Iraqi metal band Acrassicauda fled Baghdad when their rehearsal room was destroyed by a missile, but now they're stuck in refugee limbo, writes Nicholas Birchin Istanbul.
On February 12th, the day the film they starred in was given its European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, the four members of the Iraqi heavy metal group Acrassicauda were crammed into the only room in the Istanbul flat they are renting that they can afford to heat.
"They left four seats empty for us at the screening," says 23-year-old Marwan Reyad, the band's drummer. "But the German consulate refused us visas to go and watch." Instead they watched a DVD of the film the Canadian-American film-makers had sent them, and mused on the disparity between their screen fame and current straitened circumstances.
"Later that evening I went out to write a blog to our international supporters," remembers Reyad, who, like most of the group, speaks a near-fluent American English peppered with expletives. "I was imagining, like, red carpets, lights, limousines, all those famous faces and shit. And I'm down here writing, 'yeah, we love you'. Weird."
Named after an Iraqi desert scorpion, Acrassicauda hit international headlines in 2003, when they played in front of a battalion of western journalists on the roof of a Baghdad hotel. It was a great story. A city teetering on the verge of chaos and a bunch of young Iraqis - Christian and Muslim - whose only dream was to emulate the heavy metal groups they'd grown up listening to: Metallica, Slayer, Staind.
For US-based VBS TV, it was the start of a three-year project that culminated last September, when Heavy Metal in Baghdad received critical acclaim at its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. The film follows the band members as they struggle to keep their ideals alive in an increasingly violent city. The group received threats from Islamist groups. The basement they used to rehearse was hit by a Scud missile. With travel increasingly dangerous, attendance at their concerts dwindled.
"Look at these guys," says bassist Firas Al-Latif (26), pointing to a photograph taken during one of the band's Baghdad concerts. "They've disappeared. Some might be dead. Others left the country." Like an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis, Acrassicauda soon followed in their footsteps. Lead guitarist Tony Aziz was the first to go. The house he'd built crumbled after a bomb attack on a nearby ministry.
"Great guitarist, shit builder," comments Reyad, fishing another cigarette out of the packet he's balanced on a grimy armchair.
THE BAND'S FIRST stop, Syria, was a huge disappointment. The musicians had sold cars and gathered together savings before leaving Baghdad, but money soon became scarce.
"You're a refugee, you have no rights," explains Firas. A software engineer, he found work in an internet cafe in Damascus, but his boss refused to pay him. Tony earned €35 a month washing dishes seven days a week in a restaurant.
But it was the lack of interest in their music that really broke the Iraqis' hearts. "Compared to Iraq, Syrian streets are full of guys with long hair and skulls on their T-shirts," says Reyad. "Posers! We swamped that city with flyers for our concerts. Thirty-one came to the first. Six to the next."
Broke after a year, the musicians were able to make it to Istanbul last September only after VBS TV launched an internet appeal on their behalf. They immediately applied to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) for asylum status.
In normal circumstances, they would get it. Since late 2006, the UNHCR has granted Iraqis from the centre and south of the country prima facie refugee status. Five thousand of an estimated 10,000 Iraqis in Turkey have applied to them, and - with Turkey unwilling to accommodate them - around 700 have already been resettled in third countries.
In fact, Acrassicauda's chances are slim. For a start, they are unwilling to comply with Turkish legislation obliging registered asylum seekers to leave Istanbul for a smaller "satellite city". "The police told us to go to Sivas," says Firas, referring to a conservative city in eastern Anatolia. "A heavy metal band in Sivas? I don't think so." The other obstacle lies with the UNHCR, which requires Iraqis to apply for refugee status in the first country they arrive in. While the band don't seem to be aware of this, members know their immediate future looks bleak.
'WE TALKED TO a lawyer and he said 'no chance'," says Reyad. "It was like, thanks, do you have a gun we can put to our head?" The money raised to get Acrassicauda to Turkey has now run out, and members are unsure how they will find the 340 Turkish lira (€191) needed to pay the gas bill. Unable to go out much, Reyad, a keen cook, passes the time adapting recipes from a Jamie Oliver book a friend lent him. The others sleep a lot.
"It's a weird life," comments Firas. "When you're on stage or practising, you feel the luckiest guy in the universe. The rest of the time - nada, zilch." Despite the gloom, though, the group have not given up hope.
"We could have dropped the dream a long time ago, but we're crazy freaks," says Reyad, who once slept three nights next to his drumkit in the garage when his father told him to stop playing. Still in Baghdad, his father is more supportive now, although still at a loss as to what being a metalhead means. "When I rang him from Syria to say we had a concert, he said 'good on you, son, I hope you win'," remembers Reyad.
Thanks to the support of Turkish friends, Acrassicauda now have equipment and a space to practise. More importantly, they have a public much more attuned to their brand of angry music. Last November, 350 people turned out to listen to the band play alongside several of Turkey's biggest bands in Istanbul's most prestigious rock music venue, Kemanci. Other concerts followed. The group hope soon to set off on a short tour of other Turkish cities.
"In a real dark way, this is a good opportunity for us," Firas says, pulling on his bushy goatee beard, half-biker, half-Abe Lincoln. "Before, we were just jamming. Now, we've got a big responsibility on our shoulders." The others nod when he says the group have never played better than they're playing now. "Our technique is up, we're playing faster than in the past, and in our new songs we're really thinking hard about the message we're trying to get across." Reyad, who writes the lyrics, lists some of the titles: Message from Baghdad, The Unknown, The Unholy Lie, King with no Throne.
"We don't want to be remembered for the film, or because we're refugees. We want to be remembered for our music," he says.
"It took Red Hot Chilli Peppers two years to get their first album out. We've been together for eight. Until we have an album, this story is not finished."