It was the wintertime of 1998 when Ali Pahlavan met Payam Salehi for the first time. Both of them were undergoing Military Service in the garrison. During this period, they came to know more about each other’s interest. Both of them wrote songs & lyrics, played guitar and sang songs.


It was also the time when they saw the start of Iranian Pop Music in Iran after Islamic Revolution. They thought what could be a better time than this and decided to have activities in this line but in a new style.

To institutionalize this form of music, they had founded a pop music band with the name “ARIAN BAND”. This band was the first of its kind in the country after the Islamic Revolution.

To start with, the band comprised of Iranian style Violin, Guitars, Two lead vocalists with two different tones and girls as back vocals. Besides, the lyrics composed were of special context with simple words designed to attract a wider spectrum of the society.

On this basis, the band started functioning with this combination: ALI PAHLAVAN (Lead Singer and Guitarist), PAYAM SALEHI (Lead Singer, Guitarist), SIAMAK KHAHANI (Violinist), MOHAMMADREZA GOLZAR (Guitarist), BORZOUYEH BADIHI (Percussion Player), SHARAREH FARNEJAD (Guitarist, Back Vocalist), SANAZ KASHMARI (Back Vocalist) and SAHAR KASHMARI (Back Vocalist).


In the beginning, it was decided that SHAHROUZ FARNEJAD (Sharareh’s Brother) would cooperate with them as a keyboard player but due to his pre-occupation,

NINEF AMIRKHAS (Assyrian Keyboard Player) was introduced by SIAMAK to replace him and the band started its practices with him. Due to lack of Drummer and Bassist in the band, they had to use the sequenced Rhythm on keyboard.

To develop performance capabilities, the band kept on practicing for a long time in this manner and decided to get official permits from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in order to stage a live performance.

After a while, the group got the authorization of the lyrics only but failed in getting the permission from the music council of the ministry.


In the mean time, with the help of his friends, Payam Salehi succeeded in arranging a concert in shopping festival of Qeshm Island (free zone) which takes place every year and for which permission of the central office is not required.

Finally, on 22 Nov. 1999, the band appeared and performed on the stage without any financial reward. The performance was so successful that those in charge of running the music of shopping festival after several days invited us to perform again, but this time, of course, with payment.

During this period, AMIR HOSSEIN MOSTEAD joined them as a Bass Guitarist.

The performance film was received by some Music Producers and one day two persons from Taraneh Sharghee Company came to the place where they practiced (the basement of Payam Salehi’s house) to watch their live performance. They were MOHSEN RAJABPOUR (Managing Director of Taraneh Sharghee and who is now the Manager of ARIAN BAND) and MOHAMMADREZA AHMADIAN (his ex-partner who is a musician).

After negotiations, a contract was finalized to prepare albums and concert performances.

By this time, ARIAN BAND with management of Taraneh Sharghee Company could pass the test of the Music Council of the Ministry and on April 1st, 2000 appeared at a stage in TEHRAN.

The recording of the first album of the band was completed and on Sep 10th, 2000 the album with the name “Sun Flower” was released.

For the first time, a poster of a mixed music band covered the walls of all Iranian music shops and the songs of this album were heard from every corner.

Arian opened up the market due to the courage and its new outlook and rapidly won top chart of pop music in Iran.

After ALIREZA TABATABAEI joined the band as Drummer, a drastic enhancement was made in live performance of the band.

The popularity of ARIAN with the second album, which was released in January 2002, was doubled and then ARIAN BAND performed more than 250 concerts in different cities of Iran namely Tehran, Kish, Qeshm, Bandarabbas, Qazvin, Salmanshahr, Kerman, Esfahan, Yazd and Rasht.

The range of success of the band crossed the borders of Iran. By this time Mohammadreza Ahmadian left Taraneh Sharghee Company and Mohammadreza Golzar who was so popular because of his features made an entry into the Cinema World and his activities in the band got reduced.

ARIAN performed it’s first overseas concert in Manama (Bahrain) and with its thereof success, performed a very successful Concert in Dubai (U.A.E).

After this event, Mohammadreza Golzar officially left the band in order to continue his activities in Cinema industry.

Following the success of the concerts in Tehran, Kish, London, Koln, Munich, Hamburg and particularly the Charity concert which took place in Berlin on the following day of the Bam Earthquake made the band as a subject of mass media and TV broadcasting. The report of this performance was broadcast from German news channels.

After that the Bass guitarist left Iran to continue his studies abroad and the official number of the band members got reduced to NINE.

In this way, ARIAN moved towards a new horizon to familiarize Iranian Pop Music overseas which was done by Arabic and Turkish musicians before for their own music.

In this process Arian prepared its third album, which is called TILL ETERNITY, and in order to be able to compete qualitatively with foreign rivals, they mastered their new album at one of the best mastering studios in UK with twenty times more expenses than the mastering costs in Iran. And they also released the CD with two video clips as gifts.

By developing this album, Arian band was nominated for the award of BBC radio 3 and this is the first appearance of Iranian Pop music as nominee for the world music awards.

This album was also on top chart of Iranian Pop albums and was also distributed overseas by a Canadian Music Company, known as GEMMY MUSIC RECORDS.

In January 2005, ARIAN performed very successful concerts in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal (Canada) and also Stockholm (Sweden)

After those international successes; for the first time, Name of the ARIAN BAND and its members has been registered in the pop music reference book, International Who's Who (Popular Music) 2006 edition.

In June 2008, ARIAN proudly released one of the shocking albums in the history of Iranian pop music called "Without You, With You" which included a joint song with Chris de Burgh (Irish famous singer).

They have started ARIAN IV Concert tour from Kish Island following a very successful performance in Tehran. They are planning to perform their overseas concerts in 2009. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.