Junoon: Interview in India

By Vatsala Kaul
Courtsey of India-Today.com

People have exhausted lexicons to define their music, but songwriter-lead guitarist-composer Salman Ahmad, vocalist Ali Azmat and bass guitarist Brian O' Connell--Pakistan's hottest band, Junoon--refuse to slot their honest-to-heaven explosion of talent, energy, passion - and obsession!


I catch them on PTV between POK harangues and I'm like, hey, Pakistan got a life! Post-"Sayonee", the High Commission says, "No 'bank' called Junoon in Pakistan." Email cocks a snook at the LOC. Salman asks about Zee Cin Awards. Come, we say, it's a cross between the Oscars and Nirvana.

How would you define your music?
Ali: We don't like to define it because then you label yourself. You say we're Sindhi pop funk this this. We don't like to define it because the possibilities are great.
Brian: I like to categorize it as experimental. It changes.

You had been at it for a while but 1996 saw your first hit. What happened?
Brian: Timing.
Ali: Our first hit song wasn't even on the album we were going to release. Then came the World Cup in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India. Salman wanted to do a song. We did one "Hai jazba-e-junoon to himmat na haar". Most of the songs running on Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan local TV were about 'we're gonna win' or 'you are gonna win', but our song was about trying and not losing hope, if not succeeding. Pakistan lost, it was a downer for the whole country, but the one thing that survived all that, that made even more sense after we lost was the song. People realized, hey, hai jazba-e-junoon to himmat na haar. That was a major reason.

What is it about Eastern music that people need to be educated about it?
Salman: It's just perceptions. People in the East are in general much more accommodating to cultures, music and people from other parts of the world. The West initially was very closed-minded about their music. When Brian and I were in America, all they wanted to listen to was rock music. If you played disco music, they'd label you as a certain sort of person. Now it has
changed to a great extent. The East, West and all the cultures of the world are slamming into each other, so quickly, people are getting educated very quickly. Last year, in the US, I was surprised kay how  well they are taking to the sort of sounds they don't know, lyrics they don't understand, melodies I thought would be alien to them.

Do you seek international success?
Ali: The West is a big market, you've to come in the big league like Bon Jovi or Def Leppard, or sing in English. We don't feel that. Living in the subcontinent, we feel that people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are all over the world. It's a huge market in itself; we just need to develop this, or be somebody in this market for the world to take notice. At our last gig in
NY there were Indians, Pakistanis, Americans and huge coverage from the Western media. So I guess it's moving towards that.
Salman: Plus, I don't know why the great need to impress the world. You do the music you're most comfortable with. People find it relevant, they listen to it; otherwise... The most exciting thing for me is to tour India because this is the country you look at through a glass your whole life, I know this country so well through its music, its films.

What is the Sufi tradition of music in your music?
Salman: In 1991, I had the privilege to play with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - there was a different kind of aura. On stage, often it's the energy and so on, but there was something much deeper emotionally I hadn't felt before. I couldn't figure it out. For a couple of years I was like 'wow, that was really cool and I enjoyed it'. But I really wanted to see if I could delve that deep in my own lyric writing. We were all developing as human beings... It was in '95 when I wrote and we recorded "Saeein" that I found yes, we can connect, all three of us, feel the same emotion at the same level. Sufi poetry is the poetry of Sufi mystics. The great thing about it is that it's the poetry of love. It doesn't divide people into religions or races; it's just all
these different souls trying to connect with one source. What I find really cool about it is that, instead of dividing people, it
brings them together. We hate to be categorized, but the Sufi element is there lyrically, musically, and despite our diverse backgrounds, we have that common denominator, spiritually.

Azadi, compared to your other albums?
Brian: Each album is a progression. Because we're professional musicians and we have a passion for our music, we're always
trying to improve as musicians. The biggest departure was that we used only the traditional drum, not the drum set.

Was that such a big deal?
Ali: It was, because apparently we had developed a style of this rock band, with all those songs about social issues, prejudice, killings, politics, all that shit and when we performed on stage the energy was liberating, but still very angry, youth-oriented energy that people associate with rock music. On Azadi, we play rock music, but fused with interesting tabla
rhythms. People in Pakistan thought 'oh, what's this, sounds like jhankaar music or film music.' But it was a big step for us to
figure how we could carry on that energy or those rhythms or that feel. We did not have to, because we changed around that time.

You said, Salman, that Pakistan's socio-political-cultural context gave you creative tension. But Azadi is not energetic protest...

Salman: The energy is there, but expressed differently. One way is when you say, there's chaos, and I want to break everything down. The other way is, there's chaos and I want to bring things together, people together, without violence. I think with love, you can mend and unify better than with violence.

Did you, Brian and Ali, agree with Salman's artistic activism?
Ali: Sure, or we wouldn't have done it. We come together wherever we feel, 'cause essentially we're friends.
Brian: Uh, sometimes!
Ali: That's true, sometimes! We talk about ideas, things we read in the papers. Like this song "Iltija". At that time, there were a lot of killings in Karachi, people walking in and shooting. Waking up, seeing the papers, women crying, blood-bathed bodies and driving to the studio knowing you were not safe; the fear and anger of going through that. It was so disturbing we couldn't work, but we learnt somehow to channelize that energy, that anger, that feeling, put it in a vocal groove, put emotion into that. I was actually crying when I saw the bodies, the fear or sorrow in somebody's eyes, and it translated very well because it touched our hearts. That was the only thing we were looking for to touch ourselves, each other's selves, make that connection between us, or anybody on the street. It was the first link in the chain and we moved on with it.

How can music scale walls of language, culture?
Brian: It should hit you right in the soul. The soul doesn't know a language or words or restrictions. Souls speak to each other without words.

How about rhythms?
Ali: In a way, qawwali is similar to rock 'n' roll. It goes in that repetitive style to get into that energy. In qawwali it creates the trance-like spell. You may not understand it, but it gets to you. We discovered it by playing live, fusing tabla rhythms with rock, finding the same energy came, in a different format, but as one. Most people think of what's popular, try to make a track that way, that's when they lose it. If you stop trying to please, and let your soul do the talking, it will reach. The emotion and intensity will express itself.

So Brian, how did you fit in?
Brian: It has been such a challenge. When you think of the bass guitar as a rhythmic instrument, you have to have a marriage between the percussive element and the bass guitar. In the West, all we have for rhythm is the track drum set. The rhythms of the subcontinent are much more complex and interesting. To try to fit the bass guitar into that hasn't really been done in this type of music before. Ustad Ashiq Ali Mir (Junoon's tabla player) is one of the greatest tabla players I've ever heard and to try to play to marry into what he puts out on the tabla was a real challenge. And there is a freedom within that; we would experiment much more.

Sometimes, Brian, the bass guitar is as a support instrument, but on Azadi, often it holds it together.
Brian: I've played regular guitar since I was 8, so when I came to play bass guitar for Junoon I had to take a different approach. The six-string guitar is rhythm and lead, it takes the voice's role sometimes in a solo, it's rhythmic and harmonic. The bass guitar is a mix between the guitar and drums; you provide the fundamental tonality because it's the lowest note you hear. But when you play that note, you've to catch the drummer on the right beat so the rhythms are not juxtaposed. It taught me how to listen very differently. Where the drummer and I hold down the rhythm, so Ali and Salman can float on top of that and have their freedom.

What about the commercial aspect?
Ali: We take it lying down. For Azadi, our initial critics discouraged us, saying it was too Eastern. We still went ahead. We had to do it this is what we are right now. We don't care if the commercial market is not viable for us or if people expect a certain type of music.
Salman: With each album, they say, 'you're out of your minds, it won't sell!' We go ahead, the album sets the tone and they say 'OK, this is Junoon.' The next one is different and they go, 'wait a minute, this is your niche, you must make this type of music.' Why? Through our music we evolve and our evolution is reflected in it. If you believe in your music and say things with integrity, it will touch somebody. Artistes hotey hai na kay how do I fit in with the latest trend. That's short-term.

So you think you are long-term?
Ali: When we did Saeein, all the generations, were like "wow, what a song, beta, tumne dil se yeh awaaz lagayi hai." Suddenly, snap! Bands were singing Maula or Saeen or Allah, trying to be spiritual. What we experimented with did change people's perception of what could be commercially viable, not that we're trying to be that. It happened on its own. While they think, if you use these words, it will work. But it doesn't! People can tell who's a fake and who's the real one.

Are there other bands like you there?
Ali: Musically, I wouldn't say anyone sounds like us. Awaz, Ali Haider... all have their own huge audiences. There's a lot of music, promising new bands. But the bottom line is that the industry, if you wanna call it that, is a push-start one. People who do music don't have an infrastraucture. Like bands here. When I first came here, my friends said, 'yaar, get me Pentagram, Indus Creed...' At the store nobody knows! That was a big realization for me because we thought these guys were kings here; they've many fans in Pakistan.

Do Pakistanis, too, not take to Pakistanis singing original songs in English?
Ali: Most rock musicians want to sing in English. I too could only sing in English four years ago. Lahore has an underground scene of very talented rock musicians, but they're stuck in the same problem. If you hear them, you wouldn't know they are Pakistani, but they had to release through a private store, which sells music tapes on TDK cassettes! A lot of people heard it, but it's still a very small segment.

Salman, you've said that the poetry in Western rock is insubstantial...
Salman:The difference between Western rock poetry and subcontinental poetry is that ours is connotative; it works on many different levels. It has a lot more depth. A lot of rock poetry is very direct.
Ali: Subcontinental people concentrate on the melody. That, in some way, is the focus. No matter what you play augmented chords, minor-major they couldn't give a damn. They listen to the vocal line or the rhythms.

So, how do your instrumental tracks do?
Ali: Very well it comes in the experimental thing.
Salman: Music works on a different level than poetry. With lyrics you need to know the language, music is more important; it's
totally subsconcious, you connect with it first. In that way, poetry is a hindrance.
Ali: See, when Indians or Pakistanis listen to a Western artiste, they may not understand the song's vocals or idea right away,
but they'll get into the melody. Me and my cousin, we'd sing Michael Jackson"I wanna be a...THRILLER!" We'd mix up two or three songs, because for the life of us, we couldn't figure out the words, but we liked the melody, we sang, we danced to it.

You take a while between albums...
Ali: I'd like to take my own time before we do another album. After Inquilaab in '96, we did like 110 shows, in Pakistan, Dubai, the US. When we go out and play what we record, it gives us strength, it's important for the evolution, the next step. While you're doing it you create it; after that when you perform it, it becomes part of you. It's essential for us to play it extensively before we go into another dimension. That's why each of our albums is so different from the last one.