In a recent sensational moment, vocalist Amin Yahyazadeh won The Voice Persia, representing his range of melodic cleans in stylistic opposition to his deathcore group Out of Nowhere. Prior to this happening, we spoke to the band about their their move away from Iran to Turkey, the influence of Corey Taylor (Slipknot, Stone Sour) on their “Dying Sun” single, and next steps.
Read the interview below.
Out of Nowhere recently immigrated from Iran to Turkey. We also spoke to another metal band, Padra, who made the same move. In our interview with them, they spoke on the difficulties to play live in Iran and harassment from conservative platforms. Can you discuss any difficulties that you encountered as a metal band in Iran? And did Iran’s controversial relationship with metal music influence your decision to move to Turkey or were there other factors as well?
As you know, metal music is considered a crime in Iran. During these years when we were working in Iran, we were hardly able to perform, and even if we succeeded, it was underground and with a lot of stress. On the other hand, there were good opportunities for our group that was lost due to being in Iran. As a result, we made this decision to continue our activities outside of Iran without stress and problems for ourselves and our fans.
Can you summarize the cultural, financial, or political shifts you’ve experienced from Iran to Turkey?
Life will be different for us after immigration. It took a year for us to be able to bring ourselves to the standard of living here, and after this one year of training and communicating, we started to implement.
Your recent single “Dying Sun” thematically speaks about your departure from Iran. I believe it is also your first material released with guitarist Kasra Jafarzadeh and drummer Soroush Kheradmand. Can you talk about the writing and recording process for this single with the new members on board?
In fact, this music was made during the last days when we were in Iran. And as you said, here we continue our band’s activity with our former drummer Soroush Kherdmand and our new guitarist.
The lyrics and video for “Dying Sun” seems to contain much influence or references to music by Corey Taylor (sample of “Bother” by Stone Sour played in intro of video, lyrics “I Dig My Dead Memories and Throw Them Away” / Slipknot song “Dead Memories,” lyrics “We’re Going to Make the Change, Come What May” / Stone Sour album Come What(ever) May). Can you confirm your Corey Taylor influence or are the references purely coincidental?
You made a good point. This music is very emotional for us and the turning point of this decision because it is the beginning of a difficult road ahead for us in another country. That’s why we decided that the video of this music will be a review of our memories. Personally, I really like the lyrics of Slipknot and Stone Sour, and it cannot be said that I was not inspired by them.
What is the metal scene status in both Iran and Turkey and which bands are worth knowing?
Currently, I can say that the metal scene in Turkey is unfortunately not a big scene, and I believe that if this arena was open in Iran, it would be much better and bigger than the neighboring countries. While we were here, we met some good bands in Turkey, but most of them are cover bands, but they perform very well.
As a band in the Middle East, do you feel pressure to write lyrics in English to appeal to a Western audience?
One of the things that I personally feel sad about the fans of this style is that they don’t understand the lyrics very much, and this makes them maybe not able to communicate with the music very well.
You guys previously covered songs by Billie Eilish and Sia. Are there any other non-metal artists you’re planning to cover in the future?
Yes, we are thinking of covering non-metal tracks, but we don’t have any plans for it at the moment. Maybe we are waiting for a good song to be released first so that we can arrange it in metal.
What upcoming plans does Out of Nowhere have?
We have already worked on several singles and it is ready and we plan to release the third album of the group in the next year. This album is like no other album you have ever heard from any band and it has the signature of our group. This album will be the third official album of the group.