Ayman Shimul – an upcoming bass player from Rajshahi who is already garnering positive vibes from the metal community in Bangladesh. Already working with 5-6 bands (with two of them are from aboard), this young man has been sticking to passion for quite some times. Mahmudul Hasan grabbed a chance to have a chat and learned about his work.

1. Tell me about your bands and your musical journey?

• Currently, I have been playing with couple of bands. Thy Ethos ( Tech / Death ) , Eerbaruh ( Black Metal ), Thy Sins ( Atmospheric Black Metal ) & Beheth ( Black & Thrash ). Recently about to join another brutal death band as well. The complete musical journey started on 2012, when I joined my first alternative rock band called Skeptic. After that I played with more rock bands as well.

2. What influenced you into extreme metal and bass?

• Getting into extreme metal was like a stepping into new universe for me. More difficulties more melodies and much more madness. I still remember when heard bands like Behemoth, Dying Fetus, Cannibal Corpse, Mayhem, Six Feet Under & Death, etc! That’s when I found the doorway to extreme noises. On 2015 I started playing extreme metal with my first band named Deathscape (which is now Thy Ethos) . I used to play guitar there and the I didn’t have any clue about picking up the bass ( I played bass on 2/3 gigs with my rock band before but it was just to support the band ) then again for not finding a bassist, I had to pick up the bass the and started seeing Alex Webster’s bass playing, which influenced me a lot.

3. We all know that musicians have to do struggle for carrying the passion .What problems did you face in your region?

• In my region choosing extreme metal is like choosing the path of doing struggle in reality. We all know, this extreme music is completely a different culture. So! To cope up with the regular life it is quite hard and there’s no support or any kinda help to get here. Carrying this passion here is more battling for keeping the passion alive.

4. Share some experiences about working with 4 back to back extreme metal bands,there should be some interesting stories.

• At first it was only Thy Ethos my tech death band. I didn’t have any clue about joining more bands later until I got opportunities to work with 2 international bands ( Eerbaruh & Thy Sins). It was quite surprising for me when I got select as a bassist to play with international local musicians. And as black metal is my very favorite genre, so I always had a plan to form a black metal band. Which is now Beheth. To be honest! It’s a whole lotta pressure to continue with 4 bands back to back. I had to mess up my sleep schedule to work with lots of compositions for making tracks for every band. It’s quite interesting at a same time just because, I got to know about more musical notes and learned so many interesting things from each every musicians I have been working with. Working with international bands was like a door opening for me to see the extreme metal community outside BD. Got connected with so many new people and yeah that’s what I found quite interesting.

5. As a bassist do you think bass players should explore many genres as much as possible? Or what exactly a bass player should have in his mind?

• I started playing bass, when i was in rock bands. So it’s absolutely important for bassist to explore every possible genre. And also that’s how a bassist can learn many techniques and capture new ideas for playing bass. Bass provides hermonic and rhythmic support to the band. Bass is vital filling out the sound of a song. So a bassist, the more melodies or musical ideas you got inside! That’s how you can make the song much more great and solid.

6. You play both riff and bass in your black metal Band Beheth , do you have any plan playing live with them? If so then, any changes in line up? Like will you play bass or riff? Or any preferable musician you fixed earlier?

• I suppose I do have plans to play live with Beheth. Currently I didn’t think what changes can happen to the line up for playing live on stage. But I’m sure I will come up with something to play the perfection on stage with any qualified musician I can find later.

7. Music is evolving and the genres are getting expanded, you have any plan on which genre you’ll be working next?

• I would love to explore every possible genre but it seems impossible at a same time. In every genre there’s different kinda melodies, which is fun to play on bass. But I guess I love playing on speed. So any kinda genre which has speed in it, I will be playing there. Currently I’m planning to work with a brutal death metal band with modern production sound. 

8. What do you do in your leisure time?

• I play games alot. So yeah I do play most of the free times I get. Also as I’m a movie freak person as well. 

9. You have a YouTube channel, tell us more about it.

• Oh yes. I have recently opened a channel where I’m gonna post pretty much all my bass playing. If you folks can get some times then please visit there and checkout my contents. The logo for my channel was done by Darkpool arts / Navid Niv.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvbu5c6YnU4PQqoD0OG-lGg/featured

10. Share your thoughts on music and drugs for the upcoming musicians.

• I had real past histories with drugs which is amazing and deadliest at a same time. Drugs can give you chill and also you will get beyond ideas and all in your head while staying with drugs but trust me, it destroys important focuses of your life. Which can lead you to a very unacceptable situations. So yeah! There’s no rules that you have to take drugs for becoming a musician. If you want to play extreme music on instruments, surely you will be needing more strength to perfectly play each and every notes. At a same time it’s all about maintaining the speed. It can be slow or fast but drugs can mess it up…haha. So yeah if you are wise enough you know what is good for you.