We Are The Weirdos, Aunty-ji

Intro

Neil: Hello and welcome to ‘We Are The Weirdos Aunty-Ji’, a podcast by WEIRDO Zine & Collective. My name is Neil and I'm the editor and occasional host of this podcast. WEIRDO exists to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives, and contributions of South Asian people in alternative subcultures around the world.

We do this through our print zine articles on our website, events, and sharing stories via this podcast. In each episode of ‘We Are The Weirdos Aunty-Ji’, we interview South Asian creatives to find out about their journey in the alternative scene and their career today. Today's guest is Sam Chetan-Welsh. Sam is the guitarist and one of the founding members of the band Ithaca.

Ithaca is a dynamic metal band hailing from London and has been part of the hardcore music scene since their inception in 2012. Their sophomore album, "They Fear," released in the summer of 2022, garnered resounding critical acclaim. Notably, Kerrang! scored the album five K's and placed it in the second position in their 50 best albums of 2022 list.

In this episode, Sam delves into the history of Ithaca from their recent first-ever US tour in the summer of 2023 and also the beginnings of the band. Coming from mixed heritage, Sam shares his poignant insights on the evolving landscape of diversity and inclusion within today's metal and alternative music scene. He reflects on how this landscape has transformed and progressed since his formative years as a teenager discovering metal for the first time.

Interview

Well, Sam, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for coming on.

Sam: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

N: So, I've got an interesting story about your band. It's probably not that interesting, but I discovered you guys in a different way. I remember reading a glowing review in Kerrang! for ‘They Fear Us’ and they gave you five K's - I was like, oh, okay. They sound interesting. And then I attended 2000 Trees Festival this year and I said to my pals, oh, can we, what am I checking out this band, if they’re gonna sound interesting.. and I was quite taken back. I was really impressed with this set. And obviously, there were a couple of things besides how visceral and powerful the music was. You guys opened with a Hindu mantra and coming from a Hindu background, I was wondering, first of all, like what hats off to you for that performance?

So we're on the front row of the right so I'm quite near the speaker as well. And all of a sudden I'm hearing this mantra being blasted out in an environment where I would never expect to hear something like that. And then I have to explain to my friend what that was. I was just wondering, Sam, if you could just talk to me about that because I'm just curious and fascinated by it.

S: I suppose, stepping back, the origin of it is I would say with this record. All of us in general, the meta story of this record is all of us giving a lot less of a shit this and feeling we could authentically… I think we all just feel more ourselves this time and like we're communicating. We're just standing a lot more authentically.

And one of the biggest ways that that's represented itself in me is wearing my identity a lot more proudly and being more forthright in communicating a big part of me and where I come from is my Indian ancestry, even though I'm mixed race and basically white-passing. I didn't really know my British family, I spent way more time with my Indian family. And so my Indian heritage is actually extremely important to me. My Baa is who was the first person who taught me how to cook and like I grew up eating Gujarati food and I can't speak the language so that was a big, big problem and a big desi…

N: Can you understand it though?

S: A little bit. I actually took Hindi classes for a couple of years because I said, I'm gonna learn Gujarati and all my uncles were like, don't bother, it's useless - learn Hindi. And I said, okay, fine. Which I think is a very Gujarati response because it's very business-minded. It's a completely purely capitalist approach to a thing that for me was about identity and exploration.

So wearing my identity more proudly and one way in which that exemplifies itself is like I wear a Chandler on stage and we have this Gangarti mantra playing at the beginning of the set and both of those things in their ways are a reference to me. I feel like I come from a very strong lineage of Indian women who've raised me from my mum to my grandma, to her mum and the stories that were passed down about all these women and all there’s so many strong Indian women in my family who I feel like have been so formative in making me who I am. The particular arty that, that the Munther is from was, I recorded it, so after my mum passed away I went to India for a couple of months to do a bit of, I guess in a very typical way to find myself. It wasn't my first time in India, but I spent some really good time out there and I just recorded this at the opening on my phone because I'm like, this is really powerful and very moving. And also because it was about beckoning the marganga like the mother goddess. there's something about divine femininity or something. Anyway, I thought this is really cool, I'm just gonna record it because it's a really moving sound. I recorded quite a lot of temple sounds while I was out there.

Just for my own memories. If anything else, I didn't know I was gonna use 'em for anything. Then when we were doing the record, we had the title track. All these themes were emerging both in that song and across the album. When I started to read the lyrics from my vocalist about divine feminine power, like supplanting patriarchy, I thought, hmm, there's something in this here.

And there's like a drum break bit that I've already put in that I pitch, shifted to sound a bit more like a doll. Anyway, I was trying to get an Indian reference vibe in that track and so we plonked it in and it said, you can hear it a bit more mushy, but you can hear it in that track.

And then I went to our producer and was like, could you just turn this into like a cool intro thing? and he did. And as it goes on, it gets way more ominous and sinister and it becomes way more overwhelming and suffocating. And when that intro is playing, I dunno if this sounds a bit wanky or whatever, but for me that's when I'm almost like summoning the ancestors.

I'm really intense, like it's all coming to me and the person that I am on stage is like coming out and I don't know, I'm trying to channel that power. That's why I wear the Chandler as well, because it's something my mum wore at a specific time. Something that my Baa wore every day. That divine feminine power is extremely important to me and it's something I'm trying to communicate through our music.

