"THE United States said 'Come on! We’re going to take care of you because if you go back they’re going to persecute you or hurt you or kill you'," Ali Eskandarian told a reporter earlier this year, explaining why his band, The Yellow Dogs, had left artistically-stifling Tehran, the Iranian capital, for Brooklyn, New York.
Eight months later, on November 11th, Mr Eskandarian and two other band members, brothers Arash and Soroush Farazman, were shot dead in their apartment by another Iranian musician who lived locally. He then committed suicide.
The killer was apparently upset after having been kicked out of his own Iranian band, The Free Keys. Iranians who had known him before he left for America and said he had a reputation for getting out of hand. One said he "acted nervous sometimes".
Iranian friends and music fans reacted with dismay. "Still in shock, we lost 3 of our brothers...Rest In Peace," tweeted Koory Mirz and Siavash Karampour, the two surviving band members.
The Yellow Dogs, who sang in English, were well known in Iran and among expatriates in America. A product of the tiny but vibrant underground music scene in Tehran, they had played across America. They became known further afield too after performing in "No One Knows About Persian Cats", a film about the Iranian underground music scene. “They were one of the biggest bands here. They inspired a lot of people,” says Amir, a film-making friend in Tehran.
Censorship is heavy and many genres of Western music are discouraged in Iran. Musicians are often are denied permission to perform their music. Some move abroad where they often struggle to compete with local bands. "They left for the American Dream,” says another friend of the band, who asked not to be named. "They never had the chance to play loud here."