 years ago or something. I’m aware that there was this ‘National Socialist Underground’ who went around indiscriminately killing anyone foreign-looking in the early 2000s, and I read up recently on the deaths of Laye-Alama Condé, Oury Jalloh and Ousman Sey in police custody. Harrowing stuff. Factor in the recent revelation that there are strong links between far-right neo-Nazi organisations and law enforcement and you begin to get an idea of the serious issues that Germany still faces. There is also AfD, or ‘Alternative für Deutschland’, your typical right-wing populist political party with a strong anti-immigrant sentiment, the likes of which are becoming increasingly popular across Europe at the moment unfortunately.
5) Your debut EP PARCHAM BULAND AST was released in early September. Six songs in eight minutes is pretty fast. How has the response to the album been?
We like to keep things short and to the point, haha. The response has been amazing actually. Considering how quickly and easily the project came together, and how infrequently all four of us are even able to be in the same room, it’s both surreal and humbling to be getting this much positive feedback. We aren’t the first band to do ‘this kind’ of thing at all, and I’m sadly aware of how open to misinterpretation the intentions and aims of these kinds of projects can be… Some people miss the point entirely and think the idea is doing a ‘muslim’ punk band, or accuse you of playing identity politics or whatever. At least this is what I overheard some people saying about Taqbir when they played K-Town in Copenhagen in the summer of this year. But if people like it, cool! And if not, that’s cool too! The record coming out after the devastating floods in Pakistan and a couple of weeks before the widespread uprisings for freedom in Iran triggered by the beating to death of a young Kurdish girl for ‘incorrectly’ wearing the hijab by Iran’s moral police couldn’t have contextualised it better, I think. It goes without saying that we fully support the people being active and using their voices over there, and their incredible bravery.
6) At TGEFM we really try to showcase bands outside of the “Western” music sphere and, maybe even more so, outside of the English-speaking sphere. Could you name some bands that TGEFM readers may not be familiar with, but should definitely check out?
Bands like Taqbir and Haram seem fairly well known, at least among people generally into and involved in DIY punk, so give them a listen if you’re not familiar with them already. Both sing in Arabic, their vocalists being of Moroccan and Lebanese backgrounds respectively.
All punk in Persian I’ve come across so far has come out of North America: Siyahkal from Toronto, Khiis from Oakland, CA, Druj from Oklahoma City and Eteraz from Olympia, WA who have just dropped a killer new LP on Iron Lung. They all have pages on bandcamp. Also black metal projects Akvan (solo project moving back and forth between the US and Iran) and Tears of Fire (originally formed in Iran but now based in Berlin, with some Swedish members too I think) who both incorporate elements of Iranian classical music into their tracks.
Demokhratia from Algeria have been going over a decade now and play fast and furious hardcore punk with political themes. They’ve played Europe a couple of times but have to keep their identities hidden to avoid getting into trouble with the authorities upon returning.
I’ll throw in a mention of my long-time friend Amir in Cairo and his post-rock project Go! Save The Hostages, and from Chile I would recommend ARGH from Temuco – their vocalist Erick runs Junko records and releases some shit-hot music from all over the continent – and our label-mates, metalpunkers Abyecta. Abyecta’s bassist René also plays drums in a band called Desamparo who are based in Valparaíso, and play raw punk at its finest. Chile has so many amazing bands that I wouldn’t really know where to begin, and I left some years ago now so am not very tuned in to what’s happening over there musically at the moment, but those 3 are currently active and should give any curious readers a good starting point.
One band that really grabbed my attention recently is El Maquinista from Bogotá who play dark and chaotic powerviolence with harsh noise elements. Res Gestae is a classic Colombian hardcore band who are sadly no longer going. I’ll also mention Dios Hastío and Sistemas de Aniquilación from Peru, Mukeka di Rato, I Shot Cyrus and Discarga from Brazil, Juventud Podrida from Panamá and Mess from Mexico, who I’ll be seeing in Berlin in a couple of weeks! Exciting. If you like your crust slow and metallic, then Ruinas from Buenos Aires do it very well.
As mentioned before, Asia has quite a dynamic and healthy scene, at least in some regions, and there’s a website called Unite Asia run by Riz Farooqi of Hong Kong hardcore crew King Ly Chee, who works tirelessly to promote bands and new releases from around the continent, driven purely by his passion and love for the music. I myself have made some great discoveries from there. Some Indonesian bands I like are Dead Vertical who play grindcore, and Bombardir and Setara who play raw punk. Then there’s Sial, Lubricant and Secret Seven from Singapore, and from Nepal I really like The Doltish who have a kind of singalong punk style in the vein of Asta Kask, anarcho-punks Tank Girl and Neck Deep in Filth who play ferocious 90s style hardcore. Neck Deep in Filth actually did a split with False Flag from India who are also great, taking their cues from His Hero is Gone and that whole melodic but brooding crust explosion of the early 2000s. I also really like Jalang (Formerly Lái) from Melbourne, their vocalist is Chinese-Indonesian and sings some songs in the corresponding language. Israel also seems to have a pretty shit hot punk scene. I know the mere mention of Israel is triggering for some, but please bear in mind that the overwhelming majority of Israeli punks are anti-Zionist and support the Palestinians however they can. Dir Yassin (RIP) and Jarad a were/are particularly outspoken on this matter.
Otherwise my day-to-day listening consists of a lot of chill Folk, Jazz, Funk, Electronica, Ambient, Drum n Bass/Jungle and so on from all over the globe. I really like Iggy Pop’s Sunday radio show on BBC 6 Music as well. You’ve got to give yourself a nice headspace to unwind and get your shit done I think. And anyone still mostly listening to bands who sing in English from ‘western’ countries in this day and age is definitely living in a bubble! There’s a whole universe of mind-blowing stuff available at your fingertips!
7) What’s next for Zanjeer?
We aren’t quite sure ourselves, haha! The last time we got together to practice was already in May. There was a bit of uncertainty as to whether we’d continue with the band at all after the EP dropped due to a number of factors, but as it stands we’re booked to play Izero Hardcore Fest in Poland in June 2023 and will try and organise some dates in Germany and Poland around that. We also got asked to play with Taqbir in Barcelona in December but our schedules sadly wouldn’t allow for it, I sincerely hope it happens another time. Thanks very much for the interview!
Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A Pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.
the white drew carey (aka – Jeff Sorley) is the founder and head editor of TGEFM. He’s lived (outside of) Chicago, Madison WI, (ugh) Penn State, Lyon FR, Oxford UK, central New Jersey, and now within earshot of SFO in the Bay Area. When not scouring the web for more great bands and labels to post about, he also spends time drawing (mostly) silly sci-fi and anime stuff under the name Asplenia Studios.
