Nervecell comprised of Rajeh “James” Khazaal, Barnaby Ribeiro “a.k.a Barney” and Rami Mustafa is one of Dubai’s first and leading death metal acts. Founded in 1999 the band made its first appearance at the ‘Battle of The Bands’ competition in Abu Dhabi where they won the award for ‘Best Performance’ with Barney picking up the honor for ‘Best Guitarist.’ After hugely successful releases of their demo Vastlands of Abomination and EP Human Chaos; which earned them a dedicated underground following; they were invited in 2005 to open for metal giants Sepultura and Machine Head at Asia’s most hectic metal festival The Dubai Dessert Rock Festival. With a stellar performance at Dessert Rock they earned themselves regular spots at future Dessert Rock festivals and the Road Rage tour of Australia.

Recently signed onto Lifeforce Records these Middle Eastern metal giants are currently completing their Europian tour with spots at The ‘Rock Im Park Festival,’ ‘Rock Am Ring Festival’ and ‘Wacken Open Air!’ Today The Backdoor treats you to an exclusive interview with Barney, James and Rami of Nervecell.

1. An introduction to the band and how you guys decided to come together as Nervecell.

Barney: We started out just like any local band here in Dubai, you know to play the Battle of the bands, the underground metal gigs that would take place here from time to time and just get together and have fun. Back in the late 90’s the scene here in Dubai had many bands and loads of fans of rock / metal music. So the turn outs for local shows was quite huge and seeing all of that made me want to start a band rather than attend these gigs as part of the audience. Nervecell formed in 2000 but it was only in 2001 that we played our first ever show in Abu Dhabi. Of course the line up back then was different, but ever since 2003 onwards we have had this steady line up which consists of James, Rami and myself and secession drummers up until now. We were initially a hardcore metal band playing covers of Hatebreed and Obituary along with our originals at the local gigs but as time went by we started writing more and eventually ended up putting out our first ever EP in 2004 called Human Chaos, after we released that came in the fan base, the regular gigs and we just suddenly became Dubai’s favorite metal band, its been 9 years so there is no reason to stop…especially now!

2. Was it hard since Dubai and most of the Middle East has an all for “pop and hip hop culture”?

Rami: No not really. It’s cool in fact ‘cos being a metal band in Dubai is just like anywhere else in the world, maybe the scene here is very small, it’s too underground but it’s growing. We were never concerned about the different genres in the music industry. I admit that the media here in Dubai pays more attention to the popular styles of music such as Pop and Hip Hop as you mentioned and even R&B and dance music, and not so much with metal, but we just do our thing and concentrate on performing live, marketing ourselves and doing what we have to do regardless. Of course with our management and label things became easier now. In Dubai, we’ve been playing shows for almost ten- nine years now performing mostly underground gigs and big festivals, mainly Dubai Desert Rock Festival which is the biggest here in Dubai. We travel a lot and play outside Dubai so that helps too of course. Commercial music is everywhere in the world, and its true that most people listen to it, but we really don’t target these crowds, rather we target a totally different audience who are obviously the metal heads. If pop or Hip Hop fans like our music then that’s cool, why not? Maybe they’ll become metal fans haha.

3. Why the name Nervecell?

Barney: It just sounded cool to me at the time when we had to think of what the band would be called, of course you have to adapt sense into your band name hence the word NERVECELL is really a combination of two words – the nerve is an essential part of the human body and we all know that when your frustrated or bugged by somebody or something that anger basically “gets on your nerves” and you just want to explode or seek for an outlet. Hence the word cell comes in which develops this feeling of being locked up and imprisoned with nowhere to go or escape. So basically it expresses this state of mind where you are left all alone in a cell with no escape and you are about to explode having to deal with a lot of frustration and difficulties that we all go through in our day to day lives.

4. The journey from your amazing EP Human Chaos to the album Preaching Venom…how was it?

Barney: Incredible! You know we never were in a situation where we felt we need to write something for the sake of it, all ideas, riffs and notes on the albums we have released have all been thought of and analyzed by the band. We definitely took our time as it was a 4 year gap which really is a long time but as you can probably tell it was well worth the wait. I mean you have to understand that during those 4 years all of us in the band were balancing our degrees in university too. So all that stress of school and daily living conditions played a role in the writing process which probably helped us out in writing…haha, Rami and I would write songs over the internet and send it to each other and exchange ideas. We did that for about 2 years actually and eventually when we felt we had enough solid material down we decided in 2008 to hit the studio and lay down the tracks. Only this time around we wanted to leave our mark on a global level and so we decided to work with a strong team of professionals from all over the world for “Preaching Venom”. Hence we worked with Hertz Studio in Poland for the mixing of the album, with Alan Douches for the mastering in New York and the drums were recorded in Australia with Dave from Psycroptic and it all worked out for us but it wasn’t easy that’s for damn sure.

5. The bands musical (and other, if any ) influences?

James: Cannibal Corpse and Deicide are my main influences on both Bass and Vocals.