N: How did the rest of your band and your producer react to it? I don't doubt it wasn't anything but positive, but I'm thinking yeah, from my experiences, not that I don't think any of the people I've played in bands would have an issue with it. But I suppose from my world, it's so separate, isn't it? And I just love the way you brought it together. It was a bit of a moment for me, it was quite something, it really threw me off. So how did your band react to that initially?

S: Well, I should say on that point specifically. It's also supposed to be directly confrontational in that exact way, like really trying to immediately get the audience into a sense of we're trying to do something different here. We're immediately trying to take you somewhere else and we stand proudly in who we are and so I'm incredibly gratified to hear that it had that reaction because anyone who comes to the show and comes up to me afterwards. They're like, what was that all about? Oh my God! Which is the coolest thing, like when we played Birmingham, I had like three separate people being like, what was that?

Your question about how did the bandmates react? They were super… the moment when I pulled my phone out and I said, guys, I've got this cool recording, I think was a pretty magical moment in the studio because like our vocalist was like, oh my God, I can't believe you've been sitting on this the whole time.

It just worked so perfectly and then the themes of the album really started to cohere in that moment because we hadn't quite realised that this was an overarching narrative, they were super hyped about it. They're really supportive of all this stuff. Anything to do with me representing the culture that I come from, my identity and all this stuff, they're incredibly supportive. Look, I mean, even if you have no idea what it is, it's a cool sound.

It's interesting and different and like, there's another, another sort of, please stop me if I'm blubbing, but there's another interesting aspect to it, which is like nineties hardcore fans. One of the inspirations from me using it as an intro is actually, I dunno if, have you ever the band shelter? They're a Krishnacore band and they have mantras at the beginning of their sets normally. And I saw an old performance of theirs and I thought, oh, that's interesting, but this is like a bunch of white dudes doing it. So I wonder what would happen if I actually used it. Not only something that feels more like Resonant with the culture that I actually come from, but something that I've recorded myself to directly disrupt that thing.

We actually got asked when we were in the States “are you a Krishnacore band?” And I was like, “no, but thank you for asking” because it allows me to tell the story of where this comes from. Even though, as you say, I'm not a Hindu, I don't identify as a Hindu and I've not spent loads of time like going to Temple. When I was growing up, it was still a very important part of the environment in which I was incubated and watching my Baa pray and all this stuff, it's been around me. So anyway, the guys were really supportive and think they just think it's cool.

N: I've not heard the term Krishnacore before. Is that alternative music for people who are practising Hindus?

S: I'm not an expert in it, but it was a really big scene in the nineties coming out of the straight edge as hardcore went from being more punky to being more like metallic and metal influenced.

There were bands like Earth Crisis who were doing, who took the ideals and values of Straight Edge and Vegan and all this and other bands. Again, sorry, this is not my field of expertise, but they took that level of seriousness to hardcore and then that became linked to Krishna Consciousness and Shelter is one of the main Krishnacore bands, but there are a few others who really like yeah, explored the ideals of the Hari Krishna movement and that. It's really interesting. I'd recommend checking it out. And they're good bands if you're into metallic hardcore.

N: Yeah. I do like hardcore, to be honest. When it comes to nineties stuff, more post-hardcore. I’m a massive Fugazi fan, Quicksand, things like that. So probably more of the post-hardcore. But yeah I’ll definitely check them out. Speaking of all things live, you just came back from the US tour? How was it?

S: It was nuts. It was actually really brilliant and I really didn't know how it was gonna go, because it was a huge amount of preparation and money and time and hard work to do. But it was awesome. Particularly certain shows like the New York show, San Francisco, Aftershock Festival - they were amazing.

Being in America and there's people here who really like your band, even though we're just playing club shows, it was just such an eye-opener. And also I think the Americans are really receptive to earnestness and so, they were well up for a bit of us, I think.

Because I give a speech normally when we play live, both reflecting on the possibility of healing from trauma - well you've heard it because you've seen this but healing from trauma and the importance of diversity and inclusion in hardcore metal. I think some of that stuff, or at least people in the conversations I had, really resonated with people. I talked to a lot of people of colour and people from other backgrounds and it was incredibly special. And even more than that, I mean, just the travel, driving from one side of the state to the other was an incredible eye-opener. Mad experience. Absolutely mad.

N: Yeah, seven or eight years ago now, I travelled the southwest of America and wow, just the vastness of that, basically that trip left me with that classic feeling of insignificance that every human being has one - does anything we do matter? That really resonated but totally in a good way, Sam, not a bad way. It was just like, okay, well now I can see that what, what I can, it focused me in a really interesting way. Yeah, I just remember standing in these national parks and going, oh my God, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life but also recognise my insignificance.

S: The vastness is unbelievable. When we were driving through Texas, similarly, across the South West through New Mexico, as you say, the vastness of the plains and the sheer power of the weather systems. We were caught in these enormous storms and lightning going off and extraordinary. You definitely have an ego death existential moment for sure.

N: Ego death. Yeah, that's the best way to put that. Let's take it back a little bit, I'm always interested when people of Asian heritage get into alternative music, whether that's metal, hip-hop, whatever it might be. So could you tell me a little bit about that? How did you get into it all? Who were your early influences?

S: Yeah, good question. So I think I've got to initially absolutely credit my dad because he had a very thin but wide music taste, which is similar to how I approach music. You listen to just a huge, vast array of stuff ranging from usual dad rock stuff like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to classical music, Django Reinhardt, early Delta, Blues, Lauryn Hill.

