Lunacyst - Makshoof Music Profile

Once again we take a look into the world of metal in Bahrain to talk to Lunacyst, one of the top metal acts currently featured in Makshoof Music, with a dedicated following and some big wraps from our resident metal man The Squid.

Lunacyst have caused quite the trail of interest in their wake - even recently having a member of their band arrested for an offensive depiction on his shirt in Bahrain during a performance! If there's one consistent message coming from the bands in the tiny Kingdom, it's they need a place to play and create.

Cultural differences obviously play a big part in the difficulties they face, and overcoming them isn't going to be an easy task. That said, with the attitude that these guys have, in addition to the support from around the region, we're sure it won't be long before things develop positively.

Check out Lunacyst's Makshoof Music submission and please feel free to leave a comment.

We caught up with band recently on a wide range of topics - check out the interview and get voting!

We’ve heard from so many bands from Bahrain that talk about the difficulties of playing music, especially metal, there. What’s do you think about the music scene there and what do you think is the best way forward to get great music heard? (Aside of course from triplew.me!)

Well, the more dominant genres in Bahrain are Hip Hop, Trance, House and Reggae. The Metal scene in Bahrain is a small, tight-knit, struggling force trying to survive in an environment where it is not accepted. But this was not always the case. The metal scene back in 1999 when we initially decided to get a band started was 'hella' strong, we were all just a bunch of crazy kids that LOVED Metal, who wanted to organize shows and support other bands. Its when the scene began to grow and people started to become more aware of it , that's when things started to change. We have always said and believe that whatever is not understood is feared and in our case looked down on. The best way for a metal band in Bahrain to get their music heard we would say, has to be the internet.

What are the biggest influences in your song-writing? Is it social or experienced based, or something else?

So far our lyrics have been pure fantasy based, Calvin plays alot of gore/fantasy based video games haha and loves the whole fantasy aspect to writing lyrics. But yeah, social and experience based song writing is a definite possibility in the future!

The Squid, our resident metal man, rates your music really highly, if I remember correctly the word he used to describe your music was the “shiznit” (he assures us this awesome). How do you guys write your music and keep the sound so fresh?

First of all, The Squid is the shiznit for even liking our music a little, leave alone rating it really highly haha. when it comes to writing our music , we basically try to compose Metal that we want to hear, something new, something unique, something explosive, something Brutal. We never limit ourselves to a specific metal sub genre, whatever we feel like throwing in there, we do. Its never like "ok today we're gonna make a Black Metal song" or "our next song should be Pure death metal" no, we try to mix it up and stay true to our roots.

We also see that you’ve become quite infamous through an incident with your guitarist being arrested due to his t-shirt slogan. That must’ve been a very weird situation. Tell us what happened?!?

It was a very weird and a very surreal experience. So here's what happened. A couple of local and international bands were set to tear up the stage for what was going to be the biggest metal gig in Bahrain. Everything was going according to schedule, the bands were set, the crowd was ready to just let loose. So the first couple of bands go on, even before the the 3rd act starts, we all get the news that police in civilian clothes are around trying to find something wrong with the whole shindig. They couldn't really find anything because there was no underage drinking, no fighting, no inappropriate behavior, so what do they do? They start nit picking and assumed that there had to be some sort of satanic ritual going on because of the amount of 'evil black t-shirts' they were seeing, saying that the kids were just dancing hysterically as if they were in a trance (head banging), at one point they even made everyone turn their t-shirts inside out. Now while this is all going down our guitarist Prasad has no clue of whats happening only that the police were there. so he goes and tries to ease some of the tensions with them not knowing anything about the whole making everyone flip their tshirt's inside out, thing. He was wearing a t-shirt that had a comedic and quite silly picture of a devilish figure saying "God is busy, May i help you?"(which he bought from a very popular store at one of the shopping centers here in Bahrain by the way) hahahaha that is all they needed to see, that and all his piercings. long story short, the gig was a bust, everybody was very pissed off and disappointed, it was a big waste of effort and money for all the international acts that showed up to play, Prasad got arrested, was interrogated for about 2 hours. They could not pin him down for anything so they confiscated his t-shirt and let him go. VERY LAME!

How did you guys get together? It seems like you have been together as one band or another over a long period of time? You must get on well! Or is it a case of the line-up changing as the band has developed?

The idea of starting a band came about in 1999, we were all in high school together! Most of us didn't even know how to play an instrument, all we wanted to do was play in a band. So we learned how to play, and have been trying to keep things brutal ever since. The band line-up and name have changed over the years with the most recent being the departure of our previous vocalist in 2009 and recruiting of our drummer Ryan's brother Calvin to take on vocals. We all get along great with the exception of the occasional quarrel here and there but then tha'ts what brothers do, they share everything, the good, the bad and the plain gnarly!

Based on the amazing reaction to your music, and judging by the comments on your profile, you seem to have a very loyal fan-base – how important is the internet to spreading your music and getting that important fan-base?

Lets just start off by saying our fan-base is the most brutal, loyal, just straight up crazy bunch of metal heads anyone would ever meet, we love it. The best part about it is that we are all fans of the scene so we are basically one in the same. The internet plays a huge part of it, especially for us, Its the easiest way to get our stuff out to our fans or anyone who wants to listen, all it needs is that one connection with someone on any level, for someone to relate to and share our taste in music. If we can manage to do that, then our job is done. If it wasn't for the internet, trying to do that would be close to impossible, so yeah its HUGE!

What’s next for Lunacyst? Gigs, recording, writing, all of them?

As for new material, we are constantly writing. We definitely want to record a full length album soon. Most of all we want to get our music out there, play live and tour as many countries as we can.

We see a lot of influences in your music, what bands are your favourites?

Wow that's a really hard one, we are constantly listening to new music and some of the stuff out there right now is just insane! the technicality of the music, time signatures and the arrangements are just getting better and better. but we definitely have our all time faves- Meshuggah, Cannibal Corpse, Necrophagist, The Black Dahlia Murder, Dark Funeral, The Faceless, Nile, Hate Eternal, Dying fetus, Decapitated, Cattle Decapitation, Napalm death..........

Last question, if you got selected in this round of Makshoof Music, what would you try and do with the recordings?

First, we'd give FREE copies to all our fans here coz they are the best and they deserve it for sticking by and supporting us no matter what bullsh*t we've been through. Then we would try and send copies to as many record labels as we could, and basically anyone that wanted one, we were never about the money, we just want to share our random taste in what we call music to the world!

Check out Lunacyst's Makshoof Music profile, listen and leave a comment.