Rawad A. Massih

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Rawad Abdel Massih (born 25 September 1980) known professionally as Rawad A. Massih is a Syrian/Canadian guitarist, music composer, producer, and writer. With his dissolved band The Hourglass, he is considered one of the pioneers of Heavy Metal music in his country of birth, Syria. His first solo album Ancient Hope consists of orchestrated epic instrumentals with electric guitar solos as a primary instrument, a genre never played before in the Middle East.

Early Days

Massih began learning Guitar in 1995, his first stage performance in 1998 was with his guitar teacher’s band Sphinx. Later during University days in Lebanon, he played in a band called Neo Blood, an 80’s Metal cover band. According to an interview with him in the documentary Syrian Metal Is War he started composing music in 1999 and recording demos on cassettes using a Fostex multitracker.

The Hourglass

In 2002, after graduation from the university, Massih decided to record an album, “at the time, the Idea was not to form a consistent band; where this band plays live shows and such…it was just that I wanted to record an album.”

Using music he already composed and lyrics he wrote inspired by short stories he did during his university days, he wrote 10 tracks to be released for his band that didn’t even have a name at the time. With his relative Bahij Ghata who played drums, they decided to name the band The Hourglass after Savatage’s song. In August 2003 in a studio in Aleppo, Joined with Bassem Deaibess, a metal vocalist from Lebanon, they recorded the first album To the Land of the Free. Massih was the sole composer, and writer and producer for the album. The musical style was traditional heavy metal inspired by Iron Maiden, the NWOBHM, and early Savatage.

Inspired by Savatage and Queensryche, Massih wanted the first album to be a concept album. The Ancient Hope trilogy (Three songs, one for each of The Hourglass’s albums) was based on a theatrical play written by the diseased Syrian playwright Saadallah Wannous. “The Book’s name was Of Memory and Death, it’s a collection of short stories he wrote whilst dying of cancer. In one of these stories, a family is living underground and they have been promised by their forefathers that they will one day be able to reach the sun. This faith of them reaching the sun succeeded through generations, without any of them having reached it. They all have an inherent faith that after they’re done walking they will see the sun. One of the characters rebels and says ‘No, you are liars. There is no sun. This is bullcrap!’ He didn’t get any useful answer, ‘We are like this, we will walk. The elders don’t lie.’ That’s how they answered him. So I found this story to have religious and political metaphors.” Massih said in the Syrian Metal Is War documentary.

To the Land of the Free was released as a CD in Syria and Lebanon in late 2003. For several reasons, The Hourglass was not able to do any live shows, so it was until the release of the second album in 2007 that it did its first live concert. In 2005, Massih started recording the second album, Resurrection of the Horrid Dream, it was an eleven-track album with the same musical style but with better recording quality. Lyrically it was not a concept album, one song Selective Memory was about the movie Memento which is directed by Christopher Nolan. But most of the songs still loop around subjects related to politics and religion, like The Book, Distortion of Thought, Suicidal Form, Divine Judgment, and Ancient Hope.

In the liner notes of Resurrection, Massih stated “This is not an album, but a statement… revenge!” Maybe it was meant to draw attention to the difficulties that heavy metal musicians face in a society that does not tolerate this kind of music. In the documentary Syrian Metal Is War, Bassem the vocalist of The Hourglass told a story of how the band members had to run from backstage outside of the theater to avoid being caught or questioned by security personnel, after the only live show the band did in Syria in 2007 on the occasion of releasing Resurrection album. In September 2008 Metal Hammer Germany did an interview with Massih, he also mentioned this kind of difficulties as metal musicians and fans being misunderstood by the government and society as drug addicts and Satanists.

In 2010 The Hourglass released an EP of two originals and 2 covers, and did a few shows in Lebanon, with Aram Kalousdian the former drummer of the dissolved band Nu.Clear.Dawn, was the first metal band to release an album in Syria in early 2003. Later Massih had a plan to do a concept album based on the ancient pagan mythology of the Near East called Gods and Warriors of the Fertile Crescent, and he published the cover of the album on the band’s Facebook page. But the album was never properly recorded basically because of the war that started in Syria. Massih stayed through the whole time the sole composer and producer of the band.

