Ashkan Hamedi was a high school student in 1999 in the southern Iranian city of Ahwaz when a friend’s bootlegged cassette tape first exposed him to heavy metal.
It was a moment that began a two-decade musical journey that would lead to underground rock shows in a nation where such gatherings can land you in jail, a wide-eyed tour of France and then to a town on the other side of the world — Tyngsboro, Mass.
Two weeks ago, the journey also led to an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States that Hamedi, 36, is now a citizen of, thanks largely to freedom and rock and roll.
The album that landed in the teenager’s hands back in 1999 was copied from one bought by someone in Dubai, where cultural restrictions are less severe than in Iran. It was Metallica’s “Reload.” To Hamedi, its sounds were revolutionary.
“Before that I had listened to a lot of Western music — country music, pop, my father used to listen to Tom Jones — I was familiar with that kind of music, but I had never heard anything like Metallica or metal until my friend gave me the cassette tape,” Hamedi said. “I started playing that album and I was like ‘Wow.’ It was different than anything else I’d heard before. I listened to that tape about 40 times a day.”
Hamedi asked his friend to help him find more Metallica music — he says he would have been happy to pay for the real thing but the bootlegs were the main way Iranian teenagers could get their hands on American music even though it was not officially allowed.
“He gave me a couple more, and as soon as I heard Metallica’s music I told myself ‘I have to be able to play this kind of music someday,'” Hamedi said. “I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know if it would even be possible, but it was something I wanted to do.”
About a year later, Hamedi’s parents moved the family to Karaj, a large suburb of the Iranian capital Tehran, which offered more opportunities to find loud, passionate American music, despite the rules prohibiting it. Hamedi heard about a guy who knew how to play guitar.
The guitar player’s dad owned a space where they could practice in a remote area outside the city, and before long a drummer and bass player were found.
“We were covering Metallica for a couple months,” Hamedi said. “Everything was going great. I was very excited and had never experienced something like that before — being in the middle of it.”
That band eventually broke up and Hamedi ended up in another band. The music wasn’t as heavy as Hamedi wanted, but the band was well-liked, and even went on a small tour to France in 2010 — the first time Hamedi left Iran.
“It was probably one of the best times I’ve ever had in my life,” he said. “We sold all our CDs at our first show.”
Hamedi said the band had to take blank CDs with them from Iran, and then burn their music onto them once in France to avoid any possible trouble with Iranian authorities while leaving their home country.
The issue was just one of many faced by not just the band, but even by fans who came out to underground shows in Iran.
Hamedi said his band and other bands went to the authorities and tried to get permission to play shows, but that authorities would listen to their music, read the lyrics, and reject their applications.
“If they feel like your music is against Islamic values, they won’t let you perform,” he said. “We got denied so many times until we really got tired of tying to do things legally and kept it underground.”
Hamedi said that meant making sure the shows didn’t draw too much attention. Hamedi said he and some friends once had to pay someone to avoid arrest at a show.
“It’s a big risk for everyone, but everyone loves rock and metal music in Tehran,” Hamedi said. “The rock and metal fans in Iran are very thirsty because they are denied the experience of a full-fledged rock and roll show.”
But while underground rock shows held against government wishes may sound exotic, they posed a problem that was hard to ignore forever.
“We were getting really tired and frustrated with the situation in Iran. We were playing hide and seek,” Hamedi said. “We had a talk with the whole band and decided to either quit playing music or go somewhere else that playing this kind of music isn’t illegal.”
A friend they knew through the music scene once got a visa to visit New York City and perform, so the band decided to pursue arts visas to go to America.
It was September of 2012 when Hamedi and his bandmates all went to the U.S. embassy in Dubai. Hamedi was initially denied before embassy officials realized the entire band was together, researched the band, asked a lot more questions and approved all their visas.
“We were so happy,” Hamedi said. “But after a couple months we had to leave our families and friends behind.”
Hamadi said his family was extremely supportive, but that moving across the world with no idea when, or even if, if you will return is still one of the hardest things he’s ever done.
And while Hamedi knew a lot about American culture from music and watching as many American movies as he could find, adjusting to life here still wasn’t easy.
“It was absolutely difficult,” he said. “I had very little cash with me. I had never cooked before. My mother always cooked or my sister cooked for us, so I had to learn how to cook. I had to learn how to pay the bills in another language.”
The band, Mavara, had already scheduled tour dates before arriving and played shows in New York, Boston, Manchester, N.H., and other locations, then kept going for a few years, even playing at a big progressive music festival in North Carolina in 2014, before parting ways a couple years ago.
Hamedi worked with an attorney to get a green card since he faced persecution if he returned to Iran and continued playing music. He met Jeanne Leary, of Lowell, while he was living in Tyngsboro. The two married May 24, 2014.
Hamedi has been working on solo music since, creating music influenced by a lot of different genres and groups ranging from Metallica to Pink Floyd to Tool. His songs are about topics ranging from the seasons to the mental battles he has faced.
“I never intended to a be a political musician. I just wanted to play the music and simply enjoy the process of making music and having fun,” Hamedi said in an introduction to a song about censorship that he posted on Facebook recently. “But it’s almost impossible to ignore politics in the country where I came from.”
Hamedi said one song he’s written was specifically written for his fellow Americans, because he wants them to know most regular Iranians have no problem with the United States even though the two nations’ governments have long been at odds.
“Despite what’s going on between the regime of Iran and the United States, the people of Iran have no problem with or hate for American people. I know because I lived in Iran and a lot of people love American movies and American cars, American music,” Hamedi said.
Hamedi and his wife started a dog walking business in Tyngsboro that was doing well before COVID-19 eliminated about half their business, so like many Americans, he now faces an uncertain future. Hamedi said he wants to learn a trade before he turns 40.
He hasn’t been back to Iran. He still fears he could face arrest if authorities there objected to his music.
“You never know with the regime in Iran, so I don’t want to risk all this hard work over the past eight years,” Hamadi said.
He said his parents are retired and have been able to stay safe from COVID-19 even though Iran has been hard hit, as have his brother and sister.
Hamedi’s journey to becoming a U.S. citizen ended Dec. 4 in Bedford, N.H., where he took the citizenship oath in a ceremony that was closed to the public due to COVID-19. Nevertheless, a close friend, photographer John Love, went along to get photographs of the big day.
“We moved here to the United States of America just to be able to play rock and roll,” Hamedi said in a recent video posted online. “I love this country. I love the United States of America because it allows me to be myself. It allows me freedom of speech and it allows me to play the kind of music that I like.”
To learn more about Hamedi or listen to his music, visit https://www.facebook.com/Ashkanmusic84/.
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