How's life in Algeria Redouane? Are you listening to anything while answering this interview?

Hi, everything is ok. Now listening to Gorguts 'Considered dead', what a fuckin' great album!!

You are the man behind Lelahel Print/Web zine, tell us more about it, when did you started doing it? What made you decide to pursue this project?

The Lelahel Metal is a website started the 15th of June 2003 and dedicated to promote the metal and its relevance in the world.
The LELAHEL print ZINE is the first-one and only underground metal zine from Algeria!! Our zine had form in February 2004 (now the first issue released) with desire to support the Arabian metal scene and all the underground and spread it out to all the metal community in the world.
Underground is the key!!!

Are you also the one doing all the web pages in your site? How much time does it usually take in the first time to create the initial setup of the site? How about the succeeding updates?

In the website I'm the webmaster, designer, founder, making reviews and interviews and answering emails and there are also 4 members that make interviews, reviews and translations and 2 part time members for translations.
The creation of initial setup of the website took about 2months, and there is one update per week.


How do you select the bands that you want to interview or feature? Do you have a basic criteria that you look for?

I put all the bands without exception because I think that all need a support, except if they are making a big shit hahahaha!!!
For the website and the first issue of the paper zine there are only interviews of Arabian bands, but in the next issue of the zine we are preparing some interviews with international bands and the basic criteria is the underground spirit no fuckn' posers or racists.

Lelahel Website features international underground metal but also you have a big part of it concentrating on Arabian Metal. When & how did you discover that there are many metal heads in these Arabian peninsula?

I Discovered that since 1999 through the internet. The first band was killerzone(R.I.P) from morroco, and also get a lot of emails from metal fans asking about my band Litham.


Of the Arabian Metal bands that you found & experienced, is there a band that really have that 'Arabian' sound, you know the traditional melodies & instruments, myths or folklore infused to metal?

Not really, but some of the use that sound but with moderation. For example the band ajdath from jordan play at an extraordinary high technical level, with some great oriental sounding solos ,non fuckin' compromise thrash death metal guitar riffs and very fast blast beats drums parts!! mixing oriental music and trash/ death metal, they come off sounding like a mix of agressive speed trash/death metal with folk melodies.
And also litham?? (this question if for you) I only heard the song from your compilation release. I have to admit it is one the most brutal track in that compilation. I'm not sure if the Algerian oriental sound similar to common Arabic sound that I sometimes hear in the UAE, but I did notice something different in the structure of your song.

Any recommendations on who to watch out? Do you think it is possible to have a united Arabian Metal scene, like having a some sort of metal fest or something?

For the moment it is too early for that cause the arabian metal scene isn't mature yet, there are no big labels and also no big organizators and not a lot of support from our governments, but you can expect that in the future, and we are working hard for that!! Union is the key!!!

Going to your own realm, Algeria. In the photos in a gig in your site, there seems to be many metal heads there. Is it big & booming right now? Would you say that it is a trend 'for now' and needs some time to see who will remain when it subsides?

The photos in the website were from morroco in the 6th edition of the boulevards des jeunes musiciens.In Algeria the metal was booming in 1998 and a lot of bands stopped and many musicians left the metal for their personal life. But this year some new bands were created and also some old bands are coming back in the algerian metal scene.

Speaking of Algeria, sometimes I am mistakenly thinking of Nigeria and vice versa. Is Algeria the one with a civil war going on? Isn't Algeria a former French colony?

Perhaps the civil war in nigeria, but never in algeria. Our country was colonized 132 years by france from 1830 to 1962. Situated in Northern Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Morocco and Tunisia. Second-largest country in Africa (after Sudan) and the 10th in the world.

Does Algeria have a tourist area? Where is the best place to go? How much does a usual meal or lodging for a night cost? Is it easy to roam around the city?

Yes of course and Algeria is one of the most beautiful country in the world and with a great variety of landscapes : the Mediterranean sea, the mountain, the Sahara,... the best place is the Sahara desert (the biggest desert in the world). The cost for one night I about 20 euros for a middle class hotel.
You can roam around the city as you like , you are invited to spend some days for next summer :) . (That's great man! I'll contact you for that man!-Roy)

Is it easy to go around sporting a long hair, tattoos, metal shirts, etc..? What is the mindset of the society there about metal in general?

There are no problems at all since you are not Satanist and you don't make politic.

How about the bands there, which are the most promising so far? Are there labels, studios and clubs or even beer brands & radios that support the metal scene?

For the moment the metal scene in Algeria isn't very developed, but as is said before we are working hard in order to improve it and my first goal is to create a label that will support our scene.
There are some great bands like atakor (heavy metal a la black sabbath mixed with some algerian music influences), homicidal (old school death metal), ...

What can you say about the metal fans, are they 'genre' divided? Are most of them really 'head bangers', meaning who really bang their heads & not just stare at the bands?

You can find a lot of true metal supporters that are really 100% underground, and are very crazy headbangers during the shows, and some of them are posers and watching mtv mainstream fuck'n shit and wearing cof and dimmu borgir tee shirts. But we are here to destroy them, hahahhaha!!! (Hah! I'll join you on that! Destroy 'em fuckers!)

You also released an international compilation. Did you find it easy doing it? How long did it take since its conception to the released date? How many cds did you press? How many are scattered out there in the world banging metal's heads? Do you have official distributors in other countries?

