The Craze Called
‘Noori’
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They said it was an era of soppy love songs… until four rockers came and turned Paki music upside-down! Instead of dressing up in stage uniforms, harmonizing sweetly, and smiling for the camera, these fresh new faces on the scene were taking no ones orders but their own. Each one dressed differently, acted individually, wrote their own songs and sang them their own way…with devastating results.
Suddenly one question was on everyone’s lips, “What is it that makes people go crazy about Noori?” The answer is quite obvious! We just can’t get enough of Ali Noor, Hamza, Jaffri and Gumby… and fortunately they feel the same.
Ali Noor started his career at the age of seventeen as the lead vocalist for Coven and in 1994 his first album “Not in Your World” was released. Then Ali Noor along with his brother, Ali Hamza, wrote a few songs in Urdu. They released ‘Khalla’ in the early 1990’s, that wasn’t an instant chart topper, and the video was banned from certain channels because of the violence in it. Then came the mesmerizing “Manwa Re” a song (or should I say the video) that made thousands of girls just flip for the guy. After that came “Jana Tha Hamnay”, “Tum Hans Diyay”, “Gana # 1” and then “Dil Ki Qasam” and with the release of their debut album Noori just shot to fame.
Despite their countrywide success, few people know more about the guys then just their different images. But dig deeper and you’ll find that each one has a different story to tell of how they made it, their own perspective on the overnight fame they enjoy.
If you haven’t heard of these pop sensations yet then you’re either reading this from the comfort of your spaceship on mars or you’re a Himalayan yak farmer! Either way you’re the only person on this planet, sorry the universe, that hasn’t heard of the biggest explosion of pop energy this century. But how do ordinary people become humongous stars over night? With truck loads of hard work and bags of determination actually…
After hearing so much about the guys we had to meet them to see what they were really like and ask them how they achieved all this. Determined to discover all this about the guys and to find out more we a called up Gumby who took us to Ali Noor’s modestly furnished apartment. There we met Jaffri and Hamza. They informed us that Ali Noor would join us a little later.
So we asked Gumby about how he got into drums and his initial years as a drummer. “I’ve always been fascinated by drums. Infact whenever I see a band play all I can see is the drummer.” He never took his studies seriously and was much into his music. He got his first drum kit when he was ten years old. He didn’t expect to make money out of it, “I just did it for fun.” Initially his parents weren’t supportive. They felt that he would soon lose interest in music and besides the music industry wasn’t all that developed at that time. Speaking about his siblings he tells us that his sister is a complete opposite of him. The first time he was allowed to play was because it was his summer holiday and the guy next door was willing to take him along. After that experience he became stubborn because he realized that this was what he wanted to do. Soon he started playing for a live band at Village. His first major concert was with Amir Zaki and Junaid Jamshed in 1990. Gumby also played for Junoon but soon left them.
Jaffri has been associated with Ali Noor for a very long time. They formed Coven in 1991. “Ali Noor’s and Hamza’s house is like my house” Jaffri explains.
Ali Hamza then told us how he got involved in music “ our mother is a classical musician” he explains, “ She used to teach us when we were young. Ali Noor was always a keen learner. I on the other hand was found hiding under the table.”
When asked about their lives as Noori, Gumby told us that they spent most of their time together, “ as soon as I get up I come here. We spend 70% of our time together”. “We are like a family,” Jaffri adds. Then we see the kid within Gumby shine through when he compares Noori to batman, “Our Santro in the basement is like a Bat Mobile” he informs us “ whenever we have to go for a gig or an interview or whatever, we pack our selves in it and drive up the Bat Gate”
There are days in our lives when we don’t want to work anymore. It’s like you get up in the morning and say, “I want to stay in today”.
Do Noori feel that way especially because their schedule is so hectic? “Yes I do feel like that at times”, admits Hamza, “it’s like I feel I can’t cope with the schedule. Not because of the band members tough. Infact the best thing about Noori is that all four members are fully dedicated to the band”. Fortunately Gumby doesn’t run out of energy with Noori like he did when he was in Junoon “I quit Junoon because of certain limitations. One of them was that I couldn’t cope with the work.”
Soon enough Noor entered, met us nicely and started the conversation by saying “I should have the least say this time” but as usual ended up talking the most. When asked about his childhood he managed to surprise us a lot. He didn’t have many friends at school “ I always kept to myself” he says “I was never in trouble though. Infact I was in ‘prefect action’” (a new phrase we learnt there). And believe it or not this heartthrob actually had a crush on a teacher!! Yes a teacher.
Hamza informed us that after Ali Noor did his A levels’ he joined a law firm. So during the day he worked there and at nights worked on his music. “He barely slept for more that three to four hours in those days” says Hamza about his brother. So what made him leave law and pursue music “I couldn’t practice law and make music at the same time. It’s not allowed” he informs us. “But maybe in the future I would go back to it”
Getting a bit personal we asked the guys about their girlfriends. “ Jaffri can’t have a girlfriend,” laughs Hamza “ he’s already married”. To that all the guys started teasing the embarrassed Jaffri. Jaffri seems a bit shy when we questioned him about his wife.
“I met Salma through my cousin. I was in Lahore then and she was here so we continued on the net. We had been together for a couple of years and got married in January”.
At that we couldn’t resist asking him if her family was okay with the marriage especially because he had just stared his career as a musician: “I am sure they asked her but it all worked out real well in the end”.
Noor, Hamza and Gumby claim to have no girlfriends. Infact they deny ever going out with anyone, or even liking anyone for that matter (except Ali Noor who admits he liked a teacher once). I found that kind of hard to believe since they are extremely good-looking and now very famous as well. When asked when they want to get married Gumby was quick to answer “me, Noor and Hamza have decided to get married on the 13th of never” Noor quickly added, “we are totally straight and we don’t want to get married” (God knows what he meant by that!!).
If you have heard the album you must have realized that some of the songs are self named like ‘gana#1’, ‘tum hans diyay’ and ‘dubara phir se’. So we asked the guys why that was so “Jaffri thought that the song ‘dubara phir se’ was too short” explains Hamza “so whenever we played this song he was like ‘dubara phir se lagana’ so that’s how it got the name. What I realized was that there was this particular sequence that repeated itself”.
We were also curious to know what happened to the first gana#1 video with the four boxes. There was a word going around that the guys weren’t satisfied with the work done by diagram films. “People got really confused about which dabba to look at” jokes Gumby. “And besides most of us realized that we had become to big to fit on those dabbas” adds Jaffri with a laugh. We continue to talk about music and we asked the guys how they enjoy the fame.
To this Hamza replied “ it’s not all about fame. We want people to understand and like our music. We want our music to be more famous than us. People come and go and so might we. But we want our songs to stay even if we don’t.”
Speaking about music we couldn’t resist asking the guys if their music is copied, as most Pakistani and Indian songs are copies of western songs. “Inspired not copied,” replies Hamza “we take inspiration from all types of music.” And another thing that really confused us was whether Noori was a pop band or a rock band “pop” explains Hamza “pop is everything that is popular.”
As the usually quiet Hamza started talking abut music I guessed it was time to ask him about his own songs, songs that initially surprised a lot of people as he made them like this flamboyant guy who doesn’t mind singing his thoughts no matter how rude they are. “When I was at LUMS me and my friend wrote a few songs and sang them,” explains a slightly embarrassed Hamza “one of these songs was recorded on my cam recorder and some people took the audio bit from it and put it on the net. It spread fast and now I have to pay for it”.
So now we know that there is a video bit to the BC song as well!! “And as far as gawalmandi is concerned” he continues “it’s not my song. Its Ali Noor’s song”.
These guys are not image conscious at all and Ali Noor’s change from the sober looking bearded chap to a young clean shaved schoolboy look was not a conscious effort. And Ali Hamza didn’t just grow his hair “I’ve always had long hair. I got it cut just before gana#1”.
Gumby tells us that unlike most artists they don’t have someone to choose their wardrobe for them, before our concerts we grab the first thing we find”.