ESharp, a Karachi-based music outfit that counts Ahmed Zawar, Anwaar Ahmed and Qumber Kazmi as its members is heading in a new direction.
Ahmed Zawar from the Karachi-based music group talks to Instep about upcoming album, 600 Saal and their new single.
ESharp, a Karachi-based music outfit that counts Ahmed Zawar, Anwaar Ahmed and Qumber Kazmi as its members is heading in a new direction. Having impressed fans and critics with their clever debut album, Bahadur Yaar Jang which also earned them an LSA nod, the boys have been diligently working on their second studio album, 600 Saal that will see the light of day this year. A taste of this second album can be heard on their new single ‘Superman’ that is outrageous, loud and socially conscious. The song is not only available on Patari but has been released alongside a spanking new music video that has been directed by ESharp’s drummer, Qumber Kazmi.
As the song makes its way through the interwebs and elates listeners around the country, Instep caught up with band leader, Ahmed Zawar, to know more about their new song and what to expect from their upcoming second album that is slated to release this year….
Instep: What is the story behind your new song, ‘Superman’?
Ahmed Zawar (AZ): ‘Superman’ has a purpose behind it. It is a nonsensical fun party anthem that we wanted to include in the album and more specifically release it as the first single before the album launch. The social media controlled times we live in and the millennial generation with super short attention spans we cater to as audiences, we wanted to do something that people have a great time watching, listening and dancing to although it makes little sense, but when done watching they ‘don’t forget to share and like the video’. It’s not a dig or criticism that we don’t have intelligent audiences here, it’s our way of attracting attention and telling the world “hey listen to this great fun track, we’re sure you’ll share it with your friends. But when you’re done liking it can you take out some time and listen to an album of 10 other songs we’ve put out after 6 months in the studio?”...... I’m sure they’ll understand. In any case no matter how nonsensical the song is it’s still some pretty darn good music!
Instep: Tell us about the video of ‘Superman’. How was it put together?
AZ: The video of ‘Superman’ has been directed by Qumber Kazmi who’s also our drummer. The post production work has been done by a 14-year-old genius Hammad Ahmed, who’s the younger brother of our guitarist Anwaar Ahmed. The video was shot entirely by the band with zero outside support. From buying and setting up a green screen and lights (we did hire a camera from a friend) to the edit, it was shot at my house’s rooftop.
For indie musicians like us the biggest challenge is actually making videos. We are musicians and that’s what we do best. However, videos are also important for promotions but the exercise of getting videos made from professionals is super expensive and hectic. We’ve tried all along to lure people who’re professionals to get our videos made but the effort always ends up being futile due to budget constraints. That’s why we took it upon ourselves to do the video for ‘Superman’ entirely on our own. People will complain that the quality isn’t great but we have our own complaints for not being able to get our videos professionally made due to lack of sponsors and investors in our music industry for new original music.
We’ll continue to make videos and improve on our skills in this department. The next video which is of the title track (releasing on 21st April) has been done by Talat Choudry and Jasir Abro, who are educated professionals in the filmmaking field, but we only got them to work with us because they are our friends. The friendship favor won’t work every time though so gotta make some videos on your own too. We plan to release at least six videos from our album consisting of 11 songs.
Instep: One often struggles when describing new age acts who push the envelope by introducing elusive sounds and landscapes. In your own words, what is this music you make?
ESharp, a Karachi-based music outfit counts Ahmed Zawar, Anwaar Ahmed and Qumber Kazmi as its members.
AZ: Our music is nothing more than a manifestation of who we are. Right from our childhood the influences we’ve had, the upbringing and how we perceive things are all what define our music. I do music because I want to put my inner self out to the world, I want to tell people who I am through the art I make. That doesn’t mean that all of our songs will be stories from our real lives. That’s the thing about music, you don’t have to be literal to connect to people. It’s way beyond that. As for the genre, the description pop/rock/psychedelia/experimental would best suit our music style.
Instep: What is the unifying concept behind 600 Saal?
AZ: I like telling stories through the music I write. Our first album was a concept album; every song was part of a story that followed the protagonist Bahadur. For this album I have stepped into fantasy story telling. A musician who loses the woman he loves in the 15th century and then decides to travel through time to find her and finds himself in present day Karachi. A unifying concept gets me more excited and involved when it comes to making an album. While every song does not relate to the album’s story this time around, it made us experiment with all kinds of things. From the album artwork to the videos we’ve made and are making to the overall sound of the album, everything is very magical, colorful and talks about how love is a timeless phenomenon.
Instep: What are the things that you’re hoping to convey as an artist to fans and people at large?
AZ: First and foremost, we’re here to stay. Music is not just a hobby that we play songs for friends and families at parties but we will use it to define who we are and what we want to do. This is our second album in 2 years because I want to convey that the only way to have a thriving music scene in the country is for artistes to keep making more and more original music. I keep mentioning The Beatles who practically had a six to seven years mainstream career as a band but belted out more than 200 songs with 10 albums. Why are we restricting ourselves here by still covering poetry and tunes from the older times? We cover music because someone actually made it once. Are we leaving any original music for the coming generations to get inspired from? As for the fanbase and to many new people who’ll hear our record, we want them to be a part of our evolutionary journey as musicians. With every song and album we make, there’ll be something new and better. People actually have no clue what’s hitting them with 600 Saal and we’re super excited about that!
Instep: How will 600 Saal be different from Bahadur Yaar Jang?
AZ: Musically it has a more upbeat and lighter sound than its predecessor. BYJ being our debut record was a culmination of the songs we’d written from the time we had started the band. Our music influences and lives have changed from there on so 600 Saal definitely has a very different feel. The initial idea was to keep the music simple as BYJ was a long, complicated and dark themed album. We wanted a break from that style. But I think 600 Saal is the sound which is closer to our real style, mainly our rock ‘n’ roll influences from the ’60s mixed with modern music we admire like Coldplay. As a songwriter I have tried channeling my inner romantic out in this album, something I hadn’t done a lot in our first album.
Instep: Pure eastern music is an influence on this album. You’ve also mentioned ‘including qawwali’ for the first time. Why this route?
AZ: Its our influences, we can’t escape from them. No matter how much western music you hear you can’t ignore the fact that you’ve been brought up listening to and admiring the amazing heritage of our eastern music. Full credit to Anwaar who wrote and composed the song ‘Saj Raha Hai’ which is a pure qawwali style shadi song. On a personal level I really adore eastern music and always wanted to do something like that but probably was scared to attempt because I don’t have the required vocal training to sing classical music. But we’re so glad we did it and it also suited the album’s theme because our protagonists are 15th century classical musicians. We got a trained harmonium player (Sanju Dev) from NAPA to play on it. We wanted to produce a quality product despite our lack of education and everything turned up amazingly well. It’s one of the best songs in the album.