It was my first experience for making compilation, and it wasn't easy at all. It took about 4 months for all the process (contacting the bands, selection, pressing cds, printing covers ,...). i pressed 500 copies. About 50 copies were selled in all around the world, 200 copies in promotion, and distributed in the world by: NNIS(Belgium), Xtreemmysic(Spain),Napalmed(Csech Rep.), Apocalyptic Empire(Norway), Concreto Records (Mexico), and many more to come.

How did the band got the slot for the compilation, did they volunteer or you invited them to join or what? What can you say about the support that you get? Is there any band that promised to submit a material but failed?
The conditions to enter in the compilation were:
-less than 3 min costs 80 euros
-3.01 min to 4 min = 90euros
-4.01 to 5min = 100euros
-5.01 to 6min = 110 euros
-each band will receive 10copies of the compilation.
Some bands promised to submit material and to make the payment but when the deadline ended we searched for more serious bands.
The compilation was reviewed in many webzines and magazines and played in a lot of radio shows. See this link: http://lelahelwebsite.chez.tiscali.fr/reviews.htm 


Now let's talk about LITHAM... who are litham? Would you give it's history either in short or preferably the long version?
LITHAM is the veil by which the Saharan nomads cover their faces against the pitiless desert storms. LITHAM is also an Algerian metal band; we have chosen this name because we want to keep mystery.
LITHAM practices a heavy/dark metal, full of bloody riffs and solos .The discrete introduction of some Algerian music touch creates mysterious atmospheres that give depth for our music. The vocal is principally guttural, with sometimes clear singing passages and choral, but also a black metal vocal to please many of that kind. The beginning of the band was in March 1994, when REDOUANE and YACINE joined together to investigate in death metal in an existing band called Neanderthalia. In September SABRI joins the band, until July 96, when the three musketeers REDOUANE, YACINE and SABRI left the band for founding LITHAM. Five months after the birth of LITHAM, came a fourth one; LAMINE, to enrich the band. Spurting from the university enclosures, the quartet began to perform in picture palaces, and concert halls such as Ibn zeydoun, the open area theatre, El aurassi, L'afrique and EL atlas .After these series of concerts, through Algiers, and coinciding with the third anniversary of the band (July28th 1999) LITHAM releases the first Algerian metal album called "Dhal Ennar" (shade of fire). In October 2000, the line up changed; ISMAIL joined the band, replacing the guitarist LAMINE. The band is now a trio consisting of Redouane, Sabri, and Yacine.

The first track in the Lelahel Compilation is from Litham. So besides from this comp. are there any releases from the band?

As you can see above we released 'Dhal Ennar' in 1999 the first Algerian metal album, 2350 copies were sold in cassettes (and 500 CDs brought out a new edition (LELAHEL METAL) only in Algeria. The metal community in the world (labels,radios,zines etc..)Think that our music is strange and the mixture with Algerian music is original and they are surprised to know that metal exist in Algeria!! And we got a lot of good reviews in the entire world for example: (example 8/10 shapeless zine(Italy),10/10 rock express magazine (Yugoslavia),8/10 les acteurs de l'ombre webzine(France),8.5/10 skylight webzine (Greece) ,musique extreme (argentine)(one of the best album of the month), 85/100 beyond webzine(Italy) ,,and many more ...)

How many gigs have Litham played so far? Do you do covers? What is the best experience for Litham so far?

We played about 40 gigs and most of them were in our country. In the beginning our set list was 80% covers (death, carcass, morbid angel, slayer, kreator,...) and the other originals but since the release of our first album we play only originals with sometimes one or two cover songs. The best experience was in January 2004 when we completed a very successful tour in Belgium where we played to very enthusiastic audiences with great success.

I would assume you are working, is it easy to make time for the band and doing the Lelahel zine? Any time to drink around?

For the moment I'm unemployed so all my time is devoted to metal and only metal!!! And sometimes have some drinks with friends .


Who are bands, zines or any specific person that have influenced you to become who you are now? Do you remember the first metal band or music that you heard?

I still remember when I was about 6 years old when I was listening to "NO SLEEP 'TIL HAMMERSMITH" motorhead live album, it really impressed me for the first time in my metal life (I called it the black tape lol). Of course I don't start to listen to metal music since this day because I was just a child. But since I become a teen I started in this music with legendary ac/dc hard rock band.


How far are you looking to your metal life? Do you think you would ever change your musical preference? What is the best thing a metal fan can do to support the underground?

I'm more than 15 years in this music, and I'm still listening to it with the same passion than the first time. The best thing that a metal fan can do nowadays is to buy the demos and go to the small gigs to support the underground bands.

What can you personally say about the international underground metal scene? And how about to people who still can't adapt to this international subculture, I'm referring to racist who are into metal?

The underground scene is growing especially with the internet and the bands have a lot of support from great zines like yours. But there are also some fuck'n posers and a lot of rip off like christian paucar from peru who ask to the bands to send them their cds for putting them in his non existing magazine.
And also some racists, Look at this sentence:

"What??? Black metal in algeria???? FUCK OFF!!!!! No contact with your fucking country & islamist religion!!! DIE with the most extreme suffer!!!!"

It is from a French black metal band called Amazarak: amazarak@tiscali.fr  http://www.amazarak.fr.st/  They are true bastards, and ignorant, no? (He he he... there are still so many of them man!)



Thanks Redouane and More Power to all your projects! Hail!
Thanks a lot for this cool interview, and stay underground !!