Can You Give An Iraqi Metal Band A (Permanent) Place To Crash?

Despite being the stars of an upcoming documentary, having already garnered international attention for being the self-styled “only heavy metal band” in Iraq’s capital city, Acrassicauda are still a metal foursome without a country, having hightailed it out of the war zone in order to keep playing the music they love. But now they face the potentially dangerous prospect of returning to Baghdad, having found nowhere in the Middle East where a metal band could lay their heads.

[Band member Marwan] said the musicians were not welcome in Turkey, particularly since fighting has escalated between Turkish forces and Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border, but they could not find another country willing to take them in as refugees.

“If we ever made it back to Baghdad, and we ever made it back to our families, where would we rehearse?” said Marwan, frustrated at talking about politics and personal troubles rather than tours and tracklists.

“If we go back to Baghdad now, we’ll just stay at home as prisoners, not even go out to buy and packet of cigarettes.

Despite being a band for six years, Acrassicauda has only played a handful of shows and recorded even less; in the Reuters interview they talk about “death threats from insurgent groups” and being resigned to day-to-day indignities for an anti-authoritarian metal band, like being pressed into playing nationalist songs to appease the ruling government, ending on one of the sadder notes we’ve read lately:

“There is a lot of weird stuff that is so dark and gets kind of miserable, full of rage, anger and different from the stuff I used to write back in Baghdad. I grew 20 years older in the last two years.”

Band On The Run – Iraqi Rockers Seek New Home [Reuters via Blabbermouth]