Biography
Biography of the Band
It all began in January 2007 when”Erfan Rezayatbakhsh” (A.K.A. elf—vocalist, songwriter and composer of the band—) started a new path in his music career by singing in English instead of Persian. On January of 2007, he formed a band with the name of “Persian Rovers” with 2 of his friends “Samyar Mahmoudi” and “Miad Hataminia”. At that time they recorded 6 songs of 1970s by famous bands and singers such as “Don’t Play Your Rock’n'roll to Me” by “Smokie”, “Imagine” by “John Lenon”, “Mambo Italiano” by “Dean Martin”, “Hungry Eyes” by “Merle Haggard”, “16 Tons” by “Tennessee Ernnie Ford”, and “Dellilah” by “Tom Jones”.
Covering old songs went on untill March of 2007 when Erfan joined the army for his military conscription. After his training period, he continued the music career with the Persian Rovers but this time, they decided to work on the songs which had been written by Erfan instead of covering old songs.
Things were changed when Miad Hataminia left the band in that summer because of some problems he had with the band. He also could not take place in practice sessions since he was working on his own album “Gham Baad”. Having no place to record the songs—since Miad owned the studio they recorded their “cover” album in—Erfan spoke to one of the friends he had come to know in university “Majid Sadeghi” (A.K.A. Dijam). Dijam was active in the field of music during his university studies by writing Persian lyrics but he expanded his activities by starting to play bass guitar a year after his graduation from university in 2005. He also had played bass guitar in some rock bands. Dijam became one of the “Persian Rovers” as the bass player but due to his persistence and enthusiasm he became a main member of the band.
They started to work on their first song named “Tonight” (music and lyrics by Erfan) with cooperation of some of their friends. “Persian Rovers” experienced another separation when Samyar left the band after finishing the arrangement of “Tonight”. Since Erfan was the only one left from the “Persian Rovers”, they decided to change the name of the band to “Dream Rovers”. This happened before they recorded their first song “February Snow” (music by Erfan, lyrics by Shel Silverstein) on February 2008. The band continued arranging songs since then such as “Stutter” ( lyrics and music by Erfan), “Too many nights alone” (music by Erfan, lyrics by Shel Silverstein), and “Gonna be” ( lyrics and music by Erfan).
Dijam was supposed to play bass guitar in a rock band where he got acquainted with “Ahmad Motevasel” who played electric guitar. This happened at the same time as the Dream Rovers decided to work on their new song “Cloudy Sky” (music by Erfan, lyrics by Erfan and Shel Silverstein)in January 2010. The Rovers that were suffering from lack of a good guitar player decided to talk to Ahmad for his cooperation. Therefore, Ahmad—who had taught himself how to play electric guitar—joined the band. Besides, after taking some advice from the great Iranian music producer “Orod Anzabipour” (featuring kahat Mayan metal music band) they decided to find a piano player for the song “Cloudy Sky”. Erfan, therefore, spoke to one of his friends who had experience in playing keyboard and piano for more than 16 years by the time he was only 19. This was the beginning of “Parham Doustdar”‘s cooperation with the band. He had participated in many live performances as a piano player before.
In August of 2010, Dijam left the country to continue his education for getting the masters degree in Sweden. Because of that, he had no choice but to leave the band. This incontrovertibly was a hard moment for the band members, since Dijam was a very active and enthusiastic member who tried his best to put the plans on the track in the best way.
Dijam announced his separation with these sentences on the band’s facebook page:
OK, I’m done with Dream Rovers band and I
hope in the future they could work better and better and show more how
they are talented. This is the end of my journey with this band and I’m
so glad that I did my best with all the problems and hard times which we
have had. Music is a big part of my life and I won’t give up in this field.
Owing to the fact that, after the collapse of “Persian Rovers”, ” Dijam” was the only one who supported him to start again, Erfan expressed his feelings about his departure as follows:
Unfortunately Dream Rovers is facing another separation since our good friend Dijam is leaving the band. He is going to sweden to pursue his masters. This is really hard for me because he backed me up through all the hardships that we faced during these 3 years. Hereby, I would like to thank him for all his support and wish him luck in all aspects of his life.
In April 2011, Majid requested to rejoin the band. This request was accepted by Erfan and welcomed by other members. Although he is still in Sweden, technology has made it easy for him to cooperate remotely with the Dream Rovers. Now, rather than writing bass lines of the songs, Dijam works in advertising and foreign communications.
