Iranian Rock Band Has a New York Moment
Performing Monday night at Fat Baby bar on the Lower East Side, the four members of Hypernova almost made it through their set before distinguishing themselves from the many other hip and hungry young talents who come to New York seeking musical recognition.
“We have no idea how good or bad we are — we’ve just been playing in Iran,” blurted out Raam, the group’s 25-year-old songwriter and frontman, to howls of encouragement from an audience of about 30 people stacked with Iranian-American friends and supporters. Nonchalance is a hard act to master.
“It may not seem like much to you, but it’s a dream to be here,” he went on, his fluent, accented English hinting at years spent on and off in the United States. “It took us forever.”
He was referring to the lengthy delays in obtaining visas to travel from Tehran, a waiting game spent agonizing over the deteriorating state of United States-Iranian relations. “Every day we’d wake up and say, ‘Please, don’t let Iran be on the front page again.’ ”
Raam, like his bandmates Kodi, 17, the guitarist; Jamshid, 26, the bass player; and Kami, 25, the drummer; goes by a derivation of his first name to avoid undue attention at home. “What we do in Iran is not as easy as it seems,” Raam said, with a verbal swagger belying the risk, in Iran, of performances that can lead to arrest, large fines and even a public flogging.
Rock music has been officially deemed contrary to the Islamic republic’s moral code. In December 2005, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, banned all Western music from state-run airwaves in a reversal of reforms made under his more liberal predecessor.
Elsewhere, outside of Iran, Raam pointed out, musicians enjoy freedom. “We’re jeopardizing our lives every show we play,” he said. “I guess there’s that adventurous side added to the process that gives it that extra rush, that makes it even more rewarding and exciting. It’s definitely worth it. Performing underground in Tehran is the best drug.”
The product of a liberal upbringing and education in the West, Raam returned to Iran to collaborate with other musicians in the underground of Tehran — “you know, in places full of cockroaches,” he said.
Gigs are still played in only private spaces: basements in large homes in Tehran, or villas out of town and ostensibly beyond the reach of a vast and prying network of state agents loyal to the ruling clerical establishment. The band is not too choosy, either. He admits to playing at a girl’s 14th birthday party.
Raam said he saw rock as a force for social and political change in a country of 70 million people, where the median age is 25, access to satellite TV and the Internet is widespread and ineffectively censored, and the ideals of the Islamic revolution have less hold over a younger generation. Young people in Iran “just want to do things that normal kids do around the world,” Raam said. “They just want to listen to music, they want to dress nice, to party.”
Like many other unsigned bands, Hypernova has a MySpace page on the Web, with a list of musical influences almost entirely Western in origin. And all of its songs are written in English, though most of the members barely speak the language. “Farsi for me, it’s a really poetic and harmonious language,” Raam said, not one well-suited to the “harsh and really energetic rock sound.”
Raam largely stays off the topic of politics in interviews, but amid his hyperpaced lyrics is the occasional reference to world events. And perhaps even a disparaging remark about a president, though which president, in the context of an Iranian rock band playing in New York, remains open to interpretation.
Performing Monday night at Fat Baby bar on the Lower East Side, the four members of Hypernova almost made it through their set before distinguishing themselves from the many other hip and hungry young talents who come to New York seeking musical recognition.
“We have no idea how good or bad we are — we’ve just been playing in Iran,” blurted out Raam, the group’s 25-year-old songwriter and frontman, to howls of encouragement from an audience of about 30 people stacked with Iranian-American friends and supporters. Nonchalance is a hard act to master.
“It may not seem like much to you, but it’s a dream to be here,” he went on, his fluent, accented English hinting at years spent on and off in the United States. “It took us forever.”
He was referring to the lengthy delays in obtaining visas to travel from Tehran, a waiting game spent agonizing over the deteriorating state of United States-Iranian relations. “Every day we’d wake up and say, ‘Please, don’t let Iran be on the front page again.’ ”
Raam, like his bandmates Kodi, 17, the guitarist; Jamshid, 26, the bass player; and Kami, 25, the drummer; goes by a derivation of his first name to avoid undue attention at home. “What we do in Iran is not as easy as it seems,” Raam said, with a verbal swagger belying the risk, in Iran, of performances that can lead to arrest, large fines and even a public flogging.
Rock music has been officially deemed contrary to the Islamic republic’s moral code. In December 2005, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, banned all Western music from state-run airwaves in a reversal of reforms made under his more liberal predecessor.
Elsewhere, outside of Iran, Raam pointed out, musicians enjoy freedom. “We’re jeopardizing our lives every show we play,” he said. “I guess there’s that adventurous side added to the process that gives it that extra rush, that makes it even more rewarding and exciting. It’s definitely worth it. Performing underground in Tehran is the best drug.”
The product of a liberal upbringing and education in the West, Raam returned to Iran to collaborate with other musicians in the underground of Tehran — “you know, in places full of cockroaches,” he said.
Gigs are still played in only private spaces: basements in large homes in Tehran, or villas out of town and ostensibly beyond the reach of a vast and prying network of state agents loyal to the ruling clerical establishment. The band is not too choosy, either. He admits to playing at a girl’s 14th birthday party.
Raam said he saw rock as a force for social and political change in a country of 70 million people, where the median age is 25, access to satellite TV and the Internet is widespread and ineffectively censored, and the ideals of the Islamic revolution have less hold over a younger generation. Young people in Iran “just want to do things that normal kids do around the world,” Raam said. “They just want to listen to music, they want to dress nice, to party.”
Like many other unsigned bands, Hypernova has a MySpace page on the Web, with a list of musical influences almost entirely Western in origin. And all of its songs are written in English, though most of the members barely speak the language. “Farsi for me, it’s a really poetic and harmonious language,” Raam said, not one well-suited to the “harsh and really energetic rock sound.”
Raam largely stays off the topic of politics in interviews, but amid his hyperpaced lyrics is the occasional reference to world events. And perhaps even a disparaging remark about a president, though which president, in the context of an Iranian rock band playing in New York, remains open to interpretation.
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