Naser Mestarihi
Encyclopedia
Naser Mestarihi is a Qatari born Jordan
ian-Pakistani
guitarist based in Doha
, Qatar
who has been on the Qatari music scene since the age of 15. Naser is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist (guitars, bass guitars, vocals and drums) singer-songwriter who is the first rock musician to ever officially release a rock album out of Qatar.
debut album Appetite for Destruction
. Although not formally trained, his mother enrolled him in a music school, however due to his lack of interest and constant complaints of the material being taught Naser quit and began teaching himself the guitar.
documentary in 2006 which was broadcasted all over Denmark
and other Scandinavian nations which documented him and Danish television presenters on a tour of Qatar and featured his former band rehearsing and being interviewed.
as a solo artist and a session musician for other bands. His third and fourth shows as a solo musician with his official Doha touring band were held at the United States Military Base Camp As Siliyah in his hometown of Doha, where he performed on the 4th and 5 July with several other Qatar based bands in 2008. He also made his radio debut on QBS Radio during the summer of 2009 when his acoustic rendition of The Who's "Pinball Wizard
" was aired on QBS Radio. This was followed by the launch of his upcoming single "Salvation" in September 2009 also on QBS Radio.
He began recording his debut studio album in December 2009, although the album was set to be released between March and June 2010 it was marred by several delays due to production setbacks. The self-titled Naser Mestarihi EP
was eventually released on the 31st of December 2010, making it the first official rock record ever to be released out of Qatar. Although the album has not had any commercial success it received critical acclaim from magazines including Rolling Stone
Middle East who hailed it as "A huge sounding impressive debut" and Sur la Terre
magazine who gave it 4/5 pearls.
His debut album (the eponymous Naser Mestarihi EP) is currently available for purchase on iTunes
, Myspace
Music, Napster
, Tesco
Entertainment and other online stores via Interscope Digital Distribution through Interscope Records
. He composes all his music and lyrics (all instruments including vocals and drums) and is known for his meticulous recording approach recording every instrument's track on his record with the exception of the drums. He is currently recruiting musicians in order to begin club circuit gigs in the United Arab Emirates to support the record and plans to record his first full length album during the summer of this year.
, and Punk
as his influences. He cites Eddie Van Halen
, Jimi Hendrix
, Randy Rhoads
, Slash
, Brian May
and Pete Townshend
among his favourite guitarists.
where he is enrolled at Middlesex University
and is pursuing a Bachelors degree in Public Relations and Media. He suffers from Obsessive-compulsive disorder
.
He is also an avid West Ham United fan and has written a song about the club on his upcoming full-length debut.
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
ian-Pakistani
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
guitarist based in Doha
Doha
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
, Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
who has been on the Qatari music scene since the age of 15. Naser is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist (guitars, bass guitars, vocals and drums) singer-songwriter who is the first rock musician to ever officially release a rock album out of Qatar.
Early life
Naser was born and raised in Doha, Qatar into a musical family, his paternal uncles are all professional musicians. He states that his introduction to music came through his parents who gave him his first rock records. He also states that the album that inspired him to pursue a career in music was the Guns N' RosesGuns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...
debut album Appetite for Destruction
Appetite for Destruction
Appetite for Destruction is the debut studio album by American rock band Guns N' Roses, released in July 1987 on Geffen Records. It was well-received by critics and topped the American Billboard 200 chart...
. Although not formally trained, his mother enrolled him in a music school, however due to his lack of interest and constant complaints of the material being taught Naser quit and began teaching himself the guitar.
Music
Naser has been playing live shows professionally with several bands since 2004. He had minor international exposure at the age of 19 when he was featured on a Danmarks RadioDanmarks Radio
DR – officially rendered into English as the Danish Broadcasting Corporation – is Denmark's national broadcasting corporation. Founded in 1925 as a public-service organization, it is today Denmark's oldest and largest electronic media enterprise...
documentary in 2006 which was broadcasted all over Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
and other Scandinavian nations which documented him and Danish television presenters on a tour of Qatar and featured his former band rehearsing and being interviewed.