He just had an extraordinarily wide palette of music, but obviously rock music was a massive part of his taste. And the first time I remember being like “I want to do that” is listening to Paperback Writer by the Beatles actually, which has just got a decent… it's got a bit of a riff.

That was enormously mind-bending for me. And that was when I was like, yeah, okay, I think I wanna do this guitar thing. I was immediately drawn to it. and then there was just the usual stuff. It was the new metal era. And it was very popular..

It was a very important part of the culture at the time and the skate culture and all this stuff. A really pivotal moment actually was, when I was a senior, I was very religious actually, but not, not Hindu. I was an evangelical Christian which is a whole other story, but, in my church there were brown guys who really loved metal and three of them.

And I had never really met anyone else like that before. And also one of my cousins is as well, and so I think through hanging out with some of those older kids at my church, that that really got me into a lot of the stuff that really is early influences on this band. Underoath, Killswitch Engage, Misery Signals, all those but that 2000’s post-hardcore metalcore stuff was, that is where I really took that turn. But at the same time, throughout that whole period, I think that the biggest thing my dad taught me was to keep an open mind for music in general. So even when I was listening to Misery Signals and Underoath and whatever. I was still listening to James Brown, I've always been a massive James Brown fan.

All sorts of other stuff. But anyway, keeping a breadth of taste as well. Does that answer your question?

N: It does. I was waiting for the bell to come in actually because obviously you can't deny the fact that you are a metal band. Apart from one noticeable exception. Maybe we can talk about that actually because I really like that song. If you don't mind me saying this, and I don't think there's anything wrong with saying this, but it's a pop song.

S: Yeah. It's a power ballad.

N: Yeah. You're happy with that? Comfortable with me saying that?

S: Of course. Yeah. I take that as a compliment to be honest.

N: It's an incredibly bold move because, okay, it's rock-y. Where did that come from? That's a bold decision to put that on such a.. you’ve got some bone-breaking riffs on that album. A lot of screaming, a lot of yelling.

S: Yeah. I mean, thank you by the way. I really appreciate it. I think ‘Hold, Be Held’ came from again, that sense during, during lockdown. As I say, we just stopped giving a shit. I think I've said this in a few other interviews, but for me, the veil between this life and the next felt extremely thin. I think because of my mum passing I have a natural propensity towards feeling that life is short.

There is not loads of time that we have here. And that was the very prevalent atmosphere for me during Covid. And so I was just like, I'm just gonna write what I want. I'm just gonna write what I want. and really, I don't care. And also I think people will get it because genres are collapsing, all the boundaries are collapsing.

Zoomers don't care about genres really, or it doesn't seem to me like they do. The tide is turning away from, oh you're a metal band, so you write this. No one cares about that anymore. That's so dead. And I was like as long as you're standing in something authentically, you can do what you like.

And we as a band, we love pop music and we mostly listen to pop music in the van. I love nineties power ballads, particularly R&B power ballads. So New Edition, Boyz II men, Bobby Brown, Tevin Campbell, people like that.

Also when I was thinking of that song, I was like, the arc of the album is also about the possibility of healing from trauma. It's not just about staring into the abyss and ugh, I feel really shit. That's very absolutely valid. I feel like there's a hundred metal bands who offer you that experience. Whereas we, in particular, were trying to say through deep inner work and through healing, you can rebuild, things could be better. We were just trying to offer that sense of hope, a sound that is genuinely nostalgic so that it does give you that sense of warmth and almost like self-parenting, which is a practice that I've learned through therapy and it's music also that reminds me of my mum.

It's the music we listen to together. so Michael Bolton, Celine Dion and all that stuff, that was very Whitney Houston. That was the stuff we would listen to together. So I was just like, fuck it, I'm just gonna write, I'm just gonna see how this goes. And it was funny because it started as a boring post-rock interlude and I was like, Ugh, these are so dead, these post-rock interludes. We need to stop. So what could I do? And I just was napping around in my chorus pedal and I was like, aha, here we go. Power ballad, let's do it.

N: First of all, I'm very sorry to hear about your mum. I know what It's to lose a parent as well. So once again, going back to that insignificance and life's too short, all that stuff. I get it for sure.., that's really interesting. And I love the thing you said Zoomers are genre less. I mean, when I was growing up, I'm thirty-seven now, it was like you couldn't even be into metal and punk.

S: We were obsessed. It was ridiculous. It was, the lanes were so brutally - you were a metal person or you were grungy, or you were like everything else. And you hated in N Sync and you hated the Backstreet boys. You hated Britney Spears.

That was that era. That wasn't even, no, you couldn't even talk about that, but unthinkable. And now we've all grown up and realised that was some of the most extraordinarily well-written music ever. Max Martin pop is fundamentally genius music because we all just got over ourselves and realised, and there are many problems with the way that music is in the modern era but by far the coolest and most exciting is that element of genuine appreciation for almost all music and all genres as valid art. It's so much better than, yeah, in the late nineties, early noughties, we were such punishers about stuff.

N: You called it a power ballad, so I'll call it a power ballad. The power ballad that closes your album, even though it's not the same feel or genre, but a turnstile. When they release Go on, they've got three or four tracks on there. They're essentially RnB songs. Absolutely. I don't think they have any qualms with that whatsoever.

S: Absolutely. When that record came out, we were nearly finished with the album and I was like, right, the door's open. Now it's all go. All bets are off. We can do what we like. I really felt like those guys kicked down in 10 years. We're gonna really look back at how critical that album was for letting us all be who we wanted to be.

