Getting to Know… Lazywall | Interview 🎤

In the 376^th Q&A in our Getting to Know… series, we get the inside scoop from Moroccan oriental rock/metal hybrid band, Lazywall.

“We sing rock/metal in Arabic.” How cool 😎 is that? In response to our first burning question, Moroccan oriental rock/metal hybrid band 🎙 Lazywall expounds, asserting, “if that wasn’t enough to make us distinct, we also added Arabic instruments.” 🤘 Like our many other Getting to Know Q&As, we get the inside scoop on the band’s genesis, goals, musical influences, and of course, current, and future musical endeavors. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into 🎤 Getting to Know… Lazywall: Interview No. 376!

For those who may not be familiar with you, what would you say makes Lazywall distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off? 

Being unique or different can be a good thing or a bad thing. In music, people’s ears usually tend to prefer sounds they have heard before. That’s why pop music is ‘popular.’ Us, we bet on the opposite. We sing rock/metal in Arabic. But if that wasn’t enough to make us distinct, we also added Arabic instruments. We use an oud (Arabic luth) and a Guembri (African bass) playing metal riffs written for a guitar. And adding to all that, we have created our own custom-made instruments. Our guitarist plays what he calls a Guitaroud. This double-neck guitar has one guitar neck and one Oud neck. Our ‘Bassentir’ is a half-fretless bass with 2 bass strings and 3 guembri strings. And our drummer replaced one tom with a Darbuka but also added a Tbal (African drum) as second floor tom and a Bendir.

The transition between calm oriental parts to the heavy guitar parts is like going from a blue clear sky to thunders and storms. And then back again quickly to the blue sky.

Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did Lazywall form and what were some of the goals or visions you had early on?

The band was formed as a metamorphosis from the previous band we had. With the same members, but different setup. (The drummer used to be the singer). We were based in Spain and our label asked us to record our 2nd album in Spanish instead of English. We chose to move to England. At that time, we also started listening to more heavy stuff, more metal bands or guitar riffs bands.  Like every new band, our goal was to conquer the world. At that time, we thought the music business was easy: “You write a good song, you become famous. You live happily.” The more we grew up as a band, the more things started to get more complicated. And the harder it got, the simpler our goals became.

Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

Our goals today are very simple. We want to focus on things we can control. Anything that doesn’t depend on us are not worth worrying about. So, each day, we try to write songs we would love to play live. We play shows the best we can and try to get new fans one at a time. Work as hard as we can and wait for Luck and Fate to do the rest.

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Whom would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

We grew up in Morocco listening to occidental music, when we first learned how to play guitar, we listened to all classic rock bands. We gave ourselves a challenge to learn the history of rock. From Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, the Police, all grunge and post-grunge era up to System of a Down or Audioslave. Overall, each of these bands influenced us in writing songs. But what really changed our sound was when we decided to move back to Morocco and started experimenting with the mixing of both cultures. The idea came from 1994’s “No Quarter” live show of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Having on stage an oriental orchestra combined with the London Orchestra sounded so personal for us that we knew that was the direction we had to go to reflect our identity, being ourselves a mix of both cultures.

Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.

In 2019, we got invited to play at the Grito Rock Festival in the island of Praia, in Cape Verde. When we got there, we were told that they were having issues with drought because it hasn’t rained in 4 years. Usually in this beautiful country it never rains during the year. Only in August and September. The festival was in March. We started our show and when we got to the last song of our set, it started raining. It was an amazing feeling on stage. Locals told us we will be remembered as the band who brought rain.

Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

Our favourite song? We haven’t written it yet. What makes it so special is that it makes us wake up every morning and pick up the guitar trying to write that song. Every song we write is better than the previous one, so we know we are getting closer and closer every day. That’s what makes us stay motivated and ambitious and never give up.

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

We are brothers. So, technically we could use any family picture as a band picture and the band is as old as us.

Closing out, what is Lazywall currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

We just wrote a new song. Nobody heard it yet. We love it so much we think it might be our ‘special’ song. We will start recording it soon, but we don’t know when it will be out. We will have to try it live during our upcoming shows in Europe in October. Come to the show if you are curious to hear how it sounds. A part of us wishes this is not THE song so we can keep looking for it. As they say: “Happiness lies in the waiting room of Happiness.”

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Getting to Know… Lazywall: Interview No. 376 [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Lazywall; Tumisu via Pixabay]