For Iranian metal musician Nikan Khosravi, music is a way to articulate protest and resistance. Having lived in a context shaped by state repression and restricted freedom of speech, metal, as he explains below, has helped him to stay candid with himself, express his dark feelings, and pave the way for others to speak up. In this personal essay, he traces his mindset back to the days when he was a teenager and links it to the time when he was taken into solitary confinement.

Bertolt Brecht once said:

«Art is not a mirror that stands up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.»

I believe in that quote. To me, music, movies, paintings, literature, etc., before being a form of art and a medium to project ideas and emotions, are documents of what the society that the art was created in was like at the time of its creation. I always had that in mind when I was writing a song or any lyrics, so as an artist who makes protest art, I see myself as a reporter as much as a protester, as someone who documents the events of his era.

Regardless of trends and waves, I always thought that in order to stay real to myself and my audience, I must talk about what I saw and what I lived. That’s the way that artists like Tupac, Bob Marley, Zack De La Rocha – artists who I admired – lived. I come from the underground. Not ground zero, but floor minus 1. To understand me and my mindset, one needs to know more about my background.

The Voice from Within

Back around 2005, in the days when I was a teenager, I used to feel detached from the society that I was living in. All the stuff that was constantly being told to me in school and on media platforms was not something that I could believe in, especially growing up in a family that always used to tell me and my sister, «Don’t trust what the media tells you!» My parents were artistic, so they always supported us in following what we felt we were talented at. At the age of 14, when I was in middle school, one of my classmates introduced me to metal music by giving me a CD he burned, full of music videos of metal bands captured from satellite TV. After that day, my life changed forever. I found that to be an outlet to release my dark feelings and my beliefs. Now, I can share my narrative with the world.

This town is not a place to live!
In here you must kill to not die!
If you want something that is far away
You better pack your bag and prepare to fight

(Confess: «The-Hell-Ran», Album In Pursuit of Times, 2015)

After I decided to learn how to play the guitar, I knew that this was it: I wanted to form a band, and through my music, I wanted to protest all those things that have been imposed on me by the government, people, and society that I can’t fit into. I felt the responsibility to try to make small changes in the world around me: To stop being subject to organized religions controlling the mind of the masses. To spread the message of resistance and fight the theocratic regime of Iran and generally the injustice across the globe. To express my dark feelings, and through that, help people to overcome their own dark feelings. To make them feel that they are not alone, and maybe use my songs as an inspiration. To not give up in life and go for their dreams, and not let anyone determine their destiny. I wanted to be part of history, to be on the right side of history.

I could feel the danger every step of the way, but I could care less about that because I felt like this was my resolution. This is something that allows me to look at myself in the mirror because I can’t afford to be silent when I see the world that I’m living in collapsing from injustice and corruption. I saw my guitar and my pen as weapons for transgressing and protesting, and I still do. Because of my art, I have gone to very dark places in my life, but I always endured because I had a purpose.

This game is called carry on… Viva violence!
Tribulation! Man up, cry in the silence!
Lychnobite lives to fight for another day
Retribution is on my hand, comes whatever may!

(Confess: «Unfilial Son», Album: Revenge at All Costs, 2022)

Know What You’re Fighting For!

When you come from a society where religion is a tool for controlling the masses, playing music in a genre like metal is not the safest choice. They come after you if you use that against the power. In Iran, there are many young people who listen to and play this music, but when you want to make something advertising resistance in a broader sense, the system will see it as something dangerous. When I was arrested, they kept me in solitary confinement for three months. During the first two weeks, I was being interrogated twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. Since there was no clock, I don’t know for how many hours a day, but maybe eight to ten. As my interrogator once told me, «You’re a threat to society, so you’ll be treated as one!» Maybe to other people, I was just a musician, but to them, I was part of the political opposition.

I didn’t make that society; I only reflected it. The Islamic Regime of Iran punished me for that. I see myself as a gear inside a big machine that decided not to work as it was programmed to.

After going to jail and having to live in exile, I realized how effective my art is. Like Alissa of Arch Enemy once told me, «Your music must have been very special that it made the government so scared [that they would] to come after you and stop you!»1 When I saw it this way, it became very clear to me why I experienced what I experienced, and it made me even more motivated to pave the way for other people who want to speak their minds despite the consequences, not only in Iran but all over the world.

This music is not only for trying to change the outside world but also for discovering myself. Through the darkest moments, I learned a lot more about myself than I ever could have imagined. About who I really am and what my purpose for still being alive is. Like I said in my song «Phoenix Rises», «Sometimes with darkness you’ll be led into light!»

• 1. Alissa White-Gluz is the Canadian singer of the famous Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy.