Warfaze

Warfaze is a hard rock band from Bangladesh with elements of heavy metal and progressive metal/progressive rock in some of their songs. They were one of the first such bands of this genre in the country. The emergence of Warfaze and other bands such as Rockstrata defined a new horizon in Bangla music. Warfaze was formed on 5th June, 1984. The initial line up was made up of: Kamal - lead guitar ONI - lead guitar Rojar - bass guitar Tipu - drums Mizan- vocal Shams - Keyboard At this stage, the band was not very popular. The initial line up did not continue for long either. Helal, Mir and Bappi had to leave the band for personal reasons. Kamal started playing the lead guitar for the band at this stage and the rest of he positions were filled with Babna as the bassist, Tipu as the drummer and Rashed as the vocalist. This second line up had to be discontinued when Naimul immigrated to the USA. During that time, there were three other Dhaka-based metal bands: Rockstrata, In Dhaka and Aces. Mashuk, the lead guitar of In Dhaka, and Fuad (of the same band) volunteered to help Warfaze as a guest member. Early on, Warfaze only played cover music of American and British bands. On 26 April 1991 for the first time they performed their own songs at a concert arranged by BAMBA in University of Dhaka. Soon, almost coincidentially, several members of the various metal bands in Bangladesh started to immigrate to different countries, mainly for education purposes. The bands decided to make a mixed album but as it turned out Warfaze had enough songs (and popularity) to be able to release a solo album. So, they released their self-titled album, Warfaze, in 1991. Back in the 1990s Bangladeshi music listener were still new to metal. Any lyrics other than those inspired by romanticism or patriotism were rare. It took several weeks before the album started to be appreciated. They did their first follow up concert on 07 January 1992 at the Rawa Club. Kamal, the lead guitarist, is helping another band, Moshpit, to make a new underground album. Kamal is also helping, Aurthohin, another pioneering Bangladeshi rock band, as a lead guitarist. Latest line-up (During release of their last album Moharaja): Mizan - vocal Kamal - lead guitar Balam - second lead guitar and back-up vocal Biju - bass guitar and back-up vocal Shams - keyboard and back-up vocal Tipu - drums and percussion