In this series from the Norient book Seismographic Sounds (see and order here) we learn about different strategies of artists to fund their music. In short quotes musicians tell from their own perspectives. Today: Charbel Haber, singer and guitarist, and member of Scrambled Eggs (Lebanon).

After the Lebanese Civil War my teenage friends and I were at war with everyone – our parents and the whole community. We were a bit bourgeois, and we started to have new needs, ideas, and dreams. I remember wild punk parties. We opposed the superficial lifestyle celebrated in the Arabic pop scene. We listened and played rock and punk, we wore fucked-up jeans, T-shirts, and tennis shoes. We tried to break out of certain rules of our conservative society, but we never did so completely. Whatever we did, our parents accepted us at home, they gave us money and they took care of us. We were not real rebels. All the drugs we’ve done, we did them in our parents’ houses and not in a subway station. We smoked, and our parents watched TV next door. I never went to the extreme; I only had an eyebrow piercing and a tattoo at eighteen. You don’t want everyone noticing you. Real punks loved to shock society; we, however, only had small illusions of being able to change Lebanon.