TarantisT call out against injustices in Iran with their political metal

The current uprisings in Iran against the country’s oppressive Islamic regime of the last 44 years has served as major inspiration for Iranian artists. The amount of artistic output since the September 16, 2022 murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s morality police due to her insufficient hijab has been astounding. Perhaps the most prolific of Iranian artists is the Tehran-bred, Los Angeles-based heavy metal group TarantisT. 

Since the start of the protests in Iran and across the globe among the Iranian diaspora, TarantisT has released seven new songs — thus far, specifically about the current political climate. Their songs are performed in both English and Iran’s native language, Farsi. The fraught emotions of the band members bleed through the crunching guitars and shredding drumbeats of their call to arms, including “Revolution,” the fed-up “Bizaram Az Dine Shoma,” which translates to “I Have Had Enough of Your Religion,” and the hopeful “Kabootar e Azad” or “Free Pigeon,” as well as their snarling cover of a classic Iranian song, “Iran Iran.” Vocalist/bassist Arash Rahbary’s growling lyrics rip into all the anger, frustration, and despair that not only TarantisT, but many Iranians have felt since the establishment of the Islamic regime in 1979.

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On a quiet autumn evening in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley at TarantisT’s rehearsal space, Rahbary’s snarls are replaced with niceties. Wearing head-to-toe black and looking like an Iranian Scott Ian of Anthrax, Rahbary is solicitous and hospitable. He and two of his bandmates, his guitarist brother Arsalan and drummer  Omid, offer traditional Iranian tea, kept piping hot in a thermos. They cut slices of yellow cake because, as every Iranian knows, you can’t have tea without something sweet alongside it. The tea is fragrant with cardamom and hints of rose water. The cake tastes like it was imported from an Iranian bakery in the heart of Tehran, back when ingredients were plentiful and fresh, prior to the Islamic regime.

As millennials, the Islamic Republic is the only Iran TarantisT has known. The country enforces the ancient tenets of the religion, which means no music, no movies, and no performances of any kind. Essentially, a darkened existence devoid of art, which has been a pillar of Iranian culture from its inception. 

In this environment, the Rahbary brothers were raised with enrichment in many forms: English lessons, music lessons, and sports. Their parents played Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin at home, and they listened to even more modern Western music by checking out the cassette and VHS tapes their friends and relatives brought back from overseas. They were also further exposed through a clandestine network, where a gentleman with an unmarked briefcase would deliver bootlegged music and movies to their home. On these bootlegs is where they first heard Metallica.

“It was speaking to us,” says Rahbary of the sounds of heavy metal. “It was our language. When we started playing music, being a teenager, being under a lot of pressure, we sounded like metal. It wasn’t a conscious decision to play that type of music — that’s just what came out.”

The group formed as an extension of the brothers performing together in the basement of their family home, two stories below the ground floor. They began to play secret shows, under the overlying threat of the Islamic regime discovering them.

“If someone heard us, we could have gotten arrested,” says Rahbary. “Playing music, carrying an instrument in the street, having tapes or CDs of Western music, wearing a heavy metal band T-shirt, long hair — any of these things could have given us problems. We got pulled over many times for playing metal in our cars. We had some minor situations with [the morality police] coming to our basement a few times, but we paid them off.”

TarantisT’s performances coincided with the early days of digital cameras in the 2000s. Their jam sessions were filmed by their friends and they posted the footage on Iranian message boards, messenger services, and later on MySpace where they grew a fanbase of 100,000+ from across the world. 

With their growing following, they attracted media attention, and international reporters visited the group’s basement to tell the story of Iranian teenagers writing and performing metal under the noses of the of the clerics, far beneath the surface of the capital city. From this media attention, TarantisT performed gigs in Europe and were invited to SXSW — a trip which took years to organize, as it took them over two years to get their documents in order and to be granted a visa. 

Eventually in 2009, the band arrived in Los Angeles where they employed the same grassroots methods they had in Iran. They got on social media, put on their own shows, invited their new LA friends, and began building a local audience, which later caught the attention of LA Weekly and the rock radio station KLOS. 

Whether in Iran or in the US, TarantisT’s music focuses on socio-political issues, specifically about Iran. As the songwriter for the group, Rahbary writes lyrics in English to inform non-Farsi speaking people about the oppressive situation in Iran. TarantisT has released a song or album for every upheaval in Iran since their inception. A look through their discography and their releases can be directly correlated with disruptions in Iran. 

Last year, TarantisT teamed up with other Iranian musicians to create the HOMANITY compilation. Because music in Iran has to go through the vetting process of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance before it can be officially released, the collection of songs aims to raise awareness about the persecution and censorship of artists in Iran.

“You need to get permission for so many different things,” says Rahbary. “Lyrics, your sound, the way you’re singing, the subject you’re singing about, your face, everything. All the music coming out of Iran is a product of the IRI.”

The Islamic regime keeps a sharp eye on Iranian artists who are not sanctioned by the Ministry of CIG. Many of these artists are very vocal about the situation in Iran. The government targets artists and makes examples of them, one of its many tactics to retain its power. Iranian artists are exceptionally fearless, braving the wrath of the clerics and expressing their feelings in their music, calling out injustices with marked eloquence.

“There hasn’t been any fear since day one,” says Rahbary of TarantisT’s anti-Islamic regime music. “If I was going to be scared, I would have been scared when I was in the basements of Tehran.”

This is the same bravery that the Gen Z of Iran, who are the driving force of the protests, display. “They don’t take orders from anyone, not even from God,” says Rahbary of the nation’s young people, translating an Iranian idiom that summarizes their attitude. 

He explains further, “The difference between them and the generations before is that they were born with smartphones and tablets. They wake up in the morning and they check what’s happening in Australia, Mexico, Spain. They know what’s happening everywhere and they are fed up. You cannot force them, and you cannot tell them anything. They don’t listen to anything. They have made up their minds. They have divorced the government, the theology, the society. When something like that happens — when the society comes to one collective conclusion — nothing can resist that.”