Big Egoz?

A four-piece rock / New-Wave band, the Egoz ironically have rather small egos. These lovely Egyptian lads  (lead vocalist Hany Mustafa, Mustafa Farid (guitars) Karim Safwat (drums), Marwan Menawy (guitars) and Mohamed Hani (bass)) started jamming together just over six years ago. They've since become one of the most popular live acts on the CairoScene. Their original tracks are laced with referenes to their personal journies, and their covers are always toe-tapping pitch-perfect choices with creative twists. So we were delighted when this week they strapped their guitars onto their backs and mosyed on down for a sginature scene interview... 

You guys seem pretty young to have been playing together for nearly a decade. Did you start jamming when you were two years-old? 

Hany: Karim and I have known each other since we were seven years-old and we've always just loved music. My grandfather was a violinist so I grew up in a family that loves music. Everything I learned from my family about different types of music I'd excitedly share with him. At some point along the way I kind of just picked up the guitar and also stared tinkling on the keyboards while Karim found himself gravitating towards the drums. So one day we were like, okay, let's start a band! We found Mustafa, he's a guitarist and he's particularly more slightly guitar influenced. me and him are going from rock, to new wave to progressive, so we kind of blended in kind of The Smiths type of deal and i don’t know, we had a concert one day.

OK, so today, who has the biggest Ego? 

Karim: Hany. Wait shit no I take that back! I do.

And how big is your... Stick?

Karim: I play with a 90mm stick. I play with it all the time.

Very nice. Now much as we'd like to continue asking questions with cliche and unfunny innuendos, Cairo Jazz Club force us to also ask bands serious music questions, not that we're corporate slaves that would sell our souls for our clients. So, tell us about your upcoming album...

Kareem: Our identity has always been more concerned with sound rather than genre, it's more of sound and style. We’ve been influenced by a lot of people. People like Genesis and Crimson influence us. Putting this together wasn't an easy thing for us, we wanted to take out time, make sure we got it right.