Fadi Al Shami – long-time supporter of the UAE metal scene and multi-talented musician told us that he has the best gig of his life last Friday at the Thrash Metal Bash – so we decided to find out more about him and more about the gig!
Fadi became front-man for the well-known UAE band Primo for the nightnight, doing vocals and guitar and it looks like he may just stay with them after the guest stint:
We hear you had an awesome gig last Friday, tell me about it.
Well, I have to admit I had a blast last Friday at the Metal Asylum Thrash Metal Bash, the crowd was awesome, sound was great in front of the stage. I had about 80% of my friends attending, which was a great push. We had a great set list of songs for the lovers of Metallica & Megadeth and the crowd was interacting nicely with each song.
This was your first time doing vocals, was it scary and how do you think it went?
Let me tell you, I did vocals before in some acoustic gigs in Metal Asylum and Rocknation and they were good but they weren’t as huge as this gig for me. I gotta say I was freaking out right before going to stage but you know what?! That’s why Kamikaze shots were created hahaha … yes it was scary and hell of a burden but the moment I played the intro of the first song “Holy wars” by Megadeth everything went perfect.
What was your favourite song to sing?
I think of all the night my favorite song to sing was Fade to Black, first of all this song was the second Metallica song to I learnt to play on the guitar ages ago, think I was like 10 yrs old. And it’s one of Metallica’s classics and it’s a challenging one, and don’t forget the very nice lyrics that flow in this song.
Will we see you as the frontman of a band any time soon?
I think everything went so well with Primo and I will be part of this nice band as a frontman for the time being, as am so happy to be.
Why did you make the decision to try vocals?
I started doing Arabic vocals when I was 15 one my own, then went to friends until I was singing with an Arabic Band inLebanon, and I thought recently I should try cover some English songs. It all happened with the support of my friends and I have to say it’s completely different between Arabic and English singing methods and I admit I messed up the first time but I learnt how to make it sound better and hopefully the next time will be much better.
You have been in the metal scene in Dubai for a long time, who are your favourite bands here and why?
Well after six years in the metal scene I could say my humble opinion my favorite bands here are Nervecell: guys who worked hard for more than 10 yrs, as far as I know, to go out and prove themselves in the death metal scene even in the Middle East.
Absolace: A great progressive rock band that gave me the chill with their lyrics and music.
Anuryzm: Knowing the guys in the band got me to love their music that mixes so many metal Genres together in one album and I hope to hear more from them.
Last but not least my Band Aramaic but everything is still under construction, can’t wait to get the scene ofdubai something unique and different in metal they will like. hahaha
What is the funniest thing that has ever happened to you on stage?
We had a funny incident that happened before the last song in our Thrash Metal Bash gig which was “Wherever I May Roam”
I was playing the clean intro when the crowd started cheering for the song so I had to stop and ask everyone to come in front of the stage and here is what happened:
People were gathering cheering horns up for the song, we kick in with the intro and we messed the whole intro up while people were head-banging! But we decided to stop, I know many people wouldn’t, but it was a funny move to stop everyone and repeat the intro again after saying: ‘Sorry Guys we Fucked up … so what.”
Because I didn’t any tension to be caused on stage so I made it sound like a joke .. and everyone else was enjoying the rest of the songs.
Check out the video from the night here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150882547152544
Radio Metality UAE