SoundGym Hero: Amir Hossein Nabavi

Music Producer, Mixer, Educator, and Independent Artist, Currently from Shiraz, Iran. Amir Hossein Nabavi aka “Aviii” is this month's SoundGym Hero! 

Who are you, and Where are you from?

I’m Amir Hossein Nabavi aka “Aviii”, 31 years old artist born and living in Shiraz, Iran. As an independent artist, I do everything by myself from songwriting, singing, playing guitar and bass, producing, recording, mixing, mastering, band leading, managing, accounting, and also Teaching. We’d better call it “One Man Army” with a limited time to waste and a lot to learn.

How did you get into music?

I remember when I was 5, my uncle bought me a mini keyboard for my birthday and I started to mess with it and dance to Michael Jackson’s “BAD” music video, that was where my story has begun. Since then, music has always been in my life, not making music but playing music, especially guitar as my main instrument. I was a demanding session player when I was a teenager and it led me to a whole new world of music production and studio stuff.

When I got graduated from University as an Electrical Engineer, I decided to combine my musical passion and science, so I made my professional home studio in my 20s and started learning Music Production & Sound Engineering from scratch.

What do you like to do for fun outside of working on music?

LGBC is my main fun part. I know it sounds weird, but let me explain.

Learning: I do love Learning anything that can make me a better person for myself and the world. Self-improvement and psychology books and podcasts are my favorite shelters when I’m not in the mood of playing or listening to music.

Gym: Gym & Running are my next fun part of life, I’ve found it out in the pandemic days that when we don’t move our body, our mind will shut down and there will be no creativity, so depression knocks at the door.

Board Games: As a musician I’ve always challenged myself to be creative, thus playing board games has always been a fantastic way to make me focus and be creative to solve problems, and also challenge others to be involved in the game and lead the fun part of the gatherings.

Coffee: Last but not least is Coffee, I know that as a singer it is banned for me but I don’t care how it can damage my voice as long as it makes my day happier. Besides, I love to make coffee for my loved ones to share my great feelings about it.

What's your most useless skill or talent?

What a weird question…Ummm…I can’t say that any skill or talent can be useless, it depends on how we direct that. So let me say … I think PERFECTIONISM is my most annoying talent (“disease” to be exact) because it led me to be so critical sometimes and underestimate myself and others in many ways.

You can tell, that wasting time on extreme details of every single thing in life that no one cares about, and it can make life so hard sometimes because it takes us out of the productive zone. I believe this is the most common issue with Artists and no one can get rid of it completely.

What inspires you to keep making music?

LIFE. Yes, Life is my main inspiration. Life to me is an ongoing movie and every day has its challenges and events that can impact your emotions, whether upwards or downwards, it should be expressed.

I believe a movie without music, is going to be a movie that no one ever loves to watch and remember, so when I am the Writer and Director and also the Main Character of this movie, why shouldn’t I make it much more interesting for me and those who are watching it? Artists are born to express their feelings through their art, and for me, that’s all about telling my own stories to the world. 

If you could sit down to a session with any artist, who would it be?

It’s a tough decision choosing just one Star in a sky full of Stars. But I’d love to sit with my birthday twin, 32 years apart, Michael Jackson. Besides his fabulous talent in music and dancing, he did have so many precious messages in his art, stories about humans, earth, politics, life, soul, dark sides, hope, love, etc. 

He did his job as an artist so perfectly that no one has ever reached that level of perfection. He won the hearts and minds of everyone from the youngest to the oldest, regardless of where they lived, what language they speak, and what culture they had, I believe that he truly is the best messenger of Music so far. I couldn’t find anyone that hasn’t heard his songs and can ignore the passion and feelings that his songs transmit.

That is why I’m eager to sit with him and put the pieces of the puzzle together to know him better, find deeper data that led him to be that influential, and use it in my life path. Wish we could have his sunlight on these dark days. RIP.MJ.

Any habits you have before starting a session?

On my musical side, for playing and singing, I do some stretches and dedicate a warmup time to wake up my body, and then start doing the main thing. On my studio side, first things first, I need a huge mug of coffee that can last through the whole session after that, I need to calibrate my ears, with no doubt, nothing can be better than SoundGym daily games, and finally, I listen to some genre-related songs to my current project, and then everything starts.

If you could pick one, what would be the theme song of your life?

Definitely, “The Show Must Go On” by my HERO “Queen”.  I loved this song since I was a child, even though I couldn’t even understand how deep the lyrics were, and couldn’t even guess what life could have for me in the future, but as I grew up I fell in love more and more with this song, because it’s just telling my whole life story, the ups and downs, my inner speeches to myself, and all of my thoughts on never giving up in hard times, in a 4-minute glorious song, perfectly performed by the legends of Classic Rock.

What is your favorite piece of music gear you own?

Undoubtedly, the most favorite and the most precious one for me is my EARS as if you could count it as a Gear. Because I believe that music is all about the Ear, not the Gear. The only Irreplicable gear in the world.

What is your favorite SoundGym feature? 

Firstly, what a great title for the website, Sound GYM. I love the gym. Anyone that has ever joined a gym and is committed to it, can understand what it means to grow in a long run, consistently working out to see the results in long term.

I loved the whole concept of replacing the Studio-Mentor with Technical Games. Especially when we don’t have any mentors around, what can be better than a social platform that can teach us the technical side of the music with fun games and prizes. I developed my ears in many ways here and I’m really satisfied with the time and energy I’ve invested in SoundGym, and I will be an active member as far as I’ll be in the music industry. 

What does the future hold for Amir Hossein Nabavi? 

Aviii, as an artist has got a purpose for being in this world, and that is living to the fullest, learning different aspects of life and knowing himself better, pushing through the obstacles, and helping other people who are on the same path to evolve.

I am currently working on my albums that’ll be released soon, and hope that I can make a difference in my own country’s music and culture, because we’ve got a diverse set of obstacles and uncommon issues in our artistic life here, compared to other artists in the world.

The most important one is the absence of Copyrights in Iran which can be the worst enemy of any art business, moreover, we as artists in Iran cannot say and cannot do and perform whatever we’d like to, and for playing a show or releasing a song, we’ve got to go through a lot of weird processes of government licensing to censor our art to the way that they like, and most of it won’t make it through, and a lot of artists and talents are not allowed to work here, especially women and girls, that are not allowed to sing and perform any kind of music officially, therefore most of our talents and artists have been buried in this system and couldn’t send their voices to the world.

I hope that I can make it, breaking the rules and leading the change, being the voice of the voiceless.

 

You can follow Amir Hossein Nabavi on his Website, Instagram, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube.

---