Yeah, and then it was.. Soul Glo's record came out, Zulu came out and it was like suddenly, yeah, all genre bets were off. It was just about like, does your album slap or does it not slap? And it was like, yeah, that's it. It was formative for me, this is critical permission to do what I like, you know?

N: A hundred percent. Did you, did you by any chance, I'm trying to think, they might have been on a different day to you guys, but did you, did you see Zulu or have you seen Zulu?

S: I was lucky enough to see Zulu last year at Near River Studios in Tottenham, so a tiny little sweat box and it was fucking brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. They're so great. And the lineup was so weird that night in a good way, what a time.

N: Just seeing Zulu at Trees, it just reminded me that we were once again on the front row in this tiny tent and oh my God. It was just like every time that kick pedal was used, everyone took us down. It was that way. There might have been no point for my earplugs out there, but amazing.

S: And again, the R&B interludes. All best off now. It's amazing.

N: Exactly, love it. So you, you've touched a little bit on playing guitar. From what I can hear, from what you've recorded anyway, you've got a very particular style for me, probably because I'm a massive fan, I hear a lot of Deftones, that chuggy playing, there's particularly a Diamond Eyes-era Deftones on this particular album anyway. I can see what got you into guitar but what made you wanna write songs and all that stuff?

S: Yeah, totally. When I was a young teenager, I was into rock, I was a proper grunger. I was like, in that world, doing that life. I was like, can I ask my parents if I can have guitar lessons? And I went to my guitar, I went to a teacher and he was this really lovely guy. This ex-punk guy who was in a funk band. I brought my acoustic guitar and I saw his bass and I was like, oh, can I have a noodle on that?

And he was like, yeah. And I was like, this is cool. And now people will not know but Red Hot Chili Peppers were very much the style at the time. And so I was like, yeah, let's do bass and like slap bass. And that felt like.. I was much more like a bassist than I was a guitarist for many years.

And then I would say again, not like I owe it a lot, it was actually playing in bands at church that got me back into playing guitar and that taught me loads about playing. Those horrendous Christian rock songs taught me a lot about the basics of chord progressions, basic songwriting and how a decent song is structured.

And I still think, I dunno if this sounds really arrogant, but I still think we structure our songs pretty well. They have quite good… A section very rarely outstays its welcome because all of us in different ways have that ear for ...that, I think those church songs helped me just be like, no, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Like this bit, this bit, this bit, this bit done. you can't flap around, you know? So this is very specific to this world. The church tradition that was in, so it meant a lot of people are familiar with the Church of England, which is like old people playing organ. It's not that it's much more the young quote-unquote, I was in like a youth group in the Evangelical church, and so the band there would be a band first of all, which is very different like with drums, bass and guitar playing a U2 kind of.. Americanised.

It's a very American-influence that came over to the UK in the nineties. There's a big mega church called Hillsong from Australia that really took it off, that people might be familiar with because they've been mired in scandals for the last two years. That's the genre's influence. U2, Coldplay arena-rock stuff. But even worse and even more cheesy. Some of the songs were good songs, I have to admit, even in my cringe retrospect. But yeah, that's the vibe, like big delay pedal situations.

N: That's really interesting to me. I know, I know Christian Rock is a thing. I'm a U2 fan so I'm aware of their Christian-ness, if you will. I just dunno much about it. So I think maybe a lot of our listeners might not know much about that either.

S: No, it's wild. I mean, obviously that's only one aspect of it. I would say whenever people ask me my favourite guitar players, I always say Tom Morello because he was completely… Like Rage Against The Machine riffs taught me how to play bass.

I really became a deep half decent bass player learning that whole album and soul. Tom Morello, Ben Wyman from Dillinger Escape Plan because obviously it's just breathtaking. Brett Hines from Mastodon, which also explains a lot and then Prince and I think hopefully I tried to do this on this album. I tried to chuck in more Prince than I usually would. Oh I’m even wearing a t-shirt today! [Prince was] a formative influence on me in many ways and in many aspects of my life. But on my guitar playing as well, for sure.

N: Really interesting. Did you ever see Prince?

S: Twice mate. I hate to brag but it's one of the things that I'm most delighted about. I saw him once during the O-II run. And then the second time I saw him was actually a really random one. I saw him at this weird festival in Kent called Hop Farm.

And like the day before I saw they still had day tickets for like £40. And I was like, obviously I'm gonna go to that. So I just pootled down in my little Fiesta in like 2011 and it was comfortably one of the best gigs I've ever been to. He played for nearly three hours… Hits, non-hits, he did this whole middle bit because Larry Graham from Sly & the Family Stone had played earlier in the day and he got Larry Graham to come out and they did a lot of covers and Sly & the Family Stone songs. It was just fucking bonkers. I'm very glad to say that. It was incredible.

N: I saw that tour. It was Third Eye Girl I think, when he had the four girl band and he was 40 minutes late, played no hits. He paid like the opening intro to When Doves Cry, and just went like that. Loved it. When he did that at the O2, he liked to play a sample When Doves Cry and everyone was like, Hey!

S: He must have a funny thing with that tune where he's like, I'm never gonna play it!

N: Wicked. With all that in mind, how did Ithaca come back? Was this your doing?

S: To be honest it was in the very early stages. Yeah. I'd probably got into guitar, I'd always wanted to be in a band, particularly a metal band because metal really kicked in and it was a huge thing for me, particularly in my teenage years.

