Yellow Dogs. De tweede van rechts is Matt Katz, de schrijver van dit stuk.

Twee dagen geleden werd ik wakker en zette, zoals iedere ochtend, de tv aan. Op het nieuws was iets over een moord in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, een buurt waar ik vaak kom. Ik schonk er geen aandacht aan. Toen ik een uur later op kantoor arriveerde hoorde ik dat er een band bij de moord betrokken was. Ik zag een mail van een vriend die een artikel van Wall Street Journal had doorgestuurd en het eerste woord dat ik las was ‘Iran’.

Ik moest mijn hart oprapen. Het was Yellow Dogs.

Yellow Dogs was een niet zo heel bekende Iraanse punkband. De band was de onderdrukking in Teheran ontsnapt om hun muziek naar Brooklyn te brengen. Ik ontdekte ze via de award-winnende documentaire No One Knows About Persion Cats, een docu die portretteert hoe gevaarlijk het is om moderne rockmuziek te spelen in de politiestaat Iran. Sinds het zien van die documentaire heb ik hun EP’s altijd bij me en luister ik ernaar als ik door New York reis.

In de vroege ochtend van 11 november liep Raefe Ahkbar, bandlid van een andere Iraanse band, genaamd The Free Keys (die dezelfde manager hadden als Yellow Dogs,) door het drie verdiepingen tellende gebouw en schoot drie mensen neer met een .308 kalibergeweer (een vierde raakte gewond). Twee van de overledenen waren lid van Yellow Dogs: gitarist Soroush Farazmand en drummer Arash Farazmand. Daarna schoot Ahkabar zichzelf neer. Waarom? Ahkbar was daarvoor uit de band The Free Keys gezet omdat hij bandapparatuur had verkocht.

Ik greep naar mijn rugzak, opende het kleinste zakje en trok een paar gekreukelde papieren eruit. Op de papieren stonden aantekeningen die ik had gemaakt tijdens een interview met Soroush, niet zo lang geleden. Ik was ooit in één keer gegrepen door hun muziek en ik moest weten waarom deze vier gasten alles hadden achtergelaten om in kleine zaaltjes in Brooklyn te spelen. Nadat ik met Soroush had gesproken wist ik dat er veel meer achter zat dan dat. Het gemiddelde concert van Yellow Dogs in Iran zag er zo uit: ze begonnen te spelen en binnen een paar minuten blies de politie het hele feest af. Ze kwamen naar Amerika omdat ze muziek wilde maken vol ritme, soul, agressie en een boodschap. Al die dingen waren verboden in Iran (behalve de agressie natuurlijk, maar dan moet je wel lid zijn van het leger of de politie).

Noisey: You guys are quickly becoming one of my favorite bands. How did you all get started?
Soroush Farazmand: Well, it happened when me and our bassist left our old band back in Iran. We’d been in that band since we were 16 or 17, and we decided to start something new, with new concepts and new ideas, no rules, and tons of passion. Soon we found a drummer with a small secret rehearsal space on the roof and a crazy punk rocker/skater/shoplifter guy who could play guitar and sing. This was all centered on a park called Ghoory, which was the place to hang out for punks, hippies, and skaters. We used to hang out there a lot. Recently Arash joined the band as the drummer. He happened to be one of the founders of a well known Iranian band called the Free Keys. He is also my brother, and we always wanted him to play with us. Now that he’s with us, I think we’re in a pretty good shape.

Your music is pretty edgy and intense. Do you consider your band rebellious?
Yeah, but I think our band was much more rebellious when we were living in Iran.

Would you say that indie music is automatically rebellious in Iran?
Definitely. Independent music is rebellious anywhere, but if you’re talking about Iran, yes, all of it is! To make state-sponsored music in Iran, you have to be extremely optimistic about everything in society. We were not.

Is creating music that breaks established social rules considered Illegal?
There are so many types of music that are illegal in Iran: any music with English lyrics, or dance music, or with anything that’s against Islam. Basically, anything that makes you feel good or happy is illegal.

What happens when you guys play at an illegal show in Iran?
Actually, there’s a big difference. We liked to think that at an illegal concert, everything illegal becomes legal. This made shows more epic and fun, right? They became a place of freedom, and each crowd member reacted based on their personality.

What happened if someone in Iran got caught making Illegal music or going to an illegal concert?
The rules are changing and getting worse each day. It can be extremely dangerous in most of the situations.

You guys appear in one of my favorite movies about world music, No One Knows about Persian Cats, which details the difficulty of making music in Iran. Indie rock has a lot of meanings here in America, but what does it mean to you?
It means so many different things, but for us it means freedom of expression in the way we want it.

There’s one line in the movie where the main character says, “Here you can’t do anything—in this country you don’t have a chance.” Do you agree with him?
Totally. It’s the way you feel when you’re playing music in Iran. You can’t help it, even if you think it’s not true.

The movie showcases the difficulty in getting out of Iran to share your music with a larger audience. How were you able to do that and why did you come to Brooklyn?
For years we were invited to come to the US and perform at South by Southwest and CMJ, but we had passport issues. Just one of us had a passport, and the rest of the band couldn’t get them because In Iran all the men have to do their military service before they can leave the country. So with a lot of help, we found a way to get passports without going through military service or even by bribing the government. With money you can do almost anything in Tehran and Iran. But we’ve been through a lot of bullshit, and we struggled a lot for a whole year. Some of us even got in serious trouble, but we finally found a way out. We wanted to come for CMJ 2009 but we couldn’t make it on time, so we went to Turkey, played a concert there, and went to the American Embassy and got visas. We’ve decided to live in Brooklyn because we knew our music would make more sense in New York, and this was a place we could grow.

Finally, what music influences you guys the most?
We usually listen to all kinds of music, from the late-50s to recent upcoming local bands from all over the world. In Iran, we were mostly into post-punk and dance bands like the Rapture, Moving Units, the Faint, Modest Mouse, Joy Division, and the Clash. There are so many bands, musicians, songs, and even chords that influence our music. I don’t want to go over all of them one by one, but will include just one I think would make the most sense in all aspects: “Rock the Casbah” by the Clash!

(via Vice)