According to Adel Heine from Daily News Egypt, the heavy metal community in Cairo received an unpleasant shock this week when a prominent lawyer of the FJP (Freedom and Justice Party) filed a complaint against El Sawy Culture Wheel for allegedly hosting devil worshippers, though not on behalf of the MB or the FJP according to FJP sources. It was time to tie up the long hair, put down the screeching guitars, and turn down the volume to take stock of what this exactly means for heavy metal in Egypt.

Wael Osama, founder and manager of heavy metal band ENRAGED remembers how after the crackdown in the mid '90s, the metal scene in Egypt became silent, and stayed that way for a long time. “When we started playing in 2005 we did not experience a lot of trouble,” Osama said, “for the simple reason that we avoided giving concerts. The metal bands in Egypt would still perform in a few venues in the suburbs of Cairo and Alexandria, but never on the more mainstream stages.” Heavy metal aficionados were a secret club onto themselves, publicising concerts through word of mouth and basic flyers, surreptitiously given to those in the know.

Even if heavy metal has become more common in Egypt over the years, with regular concerts scheduled in places as the El Sawy Culture Wheel, Osama feels that as a musical genre, the scene has not done enough to reach a bigger audience. “As the heavy metal scene in Egypt as whole we have not taken enough advantage of the new media tools available to us to really push our music into the mainstream. At gigs you see the same faces of the loyal fans, and their number has not increased very much over the years. It does not stop us from playing though, we love what we do and we are stubborn,” he concluded laughing.

Read more at Daily News Egypt.