We had been fannying about a few of us from school over summers and in the music room during GCSE and all this stuff for years we'd been noodling around and maybe we'll do something and blah, blah, blah but after I graduated from unI was like, right. I wanna do this band thing. Let's try and make it happen. Are you up for it? And Lewis our drummer, he's my best mate and Will our guitarist who I'm also very good friends with from school. I was like, yeah, should we make this happen? And we just put a terrible ad on a find my band member website.

I had no idea what I was doing, I was like I'm not really connected in the scene, I don't know anyone, I'm not cool. How am I gonna find band members? I just put an ad up and thank God one of the people who replied was Djamila, our current vocalist and our old bass player, Drew. That was it. Basically, we just started building out from there… We got incredibly lucky.

N: Did you have any intention of having a female-fronted band? Did you ever audition any male fronted singers? I'm just curious.

S: No, thank God she was the best person who replied. I mean, there was a person who was like, “oh yeah, I just really love PJ Harvey”. And I was like, “okay, we're more of a metal thing. Is that all right?” and they were like “Yeah, definitely, I just really love PJ Harvey” and I was like… we're not quite talking the same language here.

Djamila replied. I'd put some quite weird and spec, not weird, but quite specific niche bands on there to hopefully filter people down more. and Djamila responded saying, “oh yeah, I love those bands, blah, blah, blah”. And I was like, wow, okay. This is really interesting.

And when she was like, “I'm also a girl” firstly, I was like, this is actually brilliant because I really would love to be in a band to uplift someone. It really wasn't very common back then, it still isn't, is it really? It still isn't relatively but 2012, you can imagine it was very rare, relatively, particularly in this genre.

Screaming vocalists, there were so few. There was a band called Veils who I put, as one of the if you like these three bands, that's what I want to do. They had a female vocalist. And I dunno if that like, gave her the sense that we were really up for that, you know? But they were one of very few bands at all who did have a female vocalist. I was actually, not in a weird way, but I was super psyched to be honest. I was like, great.

There's such, again, it's another thing that's gonna, another thing that's gonna make us different. Another thing that's gonna represent our values as a band in terms of representation and uplifting different voices. Brilliant, here we go. And it was all that mattered was like, could she scream? And turns out she screamed incredibly well.. It was a done deal. Unbelievable vocalist.

N: I think I may have mentioned this in my initial email to you, but you said quite a powerful speech, talking to the crowds.

S: A sermon speech [laughs]. Boring, earnest, punishery, ramblings. One of those things.

N: Well, you, you address the crowds about diversity in metal, alternative music, whatever you wanna call it. Do you think it's becoming more inclusive?

S: Sorry, I interrupted the question. Too keen!

N: No, that's fine. Okay, so it's a double question really. Do you think it's becoming increasingly inclusive, which I think you do, but you can expand on that of course. But also where are some, where do you think the problems still are? Why are we still not there?

S: One of the things I've started building into the little speech recently is that I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding. I think contemporary language around diversity and inclusion and D&I and the HR of it all, I think it has really confused people about what we're really trying to even do here.

I think in general there's a bit of a ham-fistedness around those concepts which we need to revisit and like, I think we need to take a step back and understand what we're really trying to do in general with the diversity and inclusion conversation. But I can definitely speak with some knowledge in the rock and metal, and hardcore space.

I think a lot of people really have got confused about, the idea of diversity is just a tick box exercise or something that's being forced upon them is like, oh, we have to be diverse. We have to do this. And I'm like. Guys, I don't think people understand why people fight for this.

It's not just some census data thing in rock and metal. In particular, this is a niche genre that is very fragile and like it, we know look at, if you look at the feature projections for this genre, they are very poor. Iron Maiden are gonna die one day. Metallica are gonna die one day.

Sorry to be bleak. What the hell then happens to the metal industry? What is the future for these festivals? What is the future for the entire cottage industry and the economy around the genre?

N: That is a really good point.

S: I read a great metal journalist who I wish I could remember who said this, but metal is gonna go the way of jazz, which is where it's gonna wither on the outside and flourish on the inside, which is cool, but It's we know where, I mean, jazz is actually now a bad example.

When he was running at the time, I think jazz felt way less Jazz is now actually one of the most exciting genres in the world. Thank God for our Southeast London. Icons and tomorrow's worries and all that thing has massively revived the engagement with jazz.

But that was only because people forget. It was only because. A, there were active programs to redistribute resources to young people to get them into jazz and give them access to those spaces like Tomorrow's, Warriors. And that whole scene was a diversity program, basically. Obviously it was also about merit.

They're incredibly talented musicians, but that's the difference, isn't it? That's where I think people get confused. They think that diversity programs are just these boring things.. It's about redistribution of access and resources and power. It's fundamentally a question of power and - are you giving people an opportunity to express their art? It's not a passive thing, it's a proactive thing. That is the thing that deeply concerns me about this conversation is that people think it's an obligation rather than the only thing that we can do to keep rock and metal alive.

In my opinion, otherwise, it's gonna die. We cannot rely passively on Architects and Bring Me the Horizon to prop up the industry. We need more diverse voices. I'm sorry, but it's not gonna happen. We need people of colour. We need women, we need queer people.

We need to expand our audience beyond the same pool because the gene, the audience for metal and rock is shrinking it seems to me, rather than expanding and they're not, not necessarily my favourite band, but Sleep Token has massively because they've completely come round the other way.

