When he was six-years-old, Calgary, Alta.-born Arjun Gill moved to Saudi Arabia. His dad worked for a major oil company, and the family spent the next 11 years in the Middle Eastern country on an American compound. Doesn’t exactly seem the most likely place for heavy metal to grow and take flight, but in this musical genre, history tells us that anything can and will happen when inspiration to create takes hold.

Now back in Canada, this time on the west coast in Vancouver, Gill is wrapping up his high school studies, with plans to enroll in university.

But first, the guitarist, who has been playing for around six years, will help spread the word about The Plague of Ignorance [Salute Records, 2009], the debut album of Premonition.

Premonition is more of a project than a band at this point in time. With Gill as the sole musician at the helm, covering off all the instruments, with the exception of some vocals and the aid of a drum machine, the grade 12 student

The resulting music reflects a musical journey that spans two continents and a nod from not one, but two record labels.

Salute Records, an underground Swedish label, contacted Gill through Premonition’s MySpace page last June “and asked me if I wanted to be signed and put out an album with them. I was amazed, since the project was still in its beginning stages, but the owner ,Tony William, saw something that he liked and signed me.”

Salute released the 10-track album Sept. 25, but it wasn’t long before the New Zealand-based Satanica Records got in touch with the young songwriter.

“(Satanica) is based off a band (Beltane) who just want to release albums for other bands in a professional manner. Satanica is basically just the distro for my album. I work closer with Salute Records because they handle a lot of promotion.”

The Plague of Ignorance will join that Roster in early 2010.

“Having the support from Salute Records, and soon Satanica, helps me a lot because I’m still busy with my grade 12 year at school. So having Salute Records sending out my album to ’zines for reviews, and selling it worldwide without bothering me very much is great. I talk with them every week to see how things are going and it works out great.”

When did the project first get going?

I started working on my own music after the split up of my high school band, Ascension. We played all sorts of music, due to the different types of music that people in our band listened to. Eventually, this became a problem, where half the band wanted to play soft rock and the other half wanted to play metal. After the split, I decided to try out my own methods of self-recording. The first recording was done in March of 2009. My overall goal was to write an album and get in out into the world to have it heard.

How long did it take to write the album?

I started writing the album in April 2009, when I was spending a few hours a week on music due to school. During the summer, I went back to Saudi Arabia and did the majority of the writing and recording of the album. The actual writing and recording of the album was done in early August, and then I spent a little while deciding on track ordering, album artwork and all of the other little details.

Can you describe the general writing process?

Basically, I begin by writing out a riff or two on guitar, then I go onto the computer and spend some time programming the drum beat with the program Acoustica Beatcraft. Once that is done, I put the drum track onto Audacity, record a few guitar tracks and bass tracks over it, then begin the lyrical writing process. (Then) I record the vocals.

Where did you draw your inspiration from?

A lot of bands that I listen to helped me in a creative process. The biggest influences were Lamb of God, because they have such a great beat to headbang to and I believe that is very important. Another big influence was Kreator, due to their fast aggressive music. Some other bands that aren’t so metal also helped me, including Breaking Benjamin and Rise Against. Then, of course, extreme metal bands like Death, Carcass, Anaal Nathrakh, Sargeist and Decapitated helped me get a heavier and darker side to my music.

The record is being advertised as “one-man metal from Saudi Arabia.” Is this where you were for the writing and recording?

Most of the writing/recording was done in Saudi Arabia, and the rest was done at Shawnigan Lake School in British Columbia where I go to school.

Did you encounter any roadblocks in Saudi Arabia, being a metal musician, or were you pretty much outside that political landscape?

Over the summer, there were a few arrests at underground metal concerts in Saudi, so I tried to keep my music on lower levels so that the government didn’t catch on, because they can be quite unreasonable. The good thing is that I lived in an American compound, so a lot of outside rules didn’t apply to me; but still, it’s best not to mess with the government. It’s just stupid to be posting things all over the Internet, especially when they’re investigating the metal scene. Everyone knows that they will strike with a vengeance.

The country seems to be having a growing metal community, and some pretty decent death metal. Can you give us any recommendations?

For sure, there are some great bands emerging out there. Some good death metal bands are Wasted Land, Grieving Age, and Deathless Anguish. A great grindcore band out there is Creative Waste. They are from the same area as me and I had the chance to jam with them a bit over the summer. They make great, unique, fast and brutal grindcore. There are many more underground bands that are emerging. Many of these bands seem to be in the melodic death metal genre with an Arabic influence in them; its great, unique music. In the coming years, the Saudi underground scene will definitely grow and rise. Also, Al-Namrood makes some great black metal.

Where did you record?

Everything that I recorded was in the comfort of my own room both in Shawnigan Lake School and back in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. I used my guitar, a mic, a Line 6 PODxt Live (guitar effects pedal) and a computer and it sounds semi-professional. The song “Raiders” was recorded in the music room of my old school in Saudi with some different equipment and you can notice how the instruments sound a lot better.

Did you engineer, mix and master yourself?

I did everything on my own, and I really hated it because I like having an outside opinion of my music, especially when I get really lazy with recording and just say, “Oh, that’s good enough; lets move to the next song.” The pros of this are that I can quickly get songs done and be as efficient as I need to be and not wait for someone to give me my music. For my next album, I will hopefully be getting some mastering done from an outside source.

Why did you tackle all the instrumentation yourself?

I did all of the instruments on my own mainly because at school, there are virtually zero metalheads or instrumentalists, so I was out of options for that approach, and the drum machine sounds good enough and I could cover the rest. The problem with one-man projects is that they get lonely and it’s hard to play live. But the pros of it is that you don’t have to compromise with anyone and you can work on your own schedule and get more done. I asked a few friends to contribute vocals because I am still new at it, and it helped add even more variety into the music.

Any plans to find other musicians to work with to get this out live?

There are plans to soon perform in Calgary with some other musicians and other bands, I can’t give out any details yet because I’m not really sure when this is going to happen, but it will definitely be happening some time next year.

What’s next for you and Premonition?

I plan to work on some more music. I have a lot of special guest vocalists lined up, some of them quite well known. I also will be working on some live shows in Calgary, and possibly Vancouver. This is a project that I would like to keep going for a while, because metal is my passion and I never want to let it die. Hopefully, once I settle into a city and go to university, I can get some other band members and really expand the vision.

Premonition’s debut album The Plague of Ignorance was released through Salute Records on Sept. 25, 2009 and is available through their official website.