SEERA - The All Female Band Changing the Fabric of Saudi’s Rock Scene

Throughout the past half-decade or so, the musical landscape in Saudi Arabia has been going through immense progressive developments, from massive musical events drawing in crowds from all over the world to local artists gaining regional and international recognition. One of the bands taking advantage of this musical evolution is Seera, the all-female Arab Psychedelic-Rock fusion band.

Seera is a four-member band based in Riyadh consisting of guitarist Haya, the masked ‘Thing’ on drums, Bassist Meesh and her sister Nora on lead vocals and keyboard.

Seera sat down with SceneNoise to spill some tea (both metaphorically and literally) on all things Seera.

Prior to Seera, each member went through their own musical path. Haya was pursuing her masters degree in London where she participated in jams and was an in-house guitarist for the event-series Wombxnity, Meesha was in a band called Night Shift who mainly did covers, Thing had been playing drums in differentbands for over a decade, and Nora would perform as a solo classical piano act.

Their story starts a year ago when Haya contacted Meesha through instagram asking her if she liked an Alton Goon album, when her answer was yes Haya invited her for a jam session where she brought her sister Nora with her and the three instantly synced. The trio later met Thing at an event in Al-Mashtal where she was ironically playing the guitar, they later reached out to her and Seera was born.

Seera recently had their debut live show on May 4th at The Warehouse in Riyadh, drawing in the largest crowd that the venue had ever seen with over 250 attendees.

“Before the concert we spent from October to May writing 13 original pieces where we combined the best thing from each member’s specific style” says Nora, “Haya loves tapping into Arabic-Psychedelia, Nora is more in touch with the Blues and Jazz side, Meesha is more Funk oriented and Thing literally blends with everything. We were nervous about showing this unique sound because it was a little different than what you’d imagine, but we’re really proud of the reactions.”

“To this day I still feel like I need people to pinch me, so I can make sure that this is actually real.” Haya added, “This has been a lifelong dream for me and I know it’s been the same for the Galdem.”

When asked about the origin of the band’s name, Haya said they had to come up with a name for a show they were playing, they rattled between names like CamelPhunk and Mankoush, seeing as all the members have curly hair, but they finally landed on Seera. “We were pretty adamant in having an Arabic name. Seera just sounded good. It means story, it means journey, and this is basically a journey of all our stories coming together at this point in time”

“And not just our stories” Nora added, “But also everyone’s stories, we’re talking about things everyone has experienced so I feel people can relate and feel like this is their story too”

When asked about the struggles they faced being a pioneering all-female rock band in Saudi Arabia, Meesha explained “Lately with how things are, it was a  bit more restrictive than before. I never imagined I would be able to do this, but now there's a lot of support. We still got hate comments when we first appeared but its fine the support overshadowed that hate “

“That confirmed that we need to do this now” Nora added, “When i saw people hating on the fact that why are women doing this that fueled me like ‘ok now I’ll show you what we're gonna do next”

“When you’re challenged, when you’re pushed, when you’re told you’re not able to do something specific, you get really motivated and inspired to do the opposite.” Thing voiced. “Yes we are an all-female band and yes that in itself is a really strong and empowering thing. The fact that we can express ourselves through the right channels in the right way has really lended us that boost of confidence to kind of just put ourselves out there and be the inspiration and really empower other females to do the same as well”

“We have a clear vision, a strong direction, we have years and years worth of drive, anything that is not supported is just noise, and we have a lot of earplugs here” adds Haya. “We want to be the role models that we needed when we were growing up, we want to create a narrative that’s empowering to women.”

Although the band still have not released any tracks publically, Seera is already building a strong regional fanbase. The band divulged that their first track will be released in July 2023 with an EP coming by the end of the year and hopefully an LP in summer 2024.

When asked about their musical influences all hell broke loose, with a smorgasbord of artist names being flung left and right by the members including Opeth, Tool, Ilham Al-Madfai, The Black Keys, Cairokee, El-Morabba3, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Talal Maddah and Queens of the Stone Age to name a few. Their influences are wide-spread across the musical spectrum and the use of English, Fus-ha and Colloquial Arabic lyrics speaks volumes to Seera’s multi-faceted sounds.

The band told us that they’re playing the Syrup Lounge on the 11th of August. They also have plans to perform with Saudi Rock bands Sound of Ruby and The Trip Loon band around fall, and hope to play in Riyadh Season in the winter.

“It feels really special anytime anyone appreciates the music and shows any type of support, hopefully we keep on impressing you” said Meesha

To stay up to date with all things Seera, visit their instagram page by clicking here.