ZiX signed a new record with Universal Music

Last week, chatting with a friend and telling him about ZiX, I gave a quick rundown from when I started working with them as a **remote session musician** up to today. I remembered big milestones [hi, Daddy Brieva] like recording Metal Strike with metal legends, mixing the album in Las Vegas with the legendary producer Steve Thompson, the shows in Beirut and Slovenia, and now this latest wild development.

Before someone throws a shoe at me, let me get to the point: yes, this past August 31 **we signed a contract with Universal Music Group** \m/ A contract for what? For promotion and distribution of the EP we've just finished mixing — it's already on its way to mastering.

What does this mean? That, besides the coolness of being part of **the Universal Music family**, they're going to handle everything beyond the music itself for "Rise from Your Ashes Your Grave" — this upcoming EP whose first single we made in collaboration with none other than Hansi Kürsch of Blind Guardian.

Based on the experience we have with this deal, we'll evaluate whether or not to sign the full album with them, since during the **search for partners** for this new record we also had offers from several labels of various sizes, among them Warner — the other monster of the music industry.

✨ NEW SIGNING ALERT ✨ — "We're very excited to announce our latest signing @zixband! Get ready to turn your metal head ON 🤘 Welcome to the Universal Music MENA Family <3" — Universal Music MENA (Aug 30, 2018)

In that recap I realized we **see each other every two years**, like clockwork. So I've added a little summary below of how things unfolded, with links to the relevant posts for anyone who wants to dive in :)

ZiX | Tides of the Final War

After our first EP "The Warwhore," made and distributed independently, we recorded our first album: "Tides of the Final War." Classic **heavy metal** with some folk and oriental twists. On this record we had top-shelf guests like Kenny "Rhino" Earl (*Manowar*) on drums; Paul Di'Anno, Blaze Bayley (*Iron Maiden*), Tony Martin (*Black Sabbath*), Ronny Munroe (*Metal Church*) and more on vocals; and a couple of beasts on guitar like Jack Starr (*Virgin Steele*), Stu Marshall (*Death Dealer*), Ross Friedman, and David Shankle (*Manowar*). *It was released in 2016 by the German label Pure Steel Records.* — Buy

[ZiX] the trail of milestones that brought us here :)

Let's start at the beginning, when — after recording guitar solos as a session player for two of their songs — they sent me that very long, heartfelt email saying they wanted me to be a **permanent member of the band**. More on those times in this post.

After recording The Warwhore EP ultra-**independently** (single above), we met up at Wacken Open Air Festival, Germany, in 2012 to put faces to names and promote this first release. It went very well :) Here are the posts I wrote at the time, since I was credentialed as press: Wacken 2012.

That EP was very well received by metal fans in general and the specialized press, which leads to another fun milestone: in late 2012 we appeared in **Greece's Metal Hammer** magazine… random? Nah… In the related post I translated what the piece says, in the context of a list of the 100 metal bands worldwide still **holding up the flag of classic metal**. In the photo: Maya, Ziad, and yours truly, at Wacken 2012, during that mythical meeting. [photo by Mr. Selim Salame]

During 2013 we worked on the remaining songs for our **first album**. To the EP's 6 songs we added 4 more, among them Metal Strike, which is a whole other chapter in itself.

"Metal Warriors" was born as a response to a growing wave of repression against metalheads in the Middle East, and specifically to a strong media push to plant in public opinion the idea that we metalheads are **satanists and dangerous**. The guitars and original structure came from a song by **Hellmec**, that Iron Maiden–influenced band where I [wait for it…] sang, in Bahía Blanca around 2001.

In this version we featured dozens of guest singers from across the **Lebanese metal scene**. We kept this same concept of being a bunch of metalheads screaming for the album version, now called Metal Strike, which was largely rewritten by none other than Tony Martin [yes, ex–Black Sabbath].

Besides the voices of Danny Deaibess and our own Maya Khairallah, other great **international metal** singers joined the cause, including Tony Martin himself (Black Sabbath), Blaze Bayley (Iron Maiden), Paul Di'Anno (Iron Maiden), Ronny Munroe (Metal Church), Giles Lavery (Dragonsclaw, Warlord), David Marcelis (Lord Volture), Frederic Bartolomucci (Legend), and several others. On guitars, top-shelf guests too: Ross The Boss (Manowar, Death Dealer), David Shankle (DSG, Manowar), Jack Starr (Virgin Steele), and the beast Rhino (Manowar) on drums — well, he played on the whole record, actually. More on **Metal Strike** in this post from when we mixed it: ZiX in Las Vegas | Metal Strike.

