INTERVIEW: Jahan Tabrizi – Tiberius

This year’s UK Tech-Fest was packed to the brim with some of the UK’s finest up and coming talents. One of these bands in particular was Edinburgh’s progressive metal outfit TIBERIUS. After opening Saturday’s proceedings on the Winspear Stage we caught up with guitarist Jahan Tabrizi to get his thoughts on how their performance went and what we can expect to see from them in the future.

How do you feel your set went? Were you nervous being the first band on main stage today?

Jahan: We had a total blast and I think we went down pretty well. Considering we were the first band on main stage this morning, I reckon we had a really great turn out! What surprised us the most was the audience retention, we expected to lose a chunk of our audience in the first few songs by folk who weren’t into it, but we seemed to keep everyone!

TIBERIUS released a new single back in March entitled Dissipate, have you had a good response from this track?

Jahan: Overall response has been great! This was our first track we’ve released with a music video which has opened up a few platforms for release. We’ve received some pretty hilarious abuse on YouTube and the term “Dad Djent” has been banded around, we’re absolutely stealing that one!

Do TIBERIUS have any more material in the works?

Jahan: Absolutely! We’ve decided that we’re done with EPs for now and are in the process of writing our first full-length album. There’s around nine songs currently on the boil with a few more still to be arranged and completed. Naturally these might not all end up on the final cut but we’re pretty excited about it! We’ll be starting to track the guitars in Autumn I hope.

There are some amazing bands breaking out of Scotland, it must be a pretty exciting time to be involved in that scene?

Jahan: Scotland is absolutely bursting with great music right now, not just in the metal scene. It’s a great time to be part of it with bands like RAMAGE INC, PERPETUA and KING WITCH really smashing it. Sadly the majority of Edinburgh is so enamoured with covers bands that original acts have a bit of an upward struggle to break through. Part of my remit when I’ve been booking hometown shows for TIBERIUS is to ensure we have a local band who are just starting out, open the gig because getting those first few shows can be a real challenge and if I can be the guy to help them out, why not!

Who or what inspires you as an artist?

Jahan: Oh fuck, we could be here for ages! Growing up I was into KISS, IRON MAIDEN, CRADLE OF FILTH and all sorts! I think it comes as no surprise that I’m a big PROTEST THE HERO fan as well as MANDROID ECHOSTAR, COHEED & CAMBRIA, and BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME to name a few. As I get older though, I find myself jamming to a lot of 80’s pop and rock such as PHIL COLLINS, THE POLICE, PETER GABRIEL and TOTO. I think the whole band are pretty varied in what we listen to which has always been benefit to our writing process, I know a few of us are on a bit of a JOHN CARPENTER thing right now..

What do TIBERIUS have in store for the remainder of the year?

Jahan: Realistically, this is our last show for the year. Ryan (bassist) lives in London during term-time so time with him is precious and currently better spent working on the album. We’ve been pretty busy this year releasing a single, music video and then playing an 8 date UK tour in support of it. We think today is a really nice way to bid farewell to the current set list as we know it. The odd show MAY crop out but really we’ll be focusing efforts on the album, I don’t know how other bands manage but for us to be gig ready it’s a very time-consuming job and that time is currently better spent in front of a computer crying our eyes out after 700 takes of the same guitar solo!

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