In 2011 The Hourglass did its first opening show for international bands, Katatonia and Moonspell at the Beirut Rock Festival. In 2012 Massih, as he stated on his Facebook page, achieved one of his dreams and produced a song he composed under the name of The Hourglass with Jon Oliva and Zak Stevens of Savatage as vocalists, titled Play the Pawn. Still, it had metaphorical lyrics about politics portrayed as a board of chess. The band played in Dubai 2 times, one time opening for CircleIICircle.

After the Dubai concert, The Hourglass was practically over, but Massih wanted to officially declare its end with a song he wrote for God's unpublished album. With Marcela Bovio of Ayreon and Stream of Passion and once again Zak Stevens of Savatage and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, he released A Glorious Suicide, a song about Elissa the Phoenician queen and the founder of Carthage city. Massih posted on The Hourglass page, “Despite all the disappointments and effort, time and money I personally and the members put on the band, the 13 years of The Hourglass are still in my eyes a great journey. We reached where a lot of other Middle Eastern bands still seek to reach.

The Hourglass 2019 is still the only Syrian Metal band who have released three albums, and singles with international artists and opened for international bands. Massih wrote in the same farewell post, “I hope that the metalheads of the Middle East will remember The Hourglass as one of the earliest bands to release albums and originals in the region.

Rasas

Founded by composer and guitarist Rawad A. Massih, who is originally known for his pioneering Heavy Metal band in Syria and the Middle East, The Hourglass. In 2008, together with vocalist Yumni Abu Al-Zahab wrote and released a song titled “Qarar” (Decision). This was before the band was officially named Rasas. The idea was to establish an Arabic indie rock band, which later became known as Arabic rock or alternative music. This project was one of the pioneers in this style of music in the Middle East’s music scene, especially in the Levant region. However, the project did not continue due to the immigration of Yumni and Rawad's preoccupation with The Hourglass, which was performing rock and heavy metal music in English.

After the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2012, The Hourglass had to break up due to the immigration of its members. At the time, the Arabic rock style was gaining popularity, which led to the emergence of several bands, such as Gene in Syria and Jadal in Jordan. So, Rawad began to revive his project that had started with the song “Qarar”, and decided to name the band Rasas. Rawad asked the singer Rasha Rizk to sing the first song that will be released under the name Rasas, which was a special rearrangement of the song “Saqata Al Qinaa” (The Mask Has Fallen) by Magda El Roumi, written by Mahmoud Darwish and composed by Elie El Choueiri. Rawad had intended for the rearrangement to be as loud and powerful as Metal music to match the expressive lyrics and the general situation in Syria at the time, as the idea was that only Metal music had the power to honestly express the state of war that the country was going through. Rasha Rizk was no stranger to this heavy style of music as she had presented many songs in this style in her solo work and in the time she had spent at Spacetoon, where she participated in making cartoon original soundtracks.

Rawad chose the name Rasas because of the Arabic word's variety of meanings. With the beginning of the war in Syria, the sound of bullets was one of the most common things that people heard and felt daily in cities and rural areas. But at the same time, there is the pencil, which is also a weapon, the weapon of the word. In addition to that, there is the gray color that distances oneself from extremism, for extremist ideology always sees everything in life as either black or white, without any gray area. Finally, we have the word lead, which is one of the heavy metals, referring to the type of music presented by the band. Once again, the project faltered. After the war intensified in Homs (Rawad’s hometown) and Damascus (the city where he lived), he was forced to move with his family to Lebanon, but Project Rasas was always on his mind.