ZiX in Las Vegas: Tides of the Final War

2014, two years on from that first meeting and a new mission: to give shape to the album we'd been **recording remotely** over the previous year and a half. After sending our demos to the best producers/engineers we could find, one strong name responded with interest: **Mr. Steve Thompson** (Guns n' Roses, Metallica, Anthrax, Korn, etc., etc.).

In theory Ziad was going to travel alone to the **Vegas View** studio in Nevada, but at the last minute Steve called, yelling "you did this, I need you here!" — almost at the same time they were sending me my plane ticket. The notes from that trip are in a **series of posts**, three serious ones and a B-side. You already saw the Metal Strike part above; here are the rest: The chronicle · The mix · The B-side.

With that big step taken, and looking toward the next moves — including finding a label and booking festivals to play live — **Maya decided to step aside** to devote herself fully to her career as an architect-in-training.

The search for partners to release the album

With the **album finished**, Ziad set out to find labels that could manufacture and distribute it. Again there were several options, but one in **Poland** stood out. After many talks and right on the verge of closing a contract, we ended up not aligning on the timelines they had in mind.

The good one then came from Germany — Pure Steel Records — with whom we finally signed global **manufacturing and distribution** of the album (which later turned out to be not so global, because there are restrictions and questionable criteria, but well). Here's the first single off that beloved Tides of the Final War. Because of that prior experience, we also took quite a while to **study and revise the contract** with Universal. This time we focused on making it as fair as possible and on helping the music reach more people worldwide — not specific local markets that serve their agenda. I think we pulled it off, and **we're happy** \m/

Officially live at Metal Days 2016

With the album out in physical form, the next pending debt was getting everyone to line up in time and space, **rehearse, and play live like a normal band** — something we'd never actually done until then. In that pursuit **two concerts came together**: a warm-up concert in Beirut and the main event — opening the main stage of Metal Days 2016, alongside great bands like Testament, Blind Guardian, Napalm Death, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Obscura, Insomnium, and many more. All of this with the bonus of an **incredible natural setting**, on the bank of a movie-worthy river amid the mountains of Slovenia. For this concert, **Jelena Dobric** of the Tunisian band Persona temporarily joined our ranks — a great singer, with more gothic shades, but who knew how to give our songs plenty.

The collaboration with Hansi Kürsch and what's coming

Metal Days 2016, besides being an **amazing experience** as a musician and as an audience member, created great networking opportunities. We spent our time backstage and met many of our heroes of old, among them Hansi, singer of **Blind Guardian** and the go-to vocalist for any multi-vocalist project out there — hello, Ayreon. We talked for a while and the idea came up to do a **song together** — he found it very striking that we were working from such opposite latitudes.

In 2017 we made what was called the "Hansi song" for quite a while :p That work fueled us with energy to take on a **new EP**. This time we went back to auditioning singers, and after a couple of months we found someone in Cyprus. A few days ago you'll have seen the official announcement of Maria Danos — from the heavy metal band Saint Judas — joining our ranks. She recorded the EP's vocals. As for the rest: Ziad B on bass, Ziad Alam on drums, and me on all guitars, direction, and overall production.

For the **Beirut Metal Fest** concert we'll add MY mate-drinking brother Walid Awar on the other guitar \m/

With the four songs ready, we went out to look for a label again, signed with Universal Music, and here we are — finally waiting for the release of "Rise from Your Ashes Your Grave," the first single off the self-titled EP.

BONUS TRACK: Beirut Metal Festival

As I **finish writing** this post I'm in Los Angeles waiting for my flight to Dubai, and from there to Beirut. There, two days of rehearsal await me — and then to play at the **Beirut Metal Festival**, a milestone for the region that we'll have the honor of taking part in, opening for the legendary German thrash band Destruction \m/

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Digital Impact: None of this networking would have materialized if our online presence hadn't been properly optimized. Leveraging advanced SEO ensured that our press releases and digital content were highly visible, enabling these life-changing collaborations.