They're not diverse in terms of representation, but they are diverse in terms of genre and they understand contemporary use of social media and that sort of thing. They have exploded the whole thing again. And to me that is a really telly turnstile. It's a fabulous example.

Soul Blow, Zulu. All these bands, to me, are extremely indicative examples of how you expand beyond the typical barriers and do what new metal did. The reason why new metal was so popular, even though a lot of the music was horrendous, was because it managed to have a level of mainstream appeal.

It had an understanding of brand, of aesthetic, of star power, whatever else. And to me, nurturing different voices is how we crack that. Code, bringing people in who are, oh, they've got a whole new perspective on this metal thing. Wow, that's actually interesting and cool and the art is enriched by them being here, so that, sorry to go and get on my soap box about it, but I'm just like, I feel like I hear so much blase communication about diversity from exhausted people who just don't really know what, why, like what's the long view of this, of this work?

See, it's interesting, isn't it? Because the whole metal thing? Metal's got such a white man over 60 vibe to it, right? So for sure Maiden go, Priest, go. That's it. You've lost a whole market. When Metallica go, jeez, that's massive. And then when Slipknot gets too old to do it, what the hell are we gonna do? I mean, seriously, in 20 years, where the hell are we gonna be? So, yeah, we've gotta think long-term. What we were talking about earlier about breaking down genres and putting a pop ballad at the end of your album is where it needs to go.

N: I have, I'd say yes. Obviously you meant maybe that's how download will look in 10 years, who knows?

S: I know exactly. I welcome that. To be honest, I mean what excited me most… This year I was looking at the Outbreak Fest line-up. Do Outbreak Fest?I was like, this is how we crack the code and it's not reinventing the wheel like Outbreak for people listening who dunno is a very well-respected UK proper, hardcore festival. It's full-on stage diving, a lot of really traditional, hardcore, straight down the line and they booked a lot of those bands and that's amazing.

For example Jesus pieces who also have diverse representation and Zulu and all those other cool bands, Code Orange, etc. And they booked a load of really heavy hip hop acts. So I think it was like JPEGMAFIA, Death Grips, Earl Sweatshirt, and I looked at that and I was like, yes, exactly.

That is how we respond to the changing of the tide is by I. Following the… where things are clearly going and breaking down our own genre barriers within our festivals and being like, these are all we know that, so I, for example, of course I listen to Death Grips and of course I listen to Earl Sweatshirt just as much as I listen to Code Orange.

Because that's just what we do these days. That's just what it is. So, I saw that line up and I was like, annoyingly, I couldn't go, but I was desperate to get a ticket. because I was like, yes, this is the exact intersection of all my interests. And when I listened to Playboi Carti even, I'm like, this is really heavy hip-hop music. There's no reason why this wouldn't fit on a metal festival bill. The only people who really get annoyed about it, unfortunately, the other bloody metal fans are the ones who really seem to be standing in the way of. Some of them really, I have to be clear, not all of them, the very old-school, white male contingent who really just think metal is one thing.

Always has been, which obviously is fucking bollocks if you have any even cursory knowledge of metal. It's never just been bullet belts and long hair. It's always been radically reinventing itself. But these people seem to ignore that… For me, risk-taking is the fundamental answer to all of it.

Take risks, book hip hop. I wanna see. Time with the creator on a diamond ladder. Honestly, I do I'm like, why not? Why the fuck not everyone who goes there likes him? Why wouldn't they go? If you like Bring Me The Horizon, you absolutely like time with the creator. I'm sorry, just do it. Just take a punt. I'm not saying for the whole weekend. Just try it for one of the days so that you can prop up your sales and subsidise the young metal bands. To me that's just how this has gotta go. I don't, again, I'm just ranting.

N: No. I think you've hit the nail on the head.

S: Yeah. Outbreak killed it. I mean, Denzel Curry was there as well. Oh my God, incredible. I'm a bit of a hip hop enthusiast as well, so I've been to my fair share of hip hop gigs and yeah, just like loads of hardcore fans.

There's people jumping around, there's broken noses, there's people picking. It's the same shit. When I watch videos from Rolling Loud , I'm like, this is way more exciting. These guys are way more excited than the download crowd, they are going absolutely fucking bananas.

They're moshing like we used to in the nineties for like Limp Bizkit the crowds, the mosh pit, and they love the mosh pits. They're like, oh, mosh pit cam, and all this stuff. And I'm like, why aren’t we? Not in a bad way, but I'm like… I really feel like it’s the hip-hop fans who are going nuts in the crowds these days. And they love that culture of crowd participation that used to belong to us. It's very telling for me. Of course these worlds can intersect.

N: Yeah, a hundred percent. You've given me so much to think about. Thank you so much, it's been great talking.

S: Pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Outro

N: Thank you for listening to We Are The Weirdos, Aunty-Ji; a podcast by WEIRDO Zine & Collective. WEIRDO is a volunteer-run project that was created to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives and contributions of South Asian people in alternative subcultures across the diaspora and Indian subcontinent.

