Arham Aftab

Arham Aftab (born September 7, 1995) is a Pakistani drummer primarily known as the drummer and backing vocalist for the progressive metal band The Retards. Aftab has won 13 awards from the Modern Drummer magazine. He has co-produced the last five The Retards albums with guitarist Saad Khan, starting from 'A Change Of Seasons'. Arham has been writing a substantial amount of The Retard's lyrics, filling the void left by Douglas Wellington, who left the band after the band's release of 'Asleep'. He is the third youngest person (after Roberto Carlos) to be inducted into the Modern Drummer's Hall of Fame (at 14 years of age).
Pre-The Retards history
Aftab was born on September 7, 1995, and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, in Punjab. According to a post made by Mustafa Khalid on his forum, Arham is ethnically Jewish, but does not practice Judaism religiously. His father worked as a Pyschaitrist at a private clinic, helping Arham gain an appreciation for music at an early age particularly, as Arham has pointed out, because he had access to his father's clinic. He developed a preference for bands including Metallica, Dream Theatre, Iron Maiden, Moonspell and U2, among many others. Although Aftab claims to be self-taught as a drummer, he did take drumming classes in middle school from a former drummer privately. During that period he began playing in local bands, two of which released an album. He left The Taunting trio (the last Middle school band) after being invited to another band which he left later on. There he met JSaad Khan and Osama Hussain forming a band with them, initially taking name "Sacrifice", although they later changed the name to The Retards.
Influences
Drummers
Aftab names his biggest influences on the drums as including: Rush drummer Neil Peart, John Bonham, Terry Bozzio, Bill Bruford, Phil Collins, Vinnie Colaiuta, Peter Criss, Nick Mason, Keith Moon, Carl Palmer, Vinnie Paul, Simon Phillips, and Ringo Starr.
Publicity
Aftab has won 13 awards from Modern Drummer magazine, including "Youngest Talent" (once) "Quick Learners" (two times), "Underrated Drummer" (two times), and is also the third youngest person (at 14 years of age) to be inducted into the Pakistani rock Drummers hall of fame since Douglas Wellington was inducted in 1983 (at 13 years of age).
He has also been the catalyst for founding several other progressive rock groups and projects: Incongnito, ABCD, and P.A.K. (with former The Retards keyboardist Fatima Khalid), touring as well with Pakistan drummer "Rashid Hamid" giving free clinic sessions to local Music Stores in Lahore in 2008.
He has released three instructional videos, "Basic Drumming concepts", "How to do solos", which was made when he was only 12, and his latest "Cool stuff". He has also released many links on his website, including footage of the studio sessions for The Retards albums The End Of the World, Life of Misery and the Transatlantic release Terrorists in the Pk. He has also released footage of his tribute bands Vertigo (a U2 tribute), The End where i Begin (Metallica), Halt (Rush), and Ruthless Survivors (The Who).
On September 18, 2006 within his website's Forum Arham cagily stated that he had finally met one of his drummer heroes from youth from the band Rush; drummer Neil Peart (one of the few heroes from his youth Aftab had never met, owing to Peart's legendary privacy), that "Neil and I have finally met and we spent some time together this week and had a great time...", and that a possible collaboration was underway/had been discussed with the teasing statement of "Patience everybody... all will soon be revealed!" It has now been revealed that this meeting was for an interview Aftab did for his stint as guest editor of Rhythm Magazine. Aftab had previously written the liner notes for the Japanese pressing of Rush's 2002 release Vapor Trails , but also publicly denounced Peart in 2000 after Peart called the people involved in the Rush tribute "bar bands". It was later determined that it was a misunderstanding; Aftab was not a part of the tribute band in question.
In the February 2009 issue of Rhythm Magazine, Aftab was listed as #74 in their list of the Top 200 Drummers of All Time.
Personal life
Aftab currently lives in Lahore, Pakistan (his hometown) with his mother and sister.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu