Zanak Adala – do you think it's another boring band from Europe or America? No, this time we'll transport you to an island, but which one? Read on and you'll find out !
1. Hello and thank you for your time. Introduce us to your band, where you're from, how long you've been playing together, and what has been your history with metal ?
- Hi, my name is Mamy Harison bass player and singer, so we are Zanak’adala from Antsirabe Madagascar. We formed the band, my brother (Toods Harison guitarist) and me on December 2012 as a thrash metal band. Then we called up our first drummer Junior and the lead guitarist Robert Raz to join the band. But before we have already played for another extreme metal band in the city, so like that we had the same passion in music but the real thing we play metal because we can speak through it. You know as a thrash metal band we have our theme, politics and religions (in our country of course). So, I guess you don’t know but, we can’t critic politic nor religion (especially Christianism) in our country, but we have something to say so we decided to speak through metal ,and with this genre we can speak louder to show how anger we are. That’s a little history with metal but before the next question I just want to introduce you our actual members since 2022 so on drums we have Vony Ratahiriniana and the lead guitarist Ainanirina (aka Iaina Kely) and my brother and me of course.
2. You know, you're from a rather unusual place in the world, hard to reach. Tell us about your music scene, how is extreme music like metal developing there ?
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- OK, let’s talk about extreme metal only, so young Malagasy people adopted extreme metal since the middle of 1980 but from then this genre is not appreciated in the society till 2000, in my opinion, because Malagasy people is too Christian so we don’t have much public , but after that extreme metal started more popular, but still less fan, because a lot of band formed and I can say from 2024 we have almost 1 show per month and we do have all subgenre like death metal , black metal and more , but all the bands try to find a way to play outside the country .
3. Let's get back to the band: you've been around since 2012, you've recorded two full-length albums, and an EP this year, and it's going quite slowly. Great success, thrash metal, and the covers are even better than Deicide's. How did you achieve all this ?
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-Yeah, You know Madagascar is one of the poorest country in the world so we don’t have enough money to go to a professional recording studio so we need much time to save money to record our song, and also we don’t get much money from a show, sometimes we do show for free, just to say something (laughing). About the cover, like I told you our theme is politics and religion so this covers (I’m talking about our EP’s cover) shows that Malagasy people are dying by the politician’s ideology but they don’t say anything they just wait Jesus to save them but Jesus doesn’t give a shit to them,
4. Let's focus on the "Guilty" EP. Six songs, a wonderfully simple video - all at a very high level. Tell us what the lyrics are about, which are very enigmatic.
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-Ok, I think this one is the most we like because we had a chance to work with an independent recording studio in USA to do the mastering, and for the video we made it by ourselves. For the lyrics it’s more aggressive than before because we talk directly to the Malagasy people like told them that they believe the wrong religion and it’s time to wake up. And to the politician that they are fucking us every day, they are killing people for not doing anything, they should stop changing the country to their own business, they should go away with their shitty democracy.
5. Concerts - what are they like for you, are there any at all and is there a chance we will see you at concerts in Europe ?
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-Man,, that’s our dream, playing out of our country especially Europe or USA, we can’t find any producer and we don’t have money to go there either and our ministry of culture is a crap, they don’t do anything for artists , I mean all artists in Madagascar . We wait till a producer contacts us, hopefully.
6. Geopolitical question: Did you know that Poles wanted to send Jews to Madagascar in the 1930s and 1960s? Tell us what the emigration situation and daily life there are like ?
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-Oh really ? I didn’t know that, I wish they did (laughing)
Emigration?? Damn man, it’s a wish for all to leave this country ,because of politician and belief , they already sold everything, no job, no power , no water, no future, no security, chaos, people dying everywhere even the environment is dying bruh, we just have 8% of our forest left, inflation very high but we are poor, even our president said that his people is poor but happy, how the fuck we gonna live with that,, anyway life here is very hard , 80% of Malagasy are unemployed , we just get like $2 a day but our gas price is expensive than yours, it’s crazy tho, I’m not complaining but that’s the reality here .
7. Referring to the last cover, I'll end with question 7. I wish you even more success, we're waiting for the next albums and see you at concerts in Europe. I leave the last words to the fans to you !
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-Yes,so you can check our albums on platform , I”ll give you the link in the bottom. thanks again to contact us and for the wish, so now we are working on a tribute to Pharaons album project , Pharaons was a thrash metal band from Madagascar on 1987 (not active anymore) and they have a similar theme as us so we think that it’s a good idea do this tribute.
Next concert will be next year, maybe, here in Madagascar.
Wishing European tour.
interview by : seducer 2025