If you want to find out more about us, join our collective or support our work. Visit our website weirdozine.com and follow us on Instagram @weirdo.zine

Follow Sam on Instagram

Follow Ithaca on Instagram

Intro

Zee:  Hi, welcome to ‘We Are The Weirdos, Aunty-ji’, a podcast by WEIRDO Zine and Collective. My name is Zee Ahmed, and I'm a writer for WEIRDO’s website covering all things punk, music and culture. WEIRDO exists to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives and contributions of South Asian people in alternative subcultures around the world. We do this through our print zine, articles on our website, events and sharing people's stories on this podcast. In each episode of We Are The Weirdos, Aunty-ji, we interview a South Asian creative to find out about their journey in the alternative scene and their career to date. So today's guest is Urvah Khan. Urvah is a Canadian Pakistani musician based out of Toronto, Canada. With over 14 years as an independent artist, Urvah has gained a global following through her captivating online performances and live shows. Her unique story and music have reached millions, earning recognition from prestigious outlets like the BBC, CBC, VICE, and SportsCenter LA. She's known for her fierce onstage presence and has independently toured and mesmerised audiences in Toronto, Baltimore, Los Angeles, the UK and Pakistan since 2009.

Interview

Welcome to the podcast, Urvah. How are you doing today?

Urvah: I am doing great. Thank you so much for having me.

Zee: Of course, thank you for being part of it. So just to dive right in, I'm curious to know - you were born in Karachi, Pakistan, and arrived in Canada with your family as a teenager. So what was that like, and did you always show signs of being a music kid or a music baby?

Urvah: So I was born in Pakistan. I was there for a very short while before my family - we moved to Abu Dhabi. So I was pretty much in Abu Dhabi before I moved to Canada. Um, my parents did encourage us kids to like, go into speech meets and stuff like that, but never music. Most brown parents don't put that on the table as an option. So that being said, music was something that found me in my early 20s and it's been a beautiful journey since then.

Zee: And when you moved to Canada, what was it like growing up as a South Asian person in the Canadian music scene in, I'm assuming, the 2000s?

Urvah: Moving to Canada from the East was very difficult. There's this cultural clash that you're not prepared for, especially families, right? So, obviously that was something that was very difficult to deal with. But I feel like stuff like that is what gave me ammo in the future, write about, rap about, and as far as the music industry is concerned, it's been a tough journey for me because I started my career as a rapper. And very quickly, I got really into rock music. I fell in love with live instruments and I felt at the start, I wouldn't get bookings because all the rap venues will be like, Oh, your guitars are too loud. And the rock venues will be like, yeah, but you're not rock because you're rapping. So as a South Asian woman, I wasn't fitting anywhere.

Zee: Right.

So I just decided to not try and fit in just create my own sound and truly make music for myself and people who were like me because like growing up I never heard brown women rapping or making rock music I wasn't even into rock music growing up because I thought it was for white kids, I grew up listening to Bollywood stuff like A.R. Rahman, like the 90s and like Battery Boy, Spice Girls, very basic in the Western way, but like very into A.R. Rahman He's a musical genius. I love his work. So, that being said, once I moved to Canada and started rapping, I was able to understand rock music on a deeper level than I had the impression of. So once I was around a live band and I heard their energy, I was like, I wanted that. So I started studying rock music and I started studying about how liberating it is and how every time in history, there was a group of people, a bunch of kids who had something to say, rock and roll was used to bring about revolution. So I'm game for that. You know let's make some rock music, some rap music brown girls like me would want to listen to. It's been fun having full control over your creativity and being able to do what you want to and not worrying about what people think or what sells. So I'm privileged in that manner, that I've had that since the start of my career and I'm very blessed for that.

Zee: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned A.R. Rahman, which a lot of South Asian kids can probably relate to in terms of the first musical influences they've had, but can you tell me a bit more about some of your rock influences in your early days in Canada?

Urvah: So I didn't listen to rock music when I first got to Canada. So when I became a rapper, about 14 years ago in 2009, it was my first gig. So once I met this band, I was like, okay, I want this. I want this live sound, this live energy. And I want to make rock music. And my band members at that point were like, you can't just get up and become a rocker. You gotta understand rock. It's like a culture. You gotta study it. So I remember back then HMV was a big thing. I walked into a store and decided to get a CD and the first CD I laid my eyes on was this black and red cover of Black Sabbath. It was just a compilation of the various hits, but I just loved the black and red. At that point, I remember picking up the CD and going like, oh, these guys probably scream a lot. I'm not going to understand what they're saying. And I took it home and like, I put it on and the first song I heard was N. I. B., Nativity in Black. So once I had been around Western culture and this time around when I listened to Black Sabbath and I heard Nativity in Black, you should check it out. It's an awesome song. I was able to hear the air of Rahman in it. I was able to hear the cinematic aspect of it, the Bollywood, the drama and like, the lyrics and it was, it was beautiful. It was theatrical and it's like something had opened up within me. And that was the start to like me just researching more rock bands. So my earliest influence was definitely Black Sabbath. I love Tony Iommi, the guitarist from Black Sabbath. I worship the ground he walks on. He's like the best. So after Black Sabbath, obviously I got more into Beatles, Rolling Stones. I really loved the Beatles. As a rapper who learned to sing, I learned to songwrite from the Beatles. And just studying their history about Harrison, going back to India, working with Ravi Shankar. And it was just a goldmine for me to explore because there was so much, right? And even till today, there's so much I don't know, right? So that's the beauty of coming from two different cultures. You always have a lot of material to explore and take inspiration from. And then, apart from that, I don't listen to super modern music. I think the 90s is where it ends for me.

