It began back in 2006 when a young Mohammad Sawan found himself at his friend’s house listening to his friend playing the electric guitar. He was enthralled. Soon afterwards, a 23-year-old artist with an undying love for music emerged.
Mohammad Sawan was born and raised in Abu Dhabi. After he graduated high school he applied for a job at Virgin Megastores to save up for college and music. Now he performs gigs around town, as the one-man band called Obselion.
“ I had been trying to look for and reach new people to jam with and to start a new group. I couldn’t find anyone, so unfortunately, or fortunately, I had to do the entire thing on my own. Imagine a 5-piece band but one guy composing each instrument and writing everything! Beat by beat. Note by note. Word by word. What resulted was my Extended play (EP) “The Calm Fire”. I was lucky that a good friend of mine, Abbas Al Mossawi, agreed to help me and provide vocals since I’m not good at singing high notes like him. I thought to myself if there’s a chance to make this EP sound better why not go for it? And I was very happy with the final product.
“ How I came up with the name ‘OBSELION’ is interesting. I spent a week trying to think of cool, catchy, and unique band names. I woke up one day and headed to the washroom to freshen up after a rough night and all that was screaming in my head was “OBSELION”. It didn’t make much sense to me but it sounded incredible! I googled the word and there was absolutely nothing about it, no definitions at all. So while brainstorming endlessly with my high school teacher, Mr. Wayne Brown, he exclaimed, “You know what, the right definition for Obselion is “Uncontrollably Devoted to Passion.” And that stuck !
“ A high point for me was my participation in the talent-hunt, Yas Rock Factory that was held by Flash Entertainment. I won a spot and got the chance to play on the Flash Forum stage alongside several other great UAE bands from all genres on the same night 30 Seconds To Mars took performed.
“ Thinking back, I believe that my English teacher from my last year of high school impacted me a lot. He himself is a musician and a music producer and he knows a lot about music. I was ecstatic to learn that he loved my EP especially the song “The Cure”. But early on I was inspired and entranced by my friend’s guitar strokes. I loved the energy. The first music my friend taught me was the intro to ‘In the End’ by Linkin Park. From that point on I loved music more than I ever thought I would. Since then my life has completely changed.
“The Calm Fire contains six tracks and is 23 minutes long. Two of the tracks are instrumentals, a mix of dub step and post rock. And the other four tracks are just pure face-melting metal-core. A line from my song Dear Dreamer says” ‘I will never give up on my dreams. And I swear from what I feel, someday it will be real’. I say believe and achieve your dreams”.
The Calm Fire is available online at www.obselion.bandcamp.com to download it for free.
http://obselion.bandcamp.com/track/the-calm-fire
By Nabeela Huda
