Not that anyone really noticed. At a recent performance opening for heavy metal superstars Iron Maiden at the Tacoma Dome in Washington state, the band’s lead singer, with his long black hair flowing over the raucous tune, sings his lyrics in a deep guttural drone-like style, Which is called throat singing. , In Mongolian.

Their success – The Who is the first Mongolian band to top the Billboard charts, with the remaining 10% consisting of evangelical Christians, Tangrists/Shamans, Muslims, Mormons, and some Catholics.

In Mongolian tradition, shamans use rituals and trance states to communicate with the dead or spiritual beings. Although the players do not claim to be shaman, one of their earliest songs is the rapid “Shoog, Shoog”, a shaman’s call to ancestral spirits.

Front man Temuelen “Temka” Naranbaatar, 34, who plays the electric “tovshur”, a gold-plated three-stringed harp, said he was on a spiritual quest when he joined the band in 2016. “I wasn’t very much a believer, if you want,” he said through a translator in a pre-show interview in Tacoma. “I was curious about what the Christian church had to offer and I started with my friends. Visited a few times but it was nothing more than that.”

However, her musical journey brought Temka into contact with Bayramganai Dashdondog, an experienced songwriter and producer in the Mongolian pop music industry. Temka, then 26, and the other young people who would form The Who clicked with the nature religion described in Dashdog’s lyrics.

“The traditions of Tangerism are very connected to our culture, our nomadic way of life,” Temka said. “The nomadic lifestyle also affects the way your brain works… That’s how my brain works; That’s why I am who I am today.”

DashDonogd, the mastermind behind the group’s rise, is 50. Band members have described him as a man who has gone back to his roots in Mongolia’s western Khovd province to write songs for his father and ancestors. He told an Australian publication in 2022 that his compositions for The Who were supported by “my parents and my ancestors”.

Songs such as “This is Mongol” and “Honest Destiny Mongol” praise “the glory of our ancestors” and describe “ancestors who worshiped the sacred mountain Khaldun”, believed to be the birthplace of Genghis Khan.

Temka said, “For us, Tengriism is a belief system that our ancestors are watching over us, but it doesn’t mean that we have a certain Bible or any other religion or Quran.” “It is a belief that…we are guided by the spirits of our ancestors.”

In mid-2018, Dashdog sent his disciples on a 3,100-mile trip through western Mongolia, where they taped a stunning video full of yuwe, yuwe, yu, dramatic landscapes.

It was a huge hit. The world couldn’t get enough of what looked like four Huns in black leather or brown tunics, or “deals” clad with metal studs, buckles, chains, bones and feathers. A drone captures them walking around in traditional “gutal” shoes, with braids of hair flowing and waving all manner of exotic stringed instruments while singing about prophecy and the second coming of Genghis Khan.

This was followed by The Wolf Totem, a best-selling video that featured a man on a horse carrying a black Mongolian war banner, followed by a group of leather-clad men on motorcycles singing war chants. YouTube views reached millions.

Dashdog’s influence is clearly large, but the actual religious structure of the band is somewhat unclear. When The Who formed in 2016, two of the four additional members had Christian backgrounds, Temka said. That said, guitarist Jumbledorj “Jamba” Ayush attended a Christian school; Odbayar “Odko” Gantumur was a drummer for a church. Enkhsaikhan “Enkush” Batjargal, a front band member who plays the box-shaped horse fiddle known as the “morin khuur,” became a Buddhist, Temka said.

An investigation of Odko’s Facebook page in 2012 revealed Christian-friendly posts, such as music by Australian band Hillsong and a post that read, “With God, all things are possible.”

Temka swears it all works when it comes to making music. “We have a lot of tolerance when it comes to religious differences,” he said. “We all mix our energy together.”

When asked what this looks like in the band’s daily life, Temka said that the group gathers about 10 minutes before their show to pump up the energy and yell the word “Whoo”, which “helps us get in sync.” Does.” Everyone should come on stage together.”

“We invoke our ancestors together in that mantra,” he said. “There are eight people. We try to match our energies and try to bring them on stage. This helps us energize our audience and helps them understand the meaning of the words without having to translate them.”

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