And now, “Dream Rovers” is one of the rare country music bands outside the boarders of the United States of America, while also producing songs in other styles such as rock, blues and pop.
members’ Biographies in Alphabetical Order
Ahmad
In contrast with many people who learn acoustic guitar first, he preferred to learn electric guitar when he was 17. Years before, rock & metal music had attracted him. Listening to Heavy Metal and hard rock songs drived him very crazy. After buying a guitar he started to teach himself. Hours of hard practice improved his techniques. He tried to cover many songs from different genres of rock. He was influenced the most by bands such as Metallica, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Joe Satriani, and Megadeth. Although some of them were very hard, he did not give up and kept trying. After years of listening to many songs, he also became interested in Blues, Jazz and Country, and because he always wanted to experience new aspects of music, He started to learn how to play these genres too. During these practices sometimes he jammed with some of his friends but one of his real jamming was with Dijam. And these sessions with Dijam led him to join Dream Rovers.
Erfan(elf)
He was born in a house in which all the members were active in music somehow, while his taste of music was completely different. While his siblings and parents enjoyed Iranian songs; he was so keen on western music. Although he enjoyed listening to his family singing and playing different songs by Iranian great musicians and singers, he never joined them.
This went on, until he left his hometown to go to university. Spending his solitude with country music and songs by some legends such as Tom T Hall, Hank Williams, Son of the Pioneers, Jim Reeves, Wilburn Brothers, Merle Haggard, and many others, made him interested in Country music. He decided to work seriously in music by forming a music band. During five years he formed three music bands and recorded some songs too. In those times he used to write songs with Persian lyrics of his sister’s, but his interest in western music was so strong that he wrote English lyrics simultaneously. He started to learn voice techniques and voice practices by himself at home using the tapes of the old Opera singer “Hamid Panahi”. These tapes helped him to learn how to control his voice and sing without hurting it. When he returned to Tehran he took singing classes by the great teacher “Dr.Mehdi Niknam”. After forming the band Persian Rovers, he decided not to sing in Persian any more for he found English as the language of Country music. Besides, he felt that when he sang in English he could express the feeling of the lyric and song much better in comparison to his first language.
Parham
Parham was born with a torn (and later on mended) diaphragm, and a condition known as LCA that made him blind. After three years, his father realized his talents in music and searched for a teacher to teach him how to play the keyboard. After all the teachers refused, he finally told a teacher he had found to teach his brothers, since he had an unanswered question: “how can someone who’s blind play music?”
His question was answered in the very first session of the private classes he held with Parham’s brothers; Parham listened to the songs that were recorded, and played them by ear in that same session.
After years of playing the keyboard on and off, he started to learn how to play the piano when he was eight. His progress in playing the piano started then, with the aid of his blind piano teacher, Mr. Laka.
Amongst his achievements are:
- Best performer and creator of soundtracks for school performances in Tehran (nine years old)
- Best handicapped pianist in Iran (eleven years old)
- Two weeks of live performances in the Vahdat hall after becoming the best pianist (eleven years old)
- Four days of live performance in the same hall, for the purpose of gathering money for the blind children of Azerbaijan (twelve years old)
After these achievements, he was drawn away from the world of music, until the day, four years later, that he met Haniyeh Rezayatbakhsh (Erfan’s elder sister). This led him to be introduced to Erfan, and about three years later at the age of nineteen, he joined Dream Rovers, starting his musical career once again.
Majid(Dijam)
He started his musical activities with writing poems when he was 16. When he went to university, he met a boy that changed his life. Mehdy Deylami was that boy. He played guitar and had a good voice for singing. He suggested Majid to write some lyrics for him. From that day, he left the poem and focused on music and lyrics.
After graduation, he met Javad Sharif Pour, one of the best Persian lyricists, and he helped Majid to improve his talent in writing lyrics to the professional level.In 2005, Shahdmehr Aghili, one of the most famous Iranian pop singers and songwriters, became interested in some of Majid’s lyrics and accepted some of his best lyrics. Shadmehr wrote some songs on those lyrics and some other singers sang them.
During those years, Majid felt that lyrics is a small part of this industry and he needed to do more. He started to play bass guitar to learn more about both music and music production. His teacher was Ardavan Anzabipour, one of the greatest Iranian bass players and a former member of Kahtmayan (An Iranian metal band).
During the first year of his education, he met Erfan whom he had not met since graduating from university. until that day, Majid had not thought about their relationship and what would happen in the future at all. After one year, Erfan asked Majid to join him to form a country music band. Majid’s actual taste of music was Rock or somehow metal, but he loved music more than any style. So he accepted the invitation and during the next 2 years, he became a main member alongside Erfan and helped and supported the band in all the bad situations, even when all the members left the band, he and Erfan did not give up.
After 2 years, Majid applied for masters of software engineering in University of Gothenburg in, and since he didn’t know what would happen, he preferred to quit the band for an unknown duration of time. He is now living in Sweden and still cooperates with “Dream Rovers” by writing the bass tracks and making some connections outside Iran.