by Sohema Kirmani
Enjoying a near cult status and a mega fan following the world over, Pakistan’s Junoon needs no introduction. From modest beginnings to the intimidating Ehtesaab video that gave the powers that be in the country cold feet, to the controversial interviews in India, to their sojourn into Sufism, Junoon has travelled a long distance. Their provocative image has always kept them in the news. Dubbed ‘the only rock group in Pakistan,’ life for Junoon has always been a hop out of the frying pan and into the fire. Critics equal fans, and allegations of stagnation, excessive image-marketing and encashing on past laurels abound. The latest album, tentatively titled Ishq, due for release later in the month, does not break any new ground: the sound is signature Junoon – with an Allama Iqbal number, Saqi Nama, and the token(?) socio-political awareness song Dharti ke Khuda, which Salman Ahmed says is “not-so-subtly aimed at Benazir and Nawaz Sharif.”
The spoilt child of the brat pack, Ali Azmat, doesn’t show up for the Newsline interview and it is left to Brian and Salman to defend the charges against the group.
Junoon, in the line of fire…
Q: How is Ishq different from the previous Junoon albums?
Salman: We were labelled or rather shackled into this category called ‘sufi pop’ and forced to become the harbingers of sufism. But after the last album, I wanted to write music that wouldn’t reinforce the stamp. The music of Ishq goes in a lot of different directions: the songs are very passionate but the themes are vastly different.
Brian: It is pretty much the same, but a natural progression for Junoon in terms of production and the way we work – very spontaneous. Salman’s lyrics are much more mature and Ali has worked hard at the vocals. Everything has been executed very well.
S: This album is really a celebration of who we are and about playing our music without worrying too much about whether it is sufi music or not. Personally, I have rekindled my love affair with the guitar. Twenty years ago when I started playing it, there was something about the instrument that touched me intensely. I could have played drums or become a singer but the sound of the strings intoxicated me.
Q: So if Junoon are not sufi rockers, what are they?
S: There’s a curious chemistry between the three of us but as human beings we are poles apart. Ali is crazy on the outside, I am crazy on the inside and Brian is the glue in the middle that holds everything together. The incredulity with which other people view us doesn’t affect us too much because this is the way we are.
Q: Then why the need to break away from the sufi rock label?
S: Sufism is one aspect which has had a deep impact on all of us. The sufi belief is wonderful but to colour everything with that paint brush is unfair.
B: That label came from the outside and it stuck. We had absolutely no choice, but now we are redefining ourselves. We never said, ‘let’s write some sufi music’ and headed in that direction.
Q: How do you explain your sufi image – the clothes, beads, kohled eyes..
S: In the last three years, we did three videos. When you shoot a video you want a certain look in it. For the first one, Sayonee, we went to Multan. Asem Reza, our director, was responsible for the attire and the video was designed to go along with the city of saints. The video became the biggest song of the subcontinent the year it was released, and that was when this sufi rock thing spun out of control. Every performer in the country subsequently jumped on to the bandwagon and attempted to come up with a title like Saeen, or Maula , which was a crude way of ensuring that their product would sell. That really turned me off.
B: In the business, it is understandable if something does well and the rest of the world wants to cash in on the fad but when it involves something personal like faith and someone imitates that to sell, it is a real slap in the face of faith.
S: Everybody who interviewed us, whether in India or elsewhere, would begin with the assumption that we were sufis. Microphones were thrust in our faces, and we would be asked how it felt to be a sufi. We would look at each other and laugh. When did any one of us say we were sufis? But nobody cared [to listen] and we were branded the new generation’s spokespeople for sufism. This album is a conscious effort to break away from that mould. We are not going to wear beads anymore now.
B: I think we will look around to see what’s cool and what’s selling and we will do that for the album cover. That may involve wearing different type of clothes, dying our hair blue or changing our sexuality – whatever it takes!
S: Junoon will finally come out of the closet!
**Q: Was it Nusrat Fateh Ali’s fan following then, that led you to take up sufi music? **
S: That is really under-valuing Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Sure, I have always looked up to him. When we were struggling with the idea of what direction our music should take in order to be universally acknowledged – since every artist wants his music to be universal – what Nusrat did with Peter Gabriel gave us a glimpse of where our music could actually go. Nusrat also opened up the spiritual tradition of qawwali to me. I used to think that qawwali was just something that was performed at weddings and wasn’t a big deal. I never thought or paid attention to the rich text behind it like Bulleh Shah, Rumi, Shah Hussain. So yes, he introduced me to that aspect of qawwali. But I don’t think we copied Nusrat Fateh Ali or did what some groups are doing now: they clone Junoon’s music and that shows. Personally, it’s a compliment but that is not how music flourishes. Nusrat Fateh Ali has been a huge influence on our music, but so are people like Santana and Led Zeppelin. All artists have these musical love affairs with other artists and these should help fortify the music that you write. But it is unfair to say that we copy Nusrat Fateh Ali.
Q: Vocals are not Junoon’s strong point and Ali Azmat seems to be relying mostly on theatrics to keep the audience’s interest alive…
B: Ali’s voice is maturing from album to album and concert to concert. He has his own unique way of exercising his vocal cords and is pretty regular with that.
S: Traditionalists do riaz and that is one way of achieving vocal consistency but in order to understand Junoon as a band and Ali as a singer, you have to keep in mind that we are not conventional people. I, as a guitar player, need to be challenged in order to give my best. Ali is best when there is an audience, he comes alive in front of them. He doesn’t have the discipline and enthusiasm to do riaz by himself and totally switches off when he is alone. But when he goes on stage, he is transformed into a completely different person.
**Q: Does that mean Junoon is in need of constant adulation? **
B: Look at what happens at a Junoon concert – it is all energy and vitality.
S: I am not an applause junkie – I am an artist who wants to communicate his art to everyone on earth. With music, you actually get to see people melt right in front of you. They come to a concert, very stiff and unsure of what is going to happen, but as the music starts hitting them, you see this gradual transition. Last week, we went to Chittagong where we had an audience of 50,000 Bangladeshis – and the experience was just electric. They didn’t understand the lyrics of the songs but it was the music that turned them on.
Q: People feel that you’re far too pretentious and always attempting to sound politically correct?
S: Was it politically correct to attack Nawaz Sharif’s government when he was in power with that heavy mandate? Was it politically correct to make a video called Ehtesaab when Benazir was in power? What possible benefit were we deriving out of it? We got banned from television for two years.
**Q: The success of Junoon is attributed, in large measure, to the PR machinery operating in the shape of ‘Junoon Enterprise’ that does an excellent job of keeping the group in the public eye… **
S: Maybe it seems like an anomaly in Pakistan but that’s how artists work in the rest of the world. Nowhere in the world do artists approach newspapers personally – no matter how big or small they are. It is unfortunate that in Pakistan the entertainment industry has never been allowed to develop so you don’t have PR people working for you and the artist ends up doing everything himself. Anyone who wants to be professional is looked down upon. Think about it – the whole world works that way.
B: An artist has to stay alive by selling his art. If the artist were involved in doing other things that go into promoting and selling his art, he won’t have time to work.
S: As an artist, what you are selling is yourself. One feels really awkward going to newspaper offices and calling on journalists for interviews – you feel like a prostitute actually.
Q: Your last two releases, the Millennium edition of Junoon and the VCD of videos and interviews, is merely old wine in new bottles. Why bother?
S: The VCD has stuff that has not been seen before – the BBC interview, the Ehtesaab video, the channel [V] awards, the Star TV interview. It is a visual documentary of the last ten years of Junoon. The cynical person might allege that we are just making money out of it, but I think it’s a good product.
Q: Music has now become very video-based and most albums cash in on the success of one or two videos. Would you comment?
B: If people watch videos then videos it is – first it was LPs, then cassettes, then CDs and now it is videos.
S: Personally, I don’t like it at all. If I had a choice I wouldn’t have a music video, and would like to be heard. I am not even pushed about making them – it is just tedious.
B: We are more pushed about the audio part.
Q: Why are our artists so fascinated by India? Only if you are a hit there, you have made it big.
B: Says who?
S: India is just another country like Denmark or Sweden, and artists don’t want to be confined to borders. Artists want to play their music everywhere but yes, we Pakistanis do have this obsession with India because of Partition. This Hindu-Muslim thing has coloured our perception, otherwise India is just another country. They have got their infrastructure together – whether be it music or movies – and they have ways to sell it. We are worried about Pakistani artists going to India, but the same artists who are sought after there have to struggle here.
PTV is the only medium through which music can be sold in our country and it is the most pathethic medium available to artists. It totally limits your creativity, and makes it devoid of any spirit. PTV officials are the most uncouth, uncreative people on earth. If you go to a PTV studio, you realise that they don’t deserve to be there: the managers and producers have zero knowledge of art and yet they decide what art they are going to allow on television. In such an environment, what do you expect an artist to do? What we should really do is clean up our own act in Pakistan. We need to kick everybody out of PTV and get people who are merit-conscious, have some understanding of the visual arts, poetry, lighting. The audience doesn’t watch PTV so if everybody is watching Zee TV, why shouldn’t artists be allowed to work there?
**Q: Your drummers and tabla nawaz complain that they are not given their due importance… **
**S: ** The people who truly sacrificed their lives for Junoon are Ali, Brian and myself. The tabla nawaz and drummers earn their living by playing for other people as well and are not involved in Junoon’s creative process of making music.
**Q: May be you didn’t allow them to be part of the creative process… **
S: You should really pose this question to them but the fact of the matter is, the band is Ali, Brian and myself. Santana is Santana; he may have 18 other people playing with him on stage, but the music is credited to him alone. As our profile has grown, we have witnessed intense jealousy from other artists and the media. We have found ourselves isolated in the community of artists for the past two or three years. There was a very strong rumour that the band was breaking up.Sponsorship has also generated its own set of problems. There is great rivalry between the competing sponsors, who would do anything to run you down if you are signed by a rival sponsor. It is like guerilla warfare. We had a concert in Gujranwala, and the local administration was told that we were Indian RAW agents, had spoken against Pakistan and should not be allowed to play. Upon investigation, it was found that a rival sponsor was responsible for spreading the rumour.
Q: If there are so many problems, why is a sponsor deemed so necessary for music now?
S: Because the music industry would fall apart without sponsorship and we wouldn’t have professional musicians who earned their living from music. There is no copyright here and everyone loses millions in royalties because of piracy. The only way we earn is through performances, and sponsorship, unfortunately, is a necessary evil.
~ mera Junoon, meri DIL KI BAAT hai!!!