Keep up with Umar here:

 

http://www.myspace.com/thebinarycodenj

 

 

 

 

My name is Umar Fahim, I am the drummer for The Binary Code, based out of NJ, USA

 

I was born in Pakistan and came to the USA when I was one year old.  A lot of my childhood is a blur, from moving around. The first time I heard metal was age 10.  My cousin was in a hardcore/metalcore band called Motive.  They were on a label and opening for sick bands.  I would read their lyrics and listen to the songs, completely confused by the abrasiveness and rebelliousness of it all.

 

Some of the first bands I heard were Slayer, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Dissection…

 

I didn't like death metal at all when I first heard it.   The lightning fast blast beats seemed so annoying, the vocals styles boring, and the guitar and bass riffs incomprehensible.  My passion for this atrocity would come about way later.

 

I was somehow more attracted to what I felt was "extreme" and "musical," which was Black Metal and Grindcore. Some of the first bands and recordings that I really enjoyed were Immortal's Battles In the North, Darkthrone's Rex, the first Emperor EP, the Blackened Complilations, Regurgitate's Carnivorous Erection, Machetazo's Carne de Cementerio, and Cripple Bastards' Your Lies In Check.

 

I remember purchasing my first CD ever – Enemy of the Music Business, by Napalm Death – when it first came out.  Because I started listening to this noise at a time when this style of music was nowhere near as commercial as it is today, I was often outcasted.  When I was in sixth grade, suddenly kids started labeling me as the Satanic kid.  I didn't care.  It pushed me further and further to spend countless hours searching out bands that I enjoyed.  I soon sought out all the lunatic genres… Powerviolence, Crust, Funeral Doom, Fastcore, Cyber Grind, Thrash, Sludge.

 

Years later… I met Jesse Zuretti in January 2007 at a Guitar Center.  I went into one of the cymbal rooms and was doing some one footed blasts on a kit.  He heard me and he asked me to join The Binary Code which had completely disbanded at the time.  We soon got a full band and ever since then we've been jamming and writing songs.  The 2008 demo, the first recording with new lineup, came out wicked techy and catchy.

 

Along the way, it's been unreal — recording an album, an EP, playing out, hanging out at radio stations, doing interviews, touring, and meeting awesome metalheads and some of my favorite musicians along the way.  Learning things from a musician's perspective has made me learn a lot about sound, math, spatial reasoning, and death.  Jamming with an awesome guitarist like Jesse has expanded my mind way more on the methods of creating rhythms and playing melodically.  Playing basement shows, VFWs, basketball gyms, cafes, fire stations, and actual stages, heh, has made me realize what it means to be in an underground band, and what metal is really about.

 

Regardless… even to this today I consider myself more of a fan of this music than a player and I think it will always be that way.

 

 

SDM: How old were you when you started playing?

 

Umar: I started in the school bands playing triangles and tambourines at age 8.  I got my first guitar, an Epiphone Demon, for my birthday when I was 14 and immediately tried learning Kreator and Immortal covers.  I didn't get my first drum set, a Yamaha Stage Custom, until I was 16.

 

 

SDM: Did you play in a school band or any drum corps?

 

Umar: In the marching band I played quads (or tenor drums) for 1 year in 8th grade, then I moved to another town and played snare drum for 4 years.  I played in jazz band for a second but our school sucked so they cancelled the jazz band.  I soon got an opportunity to play with some kids who were in an intense program in Newark called Jazz For Teens.  We started a group called the Wild Noodles and played jazz standards at some restaurants for pretty good dough.

 

 

SDM: Who are your top 5 metal influences?

 

Umar: Extol, Converge, Mors Principium Est, Discordance Axis, Martyr

 

 

SDM: Who are some other of your favorites?

 

Umar: Sergei Rachmaninoff, Wayne Shorter, Riistetyt, Amon Tobin, Kuzo Koshiro, Jespyer Kyd, Autolux… the list goes on and on.