In 2014, he rearranged the song “Allah Muhayi Shawarek” (God Bless Your Streets), with Syrian musician Omar Harb and young singer Adel Saflo, in addition to Syrian rock singer Alaa Khachi and well-known Lebanese percussionist Fouad Afra, all of whom recorded it in Beirut. This song, which was composed by the artist Housam Tahseen Baik, became part of Syrian folklore after the actors Duraid Lahham (Ghawar) and Naji Jabr (Abu Antar) sang it in the classic Sah El Noum series. It was presented by Rasas in the style of rock music, and like the song “Saqata Alqinaa", it was very well received even by music lovers who are far from rock style. Due to the difficulty of that stage for all Syrians, no other songs were released by the band.

In 2017, Rawad opened his music production studio, turning to his solo music project, in which he presented several songs composed and arranged by him. In 2023, Rawad A. Massih brought back Rasas band, in partnership with his wife, singer Julia Helwani, who shares his love of rock n roll music, and together they performed many songs in Arabic and English as part of their musical project, Rudi and Julie. The band was joined by a professor of percussion at the Higher Institute of Music, Simon Mreach, who was a founding member of the band Kulna Sawa, which was one of the pioneers of alternative music in Syria.

As for now, a large number of rock songs will be released by the band, starting in the summer of 2023, all originals not covers. Rasas's goal is to return to a leading position in the style of alternative and independent music in the Arab world. These new songs aim to present this style acceptably to a wide range of Arabic speakers, in a modern and different way, while preserving meaningful and beautiful lyrics that contain a message.

Solo Projects

In 2017 Massih built his own production studio in Lebanon and started recording and producing music on his own. His first solo album, also named Ancient Hope was released in 2017. It was an instrumental album of epic orchestrated music with guitar solos, inspired by Hans Zimmer and Two Steps from Hell while keeping the electric guitar solos as a main part of most of the tracks. Massih self-released the album through CDbaby.com

After the album Massih kept on releasing singles on social media, some originals, and some covers for anime songs or old Arabic songs. Most of singles are a fusion of Middle Eastern instruments with a rock ballad overall structure.

In March 2019, Massih signed with Universal Music MENA for his new album Away From Planet Earth. During the years 2016-2019, Massih published music in several genres, his second solo album will be his first experience with electronic music, he wrote on his Facebook page, “My upcoming album Away From Planet Earth, consists of 8 musical retro-futurism dark synth music, with some classical and industrial elements. Since I was a kid I loved Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Hans Zimmer, and the 80’s works of Yanni. I’m so proud of this album which is very different from everything I did before, I used guitar only on two tracks. This type of music is very rare or doesn’t exist in the Middle East, I guess this will be a new experiment for all of us.”

Other Projects

He also played as a guest with UAE metal band Ascendant in 2013 while opening for Lake of Tears in Dubai and as a guitarist with ex-Judas Priest vocalist, Tim “Ripper” Owens, during his live show in Dubai.

Discography

The Hourglass

2003 – To the Land of the Free – full album

2007 – Resurrection of the Horrid Dream – full album

2010 – Ancient Hope – Ep

2012 – Play the Pawn – single

2012 – The Great Fall of Reason – single (was removed from Resurrection album)

2016 – A Glorious Suicide – single

With Rasas

2008 - Qarar قرار - Single

2012 – Saqata Alqina’ سقط القناع - single – Majida Alroumi cover

2014 – Alla Mhayi Shwareki الله محيي شوارعك – single - folk song cover

2023 - Ma Sefi Hada ما صفي حدا - Single

Solo

2017 – Ancient Hope أمل عتيق - full album

2018 – Sasuke – single – Anime song cover

2018 – Ya Setti يا ستي – single – Ahmad Kaabour cover

2018 – Asfour Tal Min Elshebbak عصفور طل من الشباك - single – Marcel Khalife cover

2018 – Jazirat Alkanz جزيرة الكنز (Treasure Island) – single – Anime cover

2018 – Rah Aamel Harb رح أعمل حرب (I Will Declare War) – single

2019 – Away From Planet Earth بعيداً عن كوكب الأرض – full album (unreleased)

2019 – The Bread of Life خبز الحياة – Original music score – (unreleased)

References

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