Solo Career (2007-Present)
Naser began his solo career in 2007 and albeit he hasn't performed many shows he has performed a few shows in the United Arab EmiratesUnited Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
as a solo artist and a session musician for other bands. His third and fourth shows as a solo musician with his official Doha touring band were held at the United States Military Base Camp As Siliyah in his hometown of Doha, where he performed on the 4th and 5 July with several other Qatar based bands in 2008. He also made his radio debut on QBS Radio during the summer of 2009 when his acoustic rendition of The Who's "Pinball Wizard
Pinball Wizard
"Pinball Wizard" is a song written by Pete Townshend and performed by the English rock band The Who, and featured on their 1969 rock opera album Tommy. The original recording was released as a single in 1969 and reached No. 4 in the UK charts and No. 19 on the U.S...
" was aired on QBS Radio. This was followed by the launch of his upcoming single "Salvation" in September 2009 also on QBS Radio.
He began recording his debut studio album in December 2009, although the album was set to be released between March and June 2010 it was marred by several delays due to production setbacks. The self-titled Naser Mestarihi EP
Naser Mestarihi EP
Naser Mestarihi EP is the eponymous debut EP of Doha based hard rock guitarist Naser Mestarihi. The release of the album marked the first official release of a rock album out of Qatar...
was eventually released on the 31st of December 2010, making it the first official rock record ever to be released out of Qatar. Although the album has not had any commercial success it received critical acclaim from magazines including Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
Middle East who hailed it as "A huge sounding impressive debut" and Sur la Terre
Sur la Terre
Sur la Terre is a 2002 album by DJ Martin Solveig.-Track listing:# Intro# Someday# I'm a Good Man# Destiny# Burning# Linda# You Are My Friend# On Your Mind# Heart of Africa# Mr. President# Edony...
magazine who gave it 4/5 pearls.
His debut album (the eponymous Naser Mestarihi EP) is currently available for purchase on iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
, Myspace
Myspace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
Music, Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
, Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...
Entertainment and other online stores via Interscope Digital Distribution through Interscope Records
Interscope Records
Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that currently operates as one third of UMG's Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group.-History:...
. He composes all his music and lyrics (all instruments including vocals and drums) and is known for his meticulous recording approach recording every instrument's track on his record with the exception of the drums. He is currently recruiting musicians in order to begin club circuit gigs in the United Arab Emirates to support the record and plans to record his first full length album during the summer of this year.
Influences
Naser has cited many bands as influences on his music, his favourite band is Guns N' Roses however he has mentioned bands from various genres such as 60's and 70's rock, New WaveNew Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
, and Punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
as his influences. He cites Eddie Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen
Edward Lodewijk "Eddie" Van Halen is a Dutch-American guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer, best known as the lead guitarist and co-founder of the hard rock band Van Halen, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...
, Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, Randy Rhoads
Randy Rhoads
Randall William "Randy" Rhoads was an American heavy metal guitarist who played with Ozzy Osbourne and Quiet Riot. A devoted student of classical guitar, Rhoads often combined his classical music influences with his own heavy metal style. While on tour with Ozzy Osbourne, he would seek out...
, Slash
Slash (musician)
Saul Hudson , known by his stage name Slash, is a British-American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During his later years with Guns N'...
, Brian May
Brian May
Brian Harold May, CBE is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen...
and Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
among his favourite guitarists.
Personal life
Naser currently lives in DubaiDubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
where he is enrolled at Middlesex University
Middlesex University
Middlesex University is a university in north London, England. It is located in the historic county boundaries of Middlesex from which it takes its name. It is one of the post-1992 universities and is a member of Million+ working group...
and is pursuing a Bachelors degree in Public Relations and Media. He suffers from Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions...
.
He is also an avid West Ham United fan and has written a song about the club on his upcoming full-length debut.