 

 

SDM: Let us know 5 CD's that are in your current rotation

 

Umar:

 

Forbidden Tomb – Springtime Depression

Drew Gress – The Irrational Numbers

Unearthly Trance – Season of Seance, Science of Silence

Cryptopsy – And Then You'll Beg

East of the Wall – Ressentiment

 

 

 

 

SDM: What do you do to warm up before a show?

 

Umar:  I like being by myself, adjusting my kit accordingly to the venue, thinking about what sounds I can get out of the place, what frequencies will resonate, which will die.  When I'm done with that I warm up my hands, and feet especially, as much as I can, 30 – 45 minutes is nice. I like doing L hand + L foot 7 strokes,  R hand + R foot 7 strokes; as well as alternating hand and foot with other odd numbered strokes such as 5, and 3.  If there is good lighting in the venue, and depending on the time, I like to read about time travel. One of my favorites is The Philosophy of Time by Le Poidevin & MacBeath.  I'm a loser.

 

 

SDM: Do you read music? Regardless of answering yes or no, please tell us how it might have effected your playing?

 

Umar:  I love reading music, I always did since I started playing, but the big change came when I started writing in musical notation.  I once emailed Jesper Frost Jensen of Iniquity, one of my favorite drummers, whose parts I could listen to on repeat for many days, and asked him how in the world he could get his drum parts to sound so rich and complex and how he practiced.  Well, he practiced about 8 hours a day!  But besides that, he would write out all his drum parts on sheet music, and evaluate and revise accordingly.  At first I was very intimidated by the amount of work this must have taken, but eventually I found the courage somewhere in my dark soul to follow the footsteps of one of my heroes.  Since then I feel like I have developed a better understanding of correlating what is fun to play to

what sounds good from a listener's perspective, and also fitting drum parts to what the rest of the band is doing.

 

 

SDM: Can you tell us about the gear you use?

 

Umar:

 

Mounted Toms – Yamaha Oak Custom 10"x8", "12×9"

Floor toms – Yamaha Oak Custom "14×14", "16×16" (left side).

Kick – Yamaha Oak Custom 22×17"

Snare – Gretsch 14"x6''

Cymbals: 14" Sabian Neil Peart hats, AAXplosion + Fusion Hat bottom

hats, 14" Evolution + 10" Ozone Splash Stack, 18'' XS China, 18''

Evolution Crash, 19'' AAXplosion crash, 21'' HHX Groove Ride, 10'' AAX

Splash, 8'' Paiste prototype splash

 

 

SDM: If you could give one piece of advice to young drummers, it would be…

 

Umar:  If you're playing metal, sometimes the most success you might get is someone saying… "Dude you're wearing a Psycroptic hoodie? I didn't know any one else in the world listened to Psycroptic."   And then that kid stands in the front (with 10 more people scattered in the back) to watch you play a show that didn't exactly go according to plan, but still that kid takes something you did and uses it in his own way on his kit at home.  No matter how underground or commercial your band is, you're putting out something that somebody might take flight from where you left off.  Put in your best effort and you might be legendary to someone.

 

 

SDM: Who gave the best live performance you've ever seen?

 

Umar:

 

3. Ornette Coleman – at the NJPAC.  Free Jazz they call, I don't exactly know what went down. But it definately launched me to another planet.  He had two bass players, one with a bow, one using  fingers, which gave it the show a super dark sound.

 

2. Mouth Of The Architect – at The Knitting Factory (when it was in Manhattan.) On tour w/ Wetnurse, Intronaut, and Behold! The Arctopus.  Talk about being scientists with your equalizations, being deafening loud, sludgy as all hell, but sounding serene to these ears.

 

1. Vomitory –  at Maryland Deathfest 2006.  Holy smokes.  I'd never seen a band bring such an atmosphere, I'd swear it was 1994 and I was in a icy swamp in Sweden where someone was about to die from a D-beat stabbing.

 

 

SDM: Aside from drumming, what else do you like to do?

 

Umar:  I like to cook, play ice hockey when I can.  I'm a college student.  I enjoy simple things like breathing.

 

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