Heavy Metal In Baghdad

From February 2, 2009 in the NY Times: One Band Moves Its Metal Out of Iraq

And on Sunday night, two days after the last of the band’s four members was resettled in the United States, they enjoyed what any metal fan would have to call heaven: bearhugs and “Wow, dude” heart-to-hearts backstage with Metallica at the Prudential Center in Newark. It probably wasn’t necessary for James Hetfield, Metallica’s lead singer, to surprise them after the show by handing over one of his guitars, a black ESP, and signing it “Welcome to America”; their minds were already blown.

“They were very fortunate to make it through the system,” Bob Carey, the vice president for resettlement and migration policy at the International Rescue Committee, said of the band. “Some of that is due to perseverance, some of it is advocacy and some of it is luck.”

Acrassicauda’s primary advocate has been Vice, the Brooklyn-based magazine and media company that made “Heavy Metal in Baghdad.” Vice is better known for wisecracking pop-culture commentary than humanitarian aid, but it has been working tirelessly on the band’s behalf for a year and a half.

Vice tried to help resettle the members to Canada and Germany, and kept them afloat with cash — as much as $40,000 paid from Vice’s own coffers, sponsors and donations collected online, according to Suroosh Alvi, a founder of the company and one of the directors of the film.