Interview: Lazywall (Written)

Games, Brrraaains & Head-Banging Life bring you an interview with rock/metal band, Lazywall.

1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.

Hello, we are Lazywall, an oriental Rock/Metal hybrid band from Morocco. The band was formed in 2003 in Reading, UK but the band members are three brothers originally from Tangier, Morocco. We’ve had a few bands before but when we moved to England, we found out our sound was too dated so we formed a new band and added a touch of Metal to our guitar riffs. After 5 years in the Berkshire local scene, we finally made the move back home in 2008.

2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?

We started as a rock/metal band but when we moved back to Morocco, we started experimenting with musicians from Morocco. We found out that there was a big similarity between oriental instruments and Rock guitar riffs. For example, the Oud can sit very nicely on top of heavy guitars, the guembri (African bass) usually is played with dark trance notes, same as Tool would do with their bass riffs. And we also realised that Arabic percussions like Darbuka or Bendir give a nice original touch when played on none 4/4 rhythms. So, we had the idea to make custom-made instruments to play live. Our guitarist plays with his Guitaroud. Which is a unique double neck guitar, made for us by a French Luthier. It has an oud neck and a guitar neck. Our bass player created the Bassentir, a bass with 2 bass strings and 3 guembri strings. Our drummer replaced one of his toms with a Darbuka and also added a Tbal (Moroccan Drum) as a second Floor Tom. The last addition to our sound was translating our English songs to Darija, an Arabic dialect from Morocco.

So, we are a band that plays Rock/Metal with oriental instruments.

3. What’s currently going on in your camp? New releases? Tours? Etc.

We have recently released our 3rd single, Dem 3la Dem, which means Blood On Blood. This song sums up exactly what our sound is like. A battle of occident and orient sounds that merge at the end of the song.

We have also been invited to play at the Great Escape Festival in Brighton, which helped us secure a management deal with UK based management The Animal Farm. Now, we have a few dates in Europe and England in October. Our plan is to try and tour Europe and the Middle East in 2024, while releasing more songs.

4. What has been the most positive experience of making music to date for you?

There is something priceless about making music, which is travelling around the world to show your songs to different cultures. But one of the best experiences, we actually found it home. In 2008, we were invited to play in a desert festival in the south of Morocco. We had never been to the desert before, and this was the best reason ever. Going to a magic place to make music. These were the most mind-blowing days we have ever lived. The desert is really a special place. We grew more in 3 days than years in any big city. Sharing our Rock music with the nomads, exchanging philosophy of life but also true emotions. We came back to the Sahara a few times after, but that first time was unforgettable. A life changing experience.

5. Likewise, what have been some of the more challenging aspects and how have you overcome them?

We grew up thinking England was the centre of the world, music wise. So, when we moved to Berkshire in 2003, our dream came true. We got the chance to play in the big league. We were shocked when we found out that local bands were not paid for gigging. Or sometimes even worse. They had to pay to play. During our first years, we played more than a hundred gig all around the south of England, including London. And we never got paid, not even gasoline, not even drinks. And if you’re not ok with that, there are 1000 bands waiting in line to take your spot. We overcame this by moving to Morocco in 2008. Since then, we got paid for every single gig.

6. How do you handle the modern expectations of being in a band? Always online, having to put out content constantly, your success measured in likes and follows?

Well, we tried fighting against it. But we realised we were swimming against the current. All our social lives and even life at work evolve around being online. We even tried getting out of all streaming platforms and being only on our website. Our fans thought the band split up. So, we came back online. Personally, we don’t think our success is measured in likes. We don’t see it that way. If our fans don’t have a CD player and want a quick way to listen to our music then we put our songs on Spotify. If they can’t see our music videos on MTV, then we upload them on YouTube. And Facebook is still a faster way to communicate with our fans than mails. We even created a Tik Tok account although we still don’t know how to use it.

7. What’s something that really ‘grinds your gears’ about the industry/business these days and what would you propose is done to combat it?

There are many things we don’t like about the industry. But honestly, we don’t know how to combat it. Maybe the biggest artists can do something. We should ask Taylor Swift. But for us in particular, for doing a music so different from what most people listen (Rock in Arabic!!!!), it’s even harder. Because when we approach a festival, a journalist, or a label, they see we don’t have millions of likes or followers, so they immediately think we are not worth it. Usually, they wait for a band to do all the dirty work until they gather a million views, then they show up. When the cake is already cooked. There is no “artist development” anymore.

8. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support your music?

Come to our shows and if you like it, buy a T-Shirt. One T-shirt is the equivalent of 5000 streams on Spotify. We know that in Europe it’s hard to get decent money for playing gigs at our level, so most of the time, band merch is what saves the trip so we can afford to do gigs and tours.

9. Outside of the music, what do you do to relax?

We used to do many things to relax before. Go trekking in the mountains, go to the beach, travel a lot, … But we know what its like to be deprived of music. We just spent 2 years of the Pandemic in isolation. We couldn’t do shows, rehearse or even go watch other bands and festivals. We try to make up for the time we lost. So, anything that has to do with music, we try to enjoy it as much as we can while we wait for the next pandemic.

10. Where can people find you?

People can get in touch with us on any of these sites:

Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube