Well Barbod, we can tell that you are one special student! Why don’t you talk about your personal and academic background, so we can get to know you a little better?
Hello my name is Barbod but most of my friends call me Bob just to make it easy for everyone. I have been living in Dubai for the past fourteen years and then I moved here to Spain. I am a huge metal head, I spend all the time that I am not studying with my guitar, playing music, and the rest of the free time I like to spend it reading books and comics or gaming.
I guess when I got into music I was around six years old and my dad went out to a Virgin Megastore and he heard Dream Theater 2013 album – one of my favourite bands right now – he put it in the car and played it… and that just changed my life: from there I knew that I wanted to become a musician.
Why did you choose to study Dentistry?
At the same time I knew I wanted to be a musician, I also wanted to have a respectable medical professional job, and I found the closest one that I could compare with art would be Dentistry with all that sculptural-like mannerisms that would make it possible for me to have a stable living. That’s why I always wanted to be a successful dentist, and I am on my way there!
How did you discover our University?
I think it is because it is one of the Premier Dentist School that I could go in Europe, and at the same time I always really loved to come to Spain, because I knew it had such a great musical heritage, and I loved a lot of Spanish music, so I really wanted to be in Spain. When I was younger one of my heroes was Paco de Lucía and all those guys that played flamenco, and the mix of one of the best schools in Europe and the cultural Spanish tradition of music made me choose this University.
You talked a little bit at the beginning about that moment when you discovered music, why don’t you tell us more about that?
Personally I was around nine years old when my dad bought me my first guitar but I didn’t start playing right away. I always loved listening to music, but I started with the piano when I was six years old, and I got tired of it because of the rigid way that I had to learn so when I was twelve, after I had being listening to people like Gary Moore, I decided that I wanted to be that, so I got really into it.
By the time I was thirteen I knew how to play every single Metallica song from beginning to end and started to move on and I started recording, got to play with a lot of local bands where I used to live in Dubai. Right now I am more focused on soul stuff because I learnt a lot about recording from my favorite bands.
Did you meet any of these bands personally?
Yes! Very recently I met this band and sent them some of my music and they told me that they liked it, so they wanted me to send more things so that’s why I am now recording. My dad is a musician who has worked for a lot of bands and has shown me a lot of things, as well as my second cousin who has actually worked with my favorite band Dream Theater. He studied in Boston and he orchestrated their 2005 album, and I am going to make some music with him shortly, so I guess right now I am focused on moving on and becoming someone in the music industry.
I heard that you have a huge studio at home here in Moncada, is this true?
It sure is, yes! Pretty much all the spare time I have I spend it recording and writing in my house. I got lucky here and I ended up with a three-bathroom apartment that I have on my own, and I brought all that material that I bought over the years, which included my recording interface, my new laptop, my two guitars, my base, my microphone and my drum set. I turned the third extra room that I have into a studio and set up all these devices, so yes I spend pretty much 99% of the time that I am at home writing and recording.
Last question, this is your first year here in Valencia, did you have fun in Fallas?
Fallas was a very welcoming experience, because I got to meet a lot of people in the streets from different parts of Spain, and the statues and “La Cremà” and all of that are some of the most incredible and interesting visual things that I have seen in my life, specially all the fireworks and everything. It was such a new experience and I had a lot of fun knowing new people and hang out with them, and there were a lot of English speakers around the city, so yes Fallas was great!