The story of Motör Militia seeds back to when drummer Abdulla Muijrers began playing drums in the summer of 1997. A year later, he formed various bands in and around Holland that did small concerts here and there…all of which were forced to break up due to the fact that he had lived in the geographical black hole, Bahrain.
Muijrers later stopped playing drums until he met Mahmood Abdul-Ghaffar in mid-2001, who had started playing bass earlier that year and moved to Bahrain. He was inspired by Ghaffar’s dual skill on bass and vocals to take up drumming again, and started jamming with him and a guitarist in their school to form Black Star, and played mainly Black Sabbath and Motörhead covers. Under this name they played a total of one gig at their school’s annual talent show.
After many line up and name changes Muijrers got a call from a certain Yousef Hatlani, another guitarist in their school, since he had heard of Black Star previously and was looking for a band to jam with (“I still don’t know how he got my number.”- Muijrers). After impressing him and Ghaffar with his style and intensity on guitar, he joined the band; upon which they finally settled with a solid lineup under the name Motör Militia in January 2003. They then played two gigs: one at the National Stadium as part of the school’s request to play at their annual “Sport’s Day”, and the Mega Jam 2003 at Rally Town. Afterwards the band invited rhythm guitarist Mohammed Bukannan as a temporary member as they searched for another guitarist, finally finding a permanent second lead guitarist in Salem Sulaibikh.
The Militia then headlined their school’s Talent Show in 2003 (without Salem, due to complications) and a later gig organized by The Lions Club in the year, which ended up being cancelled. To show support for real metal the band refused to play the local “really big (bullshit) rock festival” Dilstock and in turn organized Friendly Violent Fun, which was hel d on the 23rd of October 2003 (Muijrer’s birthday!!) at the Palace Inn’s Falcon Hall, due to accompanied frustration with the poor local metal scene. With it’s “No bullshit – no censorship – all about the music” attitude, it eventually turned out to be widely accepted as the most successful and phenomenal local real Metal concert ever in the country. The second FVF was held at the Al-Ahli Club on the 19th of February of 2004, which featured an amazing amount of 9 bands!
The band later played at the Fun Land Ice Rink on the 24th of March (sportingly named “Thrash on Ice”). Afterwards, they headlined local concerts Rock Issues and the Underground Asylum, both concerts held at the local Bang Saeng Thai auditorium. At this time Salem later decided to leave the band to pursue the prospects of forming a band with a former classmate, and finding a different sound.
This was the point where the group decided that it was time to release original material. They had previously focused on playing 80’s thrash covers (“Slayer was our specialty.”- Hatlani) at live shows to build a proper metal scene on the island by showing people what real metal is all about: the live performance. And now with a new chapter in their history and the first real thrash metal band in the middle east area to write, perform, and record a complete album of originals, Motör Militia show the local metal scene one important fact that must be remembered in everyone: originality is eternal.
- Motör Militia

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