Rami: Main influences are Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Death, Deicide, Suffocation, Dissection, Dark Funeral, Megadeth, Slayer, Sepultura, Pantera, Metallica, Dark Angel etc. Progressive metal also is a major influence, bands like Evergrey, Symphony X, Adagio and Dream Theater etc.

6. What’s a normal jamming session like for you guys?

James: We meet up, create the actual set list for the show we will be playing, and play the songs accordingly. This is important regarding the distribution of the songs, and what I have to say on stage. The guys pitch in ideas that we have to touch upon, like introducing songs, hyping up and addressing the crowd, thanking the people that help make the show etc.

7. The inspiration behind both EP and Album…since bother have very strong religious feels to.

James: If religion is touched upon lyrically, I as the writer never stress on religion or politics. My lyrics are a reflection of an individuals life time experiences, we always get hurt, we get angry, we pass through hard times, even nations do. This is what Nervecell is about, we share ideas and never impose or force action. There is a message of awareness though and that is “Believe in your self, and you are responsible for the consequences of your actions.”

8. Whats the metal scene like in the ME and or in Dubai at the moment?

Rami: The metal scene is very small in Dubai, very underground, and with Dubai Desert Rock Festival which occurs annually with international metal bands coming down and thousands of people from all around the Middle East coming for this festival, I’d say metal is well and alive in Dubai and the Middle East. Different countries in the Middle East like Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and others have so many metal fans and with a slightly bigger scene, but not as active as Dubai’s. The Middle East metal scene is becoming bigger in time and that’s a great thing of course.

9. Congrats on the record label signing…your fans in Sri Lanka and all over the world are excited for you guys …was it hard to score a deal?..How long did it take?

Barney: Thank you, we certainly are happy to work with LIFEFORCE RECORDS I mean they are a very well established European Label and obviously have given rise to bands such as Trivium, All That Remains, Between The Burried and Me, Heaven Shall Burn and the list goes on…All of these bands today have moved on and been taken over by other bigger labels like Century Media or Roadrunner Records. Having said that we are so very pleased to work with Lifeforce Records because firstly they believe in our music and they have seen the band live and met us personally and like us for who we are and appreciate and realize the struggle we have been through. I mean there were other labels who wanted to sign us but we never really felt 100% confident with these other labels because it was either their approach or their offers that turned us off, now that we are signed to Lifeforce Records we knew we were right for not just jumping on the first offer we got. I guess Lifeforce once they saw us live they knew we got what it takes and that was it, of course prior to the summer festivals we have been playing lately we had sent out our album “Preaching Venom” to a few of the labels we had wanted to work with and Lifeforce Records was certainly one of them!

10. Whats the biggest challenge for you guys as a band?

Rami: There is no one big challenge in my opinion, there’s so many different countless challenges. Being based in Dubai is a challenge, with a small metal scene here, that’s a challenge for us to keep going. Becoming recognized in the metal world and playing major festivals and getting signed to an international label was a great challenge and of course a dream come true. Working on a huge production for a debut album is a challenge and so on. To conclude, I’d say keeping the faith going within the band, against all the odds and hard times that we’ve faced throughout the years is our biggest challenge. We all share the same interest which is our love for metal and playing music. We come from different countries and we are all based in Dubai, I now live in Qatar with my family and our drummer lives in Australia. In 2002 Barney left to Canada for 4 years and came back, so lots of things have changed in the past and are still changing, but the band is still going and that’s what really matters.

11. Your beauties (guitars)…could you tell us about them?

Barney: I use LTD guitars lately and I’ve been a constant fan of Ibanez for years together!

I have my eyes on the LTD Deluxe H 1000, damn I want that guitar so bad…its discontinued so that really sucks for me

James: My baby is a Legend 4 Custom Euro Spector. It can’t get better; she is great live and in the studio. She was a dream come true and worth the entire wait. I knew her through Alex Webster from Cannibal Corpse.

Rami: I play a B.C. Rich NJ Deluxe Jr. V guitar and an Ibanez S520 EX guitar. I use EMG pick ups in both guitars

12. The future of Nervecell?

James: Never ending journey, we will walk through hardships and issues, but we will stay walking and doing what we do best with strong devotion and supporting each others back, we never thought we would have such a summer, and an eventful year, hard work is doing justice for us and nothing will bring us down it will only make us bigger, wiser, and better.

13. Are you guys gonna put out albums any time soon?

James: Indeed, it’s on the works now since the signing with LifeForce.

14. Any messages to your fans here in Sri Lanka and the world over?

Barney: Thanks for supporting us guys!!! – We truly hope to see you soon in the near future and I can’t wait to eat some of your awesome spicy dishes too.

James: We will come to you where ever you are, and we will all have a great show.

Rami: If you haven’t heard of Nervecell, please do check us out on www.nervecell.net and www.myspace.com/nervecell drop us a line with what you think