Baghdadi 'Backstreet Boys' raving to burst onto stage

Meet Nedeem, Artien, Shant, Hasan and Diyar. They are handsome, melodious, charming and they are 'Unknown to No One', Iraq's first English-singing boy band. They have the almost-matching, tailor-made outfits. The boys are so tight they finish one another's sentences.

They look moody when they sing of heartbreak. And, rather amazingly, they have British record industry officials interested in them and their song "Hey, Girl."

"I tend to think it is a really well-written song, and if it were recorded to full major-label quality, I think it would have a great chance," said Peter Whitehead, a consultant to British record labels who has included "Hey, Girl" on a new compilation CD of unsigned pop performers.

Whitehead knows his stuff. He tipped off Britain's Parlophone records to a then-unknown band called Radiohead, now one of the biggest rock acts in the world.

The problem for Unknown to No One - besides the not unclumsy double negative of their name - is that no matter how talented or promising they may be, they are all but cut off from the outside world.

No record company would sign a group that cannot even talk openly on the telephone, let alone tour and record in the West.

But Whitehead - and apparently a few other London-based record executives - is wondering whether a change of government in Iraq might allow the group to burst onto the world stage and become a Baghdadi "Backstreet Boys."

"If the war went favourably for the West or the people of Iraq, then it's entirely possible," said Whitehead, who nevertheless says he is very much against a war there.

"Can you imagine the politics? The West and America would be desperate for some Western-style culture to come out of the desolation and destruction."

Should they be delivered into the corridors of a top record company, Whitehead said, their promise and talent could well be turned into something slick and profitable.

While they acknowledge the frustrations of trying to be a successful boy band in a country where there are strict travel restrictions and a limited music industry, the members of Unkn-own to No One will say only that their chances at success would be greatly improved if the UN programme of sanctions were lifted. In the meantime, they are already living a dream.

"We don't do it to be famous," said Artien Haroutunian, 25, the song-writing brains behind the band. "We do it because we love what we do. Someday we'll look back and say, 'We did it'. And we'll be proud that we did."

On a recent evening, the boys and their manager, Alan Melody, gathered at the Fadil Studio, where they recorded their album, "From Now On." One member, Diyar Dulare, was missing because he had to look after his sick mother.

They were faultlessly polite and fluent in both English and the language of international pop music. Their favourite acts ranged from Michael Bolton to Linkin Park.

Organised by boyhood friends Haroutunian and Shant Ghrabidian, 24, the band reflects the ethnic mix that makes up Iraq's population.

Haroutunian and Ghrabidian, the raffish one, are Armenian Christians. Dulare, 22, is Kurdish. Twenty-one-year-olds Hasan Ali Al Falluji, the sweet one, and Nedeem Hamid, the lead singer, are Arabs. "This is a good point in our band," Haro-utunian said.

"There is no racism," Ghrabidian agreed. "We are brothers." "What joins the world is music," he said.