So, I was really into Nirvana, System of a Down, mostly bands from the 60s and 70s - The Doors, Beatles. As a student of rock and roll, studying all these bands, reading their stories, seeing their journeys, really inspired me. And I think the more I studied these legendary acts, I always found that like, all of them had trouble paths and all of them were looking for an outlet and everyone's trying to prove something. And no matter how much an artist says they do like it when they get accepted. And it was just very cool to see how people have dealt with their lives, dealt with what they went through and are able to put into music that people can relate to. And I guess that is the biggest thing I've learned from rock bands.

Zee: No, absolutely. And when you were a teenager discovering all of this, did you find yourself doing it on your own? Did you find yourself as part of a group of people that We're also doing similar things, or is it very much an individual journey that you went through?

Urvah: Yeah, no, I'm kind of a loner. It's been a solo journey. You feel me? But it's good though, as I said, like, I like it that way. I just have so much to say. Obviously, I have friends in the music industry now and stuff, but like, I started from scratch. Like, I legit started from scratch. I remember I used to do open mics like three, four days a week and just post pictures and people would think they were my shows, but they're just open mics. And I just kept hitting those open mics week after week after week. And that's how I think I've perfected my live performance and I'm able to give it so much energy because there's just so many hours of practice that's gone into it to a point where if I had a show tomorrow, I don't think my band and I even have to rehearse. We can just go on stage and we have our set with a lot of dedication, a lot of hard work and time flies though, I've been a musician for 14 years and I look back, I'm like, where did the last 14 years go?

Zee: No, absolutely. And you've managed to establish yourself in the scene as well. But let's go back to like your first open mic. How were you feeling? If you can remember, were you nervous?

Urvah: Yeah. So my first open mic, my first gig, the first time I stepped on stage was not an open mic. I had worked on this song with a rapper and it was his show and I hadn't even stepped into a studio. So I was just coming on as a feature artist. It was on October 18, 2009, and I had never held a mic before. I had never been in front of an audience. And I remember I went on stage and I cuffed the mic. So my sound sounded like this cause I'd cuffed the mic cause I didn't know how to hold a mic. And then the lights were so bright that I kept looking down. So I was rapping like this because the lights were just so bright. I didn't understand what to do. But I was going hardcore with my rap so just like look lame. It didn't make sense what was going on.

Zee: Right.

Urvah: Because it just looked like it looked amateur. So anyways, after that, the person who booked the main rapper ended up still offering me a gig for a real gig. And at that point, I was just like, what should I do? So I went on YouTube and I looked up Eminem's performances and I would see how he would hold the mic, his swag on stage. And then I'll play his songs and pretend to be him. Like legit, like whatever he would say, and I would see how he would look into the audience, no matter how bright the light is. So now I know that like, when you're on stage, the lights are bright, people are just shadows, but you gotta still look out there. So those are things that I learned from just watching other artists perform, and I would legit just go on YouTube and be like, Live performance skills. And you'll see artists talking about live performance skills, and That's how I got better. So my second show was way better than the first one.

Zee: Oh, that's really interesting. So completely self-made and self-learned.

Urvah: Yeah

Zee: And I know that a lot of your narrative is about reconciling your Muslim traditions with Western culture. Reading up on you, I see that you have your hybrid form of rock that you call Scrap. So can you tell us a bit more about that?

Urvah: As much as I study rock and roll, right? Rock and roll comes in waves. And for the longest time, I believe rock is dead, especially in the West. And it's because we have our freedom. We can do whatever we want to do. So there's not much to say here. So in a way, rock and roll died. For me, post-grunge is where it ended, and I wanted to create the next wave of rock that belonged to brown kids, Middle Eastern kids, kids who come from where I come from. So I basically wanted to make a new wave of rock, and before I used to call my music Rock Meets World, and then a music exec told me that if you wanted to create something new, it can't be something that exists, it has to be something that never existed. And I felt because rock is dead, but everything is done, there's nothing you can do that hasn't been done. I, we're just picking up the scraps of what was left behind. And that's what my music is. It uses rock and everything rock stands for as his base, but it also has a lot of salvation influence. And it also has a lot of so called calypso rap, just various elements to it, and that's what scrap rock is.

Zee: That's a really interesting story about how you came up with the name and when you told your music exec, or people around you, how did they receive that. Did they think it was a great idea? Did they think, oh my god, no!

Urvah: No, at first people were like, oh, scrap, that sounds crap. But I'm like, but that's all that's left out there, so let's just add to it. Scrap can be crap, I really don't mind? I think sometimes in life, when ideas come to you, when things speak to you, you should just go for it. I genuinely believe that great ideas come to us, and then if we don't listen to them or we silence them, then that voice will get smaller and smaller. So I'm really good at listening to any idea that comes to me, I'll just act on it. That voice is so loud for me. So yeah, I wasn't gonna back down once I came up with that. I'm like, everything happens for a reason. And yeah, it's becoming a brand at this point, with Scrap Rock evolving into Scrap Fest. As a festival that features more weirdos and ‘queerdos’ like me.

Zee: I think we've spoken so far about your journey into becoming a musician in Canada. And I think quite recently, or maybe in 2016, I don't know if we can call that recent anymore, you went back to Pakistan as well, a little more established as a musician. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Urvah: Yeah, so I started making music in 2009 and in 2013 I felt I needed to evolve and I needed to learn and I didn't want to take Western vocal lessons because I don't want to be like everyone. So I started taking classical Indian vocal lessons, completely different from what I was doing at that point. I could barely speak in Urdu. I just shut out that part of me for so long, I would not speak in Urdu, didn't really hang around with many Pakistani people. I wanted to be me apart from what I was born as, I wanted to find myself outside