FEATURE: Ithaca's Front Woman Djamila Azzouz Tells Of Her Story As A Female In Metal

In a world that repeats the rhetoric of the patriarchy, it can be difficult to see another side, a world that is gripped by the hands of women and not men. But those women are quickly standing tall and in the heavy metal and hardcore communities the presence of women is ever growing. Thank fuck, I hear you praise. In that presence stands Djamila Azzouz who appears at the forefront of melodic mathcore quintet Ithaca, that flick between bassy riffs and ambient grooves in equal measures. Once on stage her screams bare resemblance to King Kong on steroids with the ability to shake any room. Once a Performing Arts Degree student, Djamila soon realised her degree wasn’t hitting the right notes and that nothing she was doing drove her passion. “I dropped out halfway through because I fucking hated it,” says Djamila, “The only bit of my time that I enjoyed was the things I did outside of uni, like pissing about in shitty punk bands.”

Moving back to London meant calling quits on the dossing and instead she turned her dreams into a reality but it wasn’t always easy at every turn. “I was quite young at the time,” she recalls, “I just turned around one day and was like that’s what I’m gonna do. This is what I wanna do and fuck it, whatever.” Whilst embracing her get up and go attitude is one that some may aspire to, it was one that Djamila turned to in a rocky stage of life with certainly nothing at stake. She says, “I was in such a shitty position in my life, I really didn’t care about anything else. I stopped giving a fuck about people’s opinions at that point.” At that stage the opinions of others were nonexistent which meant losing judgmental ‘friends’ left her unconcerned, “Those people at the end of the day aren’t people I want to associate with anyway.”

That may be a reality that’s hard to face for many but when your hearts into it it’s as easy as, “pick up a microphone and do it.” Just like Djamila did, as she found a group of like minded musicians wanting to play the same music as her. She goes on to say, “Before we started this band I didn’t know any of the guys, we met completely spontaneously.” Not everyone is lucky enough to have the same music taste as your mates but if you’re dedicated, she advises, “If you want to do it badly enough go out there and find people.” In the next breath, she makes clear that it can be an intimidating environment on stage, where the prospect of a male dominated audience may fill some women with dread. But the key to confidence and the breaking down of the ‘women in bands’ stigma, Djamila suggests that the visibility of women is of utmost importance.

Starting out, Djamila admits that she didn’t know many women who were doing the same on stage and rarely saw women on the stage when attending gigs. Making clear that it’s all about visibility she stresses, “The more women there are doing it, the more women that will want to do it and want to pursue doing it so I think the visibility factor is really important.” For the majority of women in a mostly male dominated scene such as metal, for many the womanly role model is missing, leaving young girls in without an inspiration and someone to put on their bedroom walls. In mass media, young girls look up to women literally, in every sense, by a way that drives them to achieve their goals.

Growing up and going to gigs meant minimal female inspiration for Djamila – a reality that is still true in 2016, with Download festival putting on a mighty two bands that involve women – out of 90 odd bands. She simply tells us, “When I first started doing it I didn’t really know any women in hardcore or metal bands, even going to watch bands there weren’t really any bands with women in it that I knew of, so it was kind of one of those things.” But is it just ‘one of those things’ or is it about time that we hand a microphone, guitar or drum sticks to our daughter and tell her that it’s OK to rock out? It’s simply a no brainer.

It may look like a pretty job up on the stage, but performing for an audience means that a thick skin is crucial if you are to survive both emotionally and mentally. “People used to heckle, say shitting things to me all the time.” She recalls, “there were a lot of back handed compliments as well which is shit because a lot of the time people think they’re being nice but obviously they’re not, they’re still being ignorant.” And in these technological times, there’s no escape from the online trolls she says, to which she responds, “There are always going to be shitty ignorant, dickhead metalhead trolls. Those people I don’t really give a shit about because I’m never going to meet them.”

The aggression in metal and hardcore is the emotion personified by men, but instead Djamila is at the forefront of it for the ladies. She suggests that a lack of women is due to the anxiety of showing that side of them, commenting, “I do think a lot of females are scared to show that side of them and are worried what people will think.” She carries on to reassure the ladies out there, stating, “I know so many fucking cool women doing it and they’ll all tell you the same thing.” So when talking of the pure aggression that comes from the glutteral screaming, she speculates, “It’s OK for men to show aggression but [it’s] not OK for women to show aggression,” to which she goes on to explain, “I think that in any situation men are very much threatened by women who are aggressive, who show aggression physically and emotionally - that’s not something that a lot of men like.” Forget the stereotypes dudes, because we’re exactly like you. Djamila echoes the words of women from all of the globe when she states, “Women aren’t here to please men.” But whilst it may fall on the woman to fight for their gender, it’s the men who also receive the shit end of the stick though, adding, “Men feel very much pressured to not show emotions and they’re oppressed in that way and we’re oppressed in this way.” The power struggle for women IS progressing Djamila says, stating, “we are definitely in a better position than we were but we need to do more,” and admits with a chuckle, “I just think everyone needs to get a grip really.”

But whilst the gender gap is a large part of the wider topic, Djamila takes her pride in kicking the world’s arse by screaming to her lungs content. On stage is the best way to show the world what you’re capable of and there’s no shortage of Ithaca shows for the rest of the year. “We are doing a European tour at the end of May, in mainland Europe with friends of ours in a band called Mary Fields,” where around the same time the band will record their debut album too. But it may not come soon enough. She admits, “We’re notoriously slow [at writing an album]. We’ve released two EPs now, so now is time for the album. We want to get it right but hopefully that’ll be released... we said the end of this year, maybe next year, we’ll see.” So for anyone who likes “melodic jangle crunch” full with riffs, breakdowns, lots of nice quiet ambient bits plus ear twitching time signature changes, Ithaca are your first call.

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