Nervecell are a Death/Thrash/Oriental Metal band located in the United Arab Emirates, but the bandmembers are not of UAE origin, in fact Rajeh "James" Khazaal (vocals) is from Lebanon, Barnaby Ribeiro (guitars) is half Indian, half Portuguese, Rami Mustafa (lead guitarist) is from Jordan and David Haley is from Australia. The band formed in 1999 and are currently unsigned but have released one demo 'Vastlands Of Abomination', one E.P. 'Human Chaos' and their debut album 'Preaching Venom' released in 2008. Their most notable appearances are at the 2005 & 2009 Dubai Desert Rock Festival which is held every March in Dubai, UAE. 2009 live gigs are set to be at the: Rock IM Park Festival, Rock AM Ring Festival, With Full Force Festival, Wacken Open Air, Metal GDL Festival, Occultfest, the Way of Darkness Festival and also headlining the New Jam Festival.

More information at: http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=16250

Band Website: http://www.nervecell.net/

Nervecell Interview by Rhys Stevenson

1. What does the band name mean and who named it first?

Barney: I named the band that back in 2000, there is no real meaning behind the name Nervecell, I basically choose it to express a state of mind where you are left all alone in a cell with nowhere to escape and you are about to explode having to deal with a lot of frustration and difficulties that we all go through in our day to day lives.
 
2. Would you say there is a rapid increase in Middle East and North Africa metal bands?

Rami: Yes actually I see a lot of bands coming out these days. Not just metal but also different genres like rock, punk, jazz. It’s cool.
 
3. Is there any albums in the works to be completed this year?

Rami: Not this year. We are now busy with our European festival tour and later own our own headlining tour towards the end of the year. Plans for a new album will start right after that.

Barney: So far we are in the middle of our European Festival run this summer, after that we head out to do a September European Tour which will consist of club shows and a few more festivals. So we probably will get in the writing mode for the next album only in 2010.
 
4. How many where are the Dubai Rock festival roughly when you last played?

Barney: I would say an estimate of about 12,000 people.
 
5. What is the artwork on the Preaching Venom supposed to be?

Barney: It Basically shows a higher class person who generally is always well accepted by society because of the way he appears to be in front of the media. The cover depicts the person’s true colors when brought out in the open, the message that evil exists in everyone especially those who the general public strongly have a lot of trust in. Its those people who actually have the authority to convince the masses and teach the innocent from what’s right and wrong who we as the pubic need to think twice about! The cover clearly states that it is a corrupt world we live in and we as individuals need to learn and discover thing for ourselves instead of being brain washed by what is force-fed to us by the media today!
 
6. How did you guys meet and do you feel that due to some of the Middle East governments, some metal bands cannot be heard as much as they want to be by the metal world.

Rami: I met the guys in 2001 at my university while they were getting ready for a show. James (vocalist / bassist) was playing his first show with Nervecell as a bass guitarist so I went to support. I then became really good friends with the rest of guys since then and joined the band in 2002/2003.

I know metal bands in different Middle Eastern countries that are not allowed to perform live which makes it hard to promote their music. It’s really sad, but I remember that some bands actually did stupid things on stage like lame gimmicks of spilling fake blood on themselves or performing on stage half naked and other shit which caught the attention of their governments and that caused these bands trouble, and also created a “stereotype” for metal bands being “evil” and troublesome which I really blame it on these bands. In other countries, metal is just banned for other reasons and all I can say for these bands is to keep doing what they’re doing in their own underground scene and one day it will all work out for them!
 
7. What where your first instruments you played on and what are your current instruments?

Rami: I was into drumming. I picked up 2 wooden sticks and a couple of tin cans and made my own drum kit when I was 5 hehe. Then I learnt playing the piano/keyboards since my dad was a player himself and we had many instruments lying around the house so I used to experiment a lot. Now I play the guitar. I play lead guitars in Nervecell and the first time I picked a guitar I was 9.

Barney: I have always played the guitar! I do play the drums occasionally…haha.
 
8. Because you originated all over the world, can you see bands developing 'Jewish metal', 'Arabic metal' and 'Islamic metal' and other religious and race types of metal depending on the lyrics?

Rami: We enjoy playing metal cos of the music not the lyrical content. I think metal music is universal and we enjoy playing death and thrash metal, these are our main influences. We are not into complicated sub-genres and of the idea of re-creating metal music onto something else by mixing different traditions and sounds. I personally think metal music should always stay metal if you know what I mean! It shouldn’t be “over-processed”. It’s always great to be original but without losing focus.

9. Will there be a live DVD coming along that fans will be looking forward to, and where would you film it?

Rami: I suppose we will once we have when we are ready. We have so many great footage of us on tour around the world, in Australia, Europe, Middle East and I think it would be a lot of fun to compile those onto a DVD to show the fans what we experienced in our career.

Barney: Interesting question, we honestly have not even thought about that yet! I guess we would probably record that DVD at home (Dubai), who knows maybe if Preaching Venom does do good in Europe during this current festival tour that we are on then maybe we will think about doing a DVD through out our quest of Europe.
 
10. Are you planning to play in the UK sometime this year or the next?

Barney: To be honest we just might this year, it’s really difficult to say right now but I know there are a few promoters out there that have our press kit. So I guess if not this year then definitely the next! We will find out soon enough, if anything does happen for us in the U.K this year it would probably be towards the end of the year (November/ December).

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