When I Was (Briefly) a Muslim Singer-Songwriter

Never heard before audio of the lone surviving track from our Muslim rock band.

As some of you know, I’m co-hosting a new podcast called Zealots at the Gate with the Evangelical theologian Matthew Kaemingk. (Many people are saying it’s the best Muslim-Evangelical podcast in podcast history.) Anyway, I digress. At the start of our latest episode on “Listening to Heretics,” I revealed something I've never before shared publicly. I was in a band in college. We started out as a Muslim rock band. Then we wanted to go mainstream, so we brought on a Christian guitarist named Chris. Chaos ensued.

Chris had a sense of humor, so he took to referring to us as “three Muslims and the infidel,” presumably with the infidel being him. You can hear him saying this at the start of the song, below. In a different world, I can imagine finding this offensive, but I thought it was pretty amusing. (For a more serious disquisition on why referring to Christians as “infidels” is incorrect, listen to the episode).

Believe it or not, I was the lead singer and songwriter. We started off doing Oasis covers, including a stirring rendition of “Wonderwall.” Then we moved to clever, religiously appropriate adaptations of the classics, transforming Sweet Home Alabama into Sweet Home Medina, which as you probably can imagine got rave reviews.

Without further ado, this is the lone surviving demo that we recorded. It’s an original I wrote called “The Son.” That’s me on vocals (Chris the Christian guitarist sings the bridge).

Please forgive the not-so-stellar quality. It’s probably 18 years old, and I’m sort of surprised that I still had it in the vaults. Enjoy. And let me know your thoughts in the comments. Once I can find it, I’ll be sharing the lyric sheet in a future post, so make sure to subscribe here.

“The Son” — Gobi (music and lyrics by Shadi Hamid)