WaylouN have spent the past few years developing their own place within Iran’s metal underground, combining a modern heavy sound with elements drawn from Iranian music and a visual identity built around anonymity. Following the release of their latest single, ‘Saints and Beasts’, MIDEAST.ROCKS spoke with the band about the thinking behind their recent work, how their sound has developed and where they find themselves today.
“The war has really affected our lives.”
In ‘Saints and Beasts’, you suggest that the people we call good or evil are often much harder to separate in real life. Were you thinking about particular behaviours, institutions or experiences when you wrote it?
‘Saints and Beasts’ is not about people; it’s about the constant battle between the demons and angels who live inside us. It is like a piece of advice: don’t think the demons are always wrong, nor think the angels always care for you! We need to find a balance in our lives. Trying to do so could throw our lives into chaos numerous times. It will surely come, as it will surely go, so why not have a feast in this chaos and let it happen naturally?
You previously released a song called ‘Democracy is a Lie’. What did you want to say with that title, and were you thinking specifically about Iran or about political systems more broadly?
It is certainly about the whole idea of democracy. This might not be a very popular point of view, and we don’t consider WaylouN a political band, but we don’t think a democratic system has shown any great improvement in human dignity over a long period of time. What we see as democracy does not live up to this term and does not look like it will any time soon. Overall, it is a concept that talks about equality and freedom but fails to show any proof that it is working the way it is described and believed to.
“Our masks are a symbol of protecting the human mind from the content.”
You have said that anonymity and the masks also offer some protection in a country where metal musicians can face censorship and accusations of being ‘satanic’. Has that anonymity made it easier for WaylouN to say things you might otherwise avoid saying publicly?
Wearing masks is not solely for this reason. Our masks are a symbol of protecting the human mind from the content, media and toxic mentalities of humanity, as well as from governments that push the world, through their media, towards the chaos and helplessness we see today. Masks are a symbol of the tragic end of humanity and of humans enduring after an era of the blatant corruption of leaders and every ideology and doctrine that only sought to exploit people. For now, we do not want our faces to be seen because we express our message through our music.
Iranian musical elements, including the Tombak and Eastern rhythmic ideas, have become part of WaylouN’s sound. Has your approach to those elements changed since the first album, and do they enter the writing process early or later in the arrangement?
The sound of the Tombak is something we want to include in our songs indefinitely. This idea was formed even before we officially started WaylouN. But that doesn’t happen in every individual track. When we are in the process of creation, we’re not thinking, ‘We must use the sound.’ If the sound fits, it is going to happen spontaneously. This approach might seem problematic in metal music, but our rhythmic and melodic concept of metal makes it more and more likely that an instrument like the Tombak will find a place while we’re working on scratch tracks, riffs or melodies.
Shelterless Rage came out in 2025, followed by ‘Democracy is a Lie’ and now ‘Saints and Beasts’. Are these new singles pointing towards another album, and what is changing in the way WaylouN are writing at the moment?
The main thing that has changed the way we create right now is the ongoing war and the cumulative pressure, financially and socially. The war has really affected our lives, inside and outside WaylouN. It is already hard for indie bands to keep going generally; add living in a third-world country and the constant grip of this war, and you get another level of hardship for a metal band in an Islamic country! But our only plan right now is to keep creating. We want to release single by single at this time, but who knows? Maybe something will change. It’s really hard to plan far ahead when you don’t know what will happen next week or even the next day.
