An exclusive interview with Shant Hagopian the guitarist of Nu.Clear.Dawn one of the best heavy prog metal band in Syria : "we don't want to be another Rhapsody or any other middle aged band, but actually this was a start, and it's not necessary for the band to follow the same direction in the upcoming albums"

We'd like you to give us a fast overview about your band and what style you play?
Nu.Clear.Dawn started back in 1997 playing cover shows her and there and the song styles ranged from Heavy and Power Metal to Speed and Progressive, later on after 2000 the band started to take a different style direction influenced by bands like Rush, Dio, Dream Theater, Halloween, Rhapsody ... and in 2002 we decided to record the debut album, so the band's style for now is Melodic Progressive metal.

Can you tell us about your music influences?
Anything progressive and anything we can hear and feel music in it, starting from Rush, Dream Theater, Rhapsody, Dio, Halloween, Queensryche, Pink Floyd ... there are lots of influences but those are the main ones.

What are you lyrics about?
As for the debut album "Poem of a Knight" it's a concept album and it's based on a story written by ourselves, it tells a story of a guy named Luis who lived in the middle ages, back then he was an opera singer and one day he meets the daughter of the lord who was named Anna and they fall in love, the thing that didn't make the lord happy for his daughter being with an opera singer, and the story goes on, the lord (falcon) starts sending his guards (crows) to keep an eye on the couple and avoid them to be together. Later on the revolution starts and taking advantage of it Luis starts fighting Anna's father for his only love, and it turns to a battle, a war, Luis grabs his sword and join the others and in the middle of the battlefield gets a stab on his back and falls unconscious, he opens his eyes under a holy ceiling and finds Anna beside him curing him and taking care of his wounds. Luis has the feeling that he couldn't continue his life so he asks Anna to take him to his home for the last time, to the Opera where he was born and grown, and they take a ride with the horsemen, and on their way Luis gets unconscious again remember all they've been through, and as they reach the Opera house they get inside and he climbs the stage exhausted and starts singing with all his voice filling the empty hall till he falls on his knees and lays on the stage floor waiting for the angels to take his soul away.

Nu-clear-dawn, what is the meaning of it?
When we put assigned a name to the band as Nuclear Dawn we found a very powerful meaning to it, a fact that we may all worry about ... someday ... a dawn, it might not be a normal dawn, it might be a dusty, hopeless dawn.
But on the other side we found the spelling of it Nu Clear Dawn sounds like New Clear Dawn which in return carries totally a different meaning to the first one, so we decided to add the dots to separate the words and it became Nu.Clear.Dawn making it a very unique name.

Your band has the look of the Middle Ages,tell us why you chose this style?
Of course the look of the band and the website is according to the record. Well, before we started writing and recording the album we were listening to lots of classic music along with symphonic metal like Rhapsody, Blind Guardian and others you know their music is about fantasy stories back in the middle ages, plus we've came out with a real cool story ourselves so we liked the idea, and when we wrote the story and looked at it we directly came out with real good ideas to be added in the record, and that was it, we don't want to be another Rhapsody or any other middle aged band, but actually this was a start, and it's not necessary for the band to follow the same direction in the upcoming albums

Give us some info about your band members?
I can give brief information about the biographies, Arm Rifai - Vocals - 1979, Arm is a talented musician and has a lot of ideas about Classic music he helped a lot in writing the music and actually most of the parts of the story was written by him. Arm's voice developed to better and better through the years and in 2001- 2002 he started taking opera style-singing lessons from the well known Coach Araxi.
Aram Kalousdian - Drums - 1979 Aram and me were in the band since 1997 up to this day his playing style is just the best within all the drummers found in our region with powerful techniques
And wonderful taste, Aram started playing on the drums in 1996 and progressed on his own without taking any serious drumming lessons.
A.K. - Keyboards - 1977, he has a very unique playing style and lots of wonderful ideas, and he knows what he is doing while choosing a sound for a particular section in each track. A.K. got piano and keyboard lessons for 6 years and joined Nu.Clear.Dawn in 2002 right when we started recording the album.
Elie Baly - Bass - 1980 Elie, just like Aram developed his own style unless his father is a bass player too, but he carried on, on his own, Elie is talented and has great bass playing techniques as tapping and playing the right note in the right place
Shant Hagopian - Guitars - 1979, Well I started back in 1996 on a nylon string guitar and in 1997 I started taking jazz guitar lessons in a music school here in our country, Theorical lessons, solfege and Harmony lessons helped me a lot in constructing, arranging and building the chords as now for the middle-aged album, I got the jazz guitar degree in 2003.

Tell us about your first record?
The first record was created back in summer 2000 it was a very good experience for all the band, but back then Nu.Clear.Dawn had another bass player x-former Rami Dagger, who also came out with the Idea of the name, hails to you Rami!
Actually it wasn't a full album it was only one track titled "To Stand Forever" we didn't release it back then cause it was just one song and putting it with "Poem of a Knight" is totally a wrong idea, and we don't feel like adding it in other albums too, it's just like that it's our very first single ... (unreleased single)

Give us some info about your cd "Poem of a Knight"?
I guess we talked about the story of the album; "Poem of a Knight" is constructed of 1 instrumental "Overture" and 7 other tracks, which are already divided from the main story to clearly represent. The meeting place "The Meeting", introduction to the lord, father of Anna and his evil movements "Falcon and Crow" and then "Revolution", the battle "Horses of Steel" when Luis gets stabbed from his back and gets "Wounded" and then "Memories on the Road" as the name speaks of itself, and finally "Rebirth" where Luis enters the opera house waiting to die and be reborn again.
We can't really say what the main music style is exactly, because you can find Speed Metal, Power Metal, Melodic Metal, Symphonic Metal, Progressive Metal, in all the songs.
Talking about the artwork it's me who worked on everything regarding its art, the drawings the design the cover design and even the photographs done by me, I don't like to talk a lot about myself really, but because this is an interview and the question is directed to it then I have to talk (hahaha) and as for the website it's also done by me I'm the webmaster and the member in the same time, I have fun replying to fans emails calling her and there arranging our shows, sending promo packages, posting in the Nu.Clear.Dawn message board, and the main idea is to collect the metal heads in one place.
Back to the CD it's the very first metal album for Syria and we're happy with the results, yeah we've paid everything for it, but it was worth it, "Poem of a Knight" entered Syria's metal scene in the list of the metal world.
The album got a very good ratings and great reviews we and all were surprised about in the outside world, as in www.metalstorm.ee www.metal-observer.com, www.strutter.8m.com, www.rocknama.com and a lot more who rated the album 7.5/10, 8/10 and even 8.5/10, and 4/5, we're really proud and happy of what we've done!

Where did record your cd?
We asked ourselves the same question before starting the recording sessions. Well I can say that Arab countries never had professional recording studios to support metal but once back in 1999 we worked with a nice engineer called Yeghia Daghlian who is already a drummer himself, and he plays for Deep Purple and Pink Floyd back in the 70's so we thought he's the right one for us.
We started working in early august 2002 and kept on working and editing and mixing till May 2003, and he result was not bad at all.

What is your favorite band and album?
For me there are lots of favorite albums for different bands I can't really tell which one is my favorite, some of them are "Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd ", " Images & Words - Dream Theater ", " Wish master - Night wish ", "The Odyssey - Symphony X", "Moving Pictures - Rush".

Tell us how is the metal scene in Syria, how are the bands there?
We started supporting the Syrian metal scene back when there wasn't metal bands at all when we started, in 2000 and later some bands started play shows here and there, playing Nu-Metal stuff and some doom and death metal, lots of bands here risen and fallen through the years, actually bands try to appear on stage in front of the crowd without taking care of the music or the show. Just for appearance.
The metal scene in Syria started in 1989 by a man (singer) named Jack Power, who sang with the very first show of Nu.Clear.Dawn in 1997, none of the bands here in Syria have their own-recorded materials, but I guess there will be some in the near future.

Is there any concert in the near future, how many gigs did you play?
Yes we are preparing a small tour now here within Syria, 4 cities and we're pretty busy arranging and organizing it, this is the very first tour for the band, last time we played in 2001 in two cities and arranging the shows was a real tough work. We played lots of shows and gigs here and there some of the biggest shows are: one in 1997 first show, 1998 Aleppo and Damascus, 1999 big metal show 1200 ppl attended the show, 1999 world music festival, 2000 unplugged, 2001 Damascus and Aleppo, and after 1 month we have the Syrian tour Lattakia, Aleppo, Homs, Damascus, 4 shows playing the entire album, and we have plans later to play in Dubai, Lebanon, Jordan and Armenia.

How are the metal fans in Syria, is there many?
I can say there are overall about 3000 - 3500 metal heads in Syria, but you know not everyone who listens to Metallica is a metal head (hahaha) so I can say that real metal heads are about 1000 people maximum.
I guess every arab county has this problem about ppl screaming Metallica Metallica in every show, we don't give a shit, and we are trying to not to play for Metallica little by little, there are lots of other bands who deserve to be played in our Covers part of the show, and after all we're going to get rid of that cover parts sooner or later.

Tell us about the metal scene in Arab countries how do you view it?
. As I mentioned above, but once again I really find lots of Arab metal supporters in different countries, specially these later years, Lebanon has a pretty good Metal Scene, also U.A.E. we never knew about before, and speaking of metal bands, yeah there are many bands but for us we want to hear something closer to our style Progressive or let's say Melodic Metal.

Did you play any concert in any Arab country yet?
No not really we were going to play some shows in Lebanon but things didn't go well with the organizers, money has always been a problem for them, although we were going to play there for free only trying to cover our costs, I guess we (Arab countries) still need more time to organize ourselves to support the whole Arab metal scene, and we also need REAL organizers, who not only think about income and money. I hope we'll be able to play in other countries soon.

Is there any band you would like to play with as a support act ?
Sure. Nirvana (hahaha), well it might be a dream for me to play an opening act for Dream Theater, that's my own idea, I don't know what about the other members.

Message for the Arab underground?
Let's show the world what we can do!

Thanks for the interview, we wish you good luck.

Interview by DeathCurse

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