UTN1 began in Baghdad in the winter of 1999.
Two Iraqi-Armenian friends, Shant Garabedian and Art Haroutiounian, decided to form a band while they were still doing their military service. They found singers through an advertisement on Voice of Youth FM: Hassan Ali Al-Falluji joined at the end of 1999, Nadeem Hamid soon after, and the line-up changed over those early years.
They rehearsed wherever they could, even in a Volkswagen Passat. The radio agreed to play their love songs on one condition: that they also write a song for the president's birthday. In 2002 their first album, From Now On, came out on cassette, backed by Alan Enwia, who ran a music shop in Baghdad. In March 2003, two weeks before the war, a British newspaper came to interview them; by the end of that year their story had travelled around the world.
Most sources give the winter of 1999 as the start; the band's own recent posts count the years from 2000.
Moments
- Winter 1999
Shant and Art start the band in Baghdad
- Late 1999
Hassan answers the radio advertisement and joins
- 2002
From Now On, the first album, on cassette (Alan Records)
Listen on YouTube Interview in The Sunday Telegraph, two weeks before the war
- Apr–Dec 2003
CNN, Reuters, Variety and The Observer tell their story; invitations come from Britain, but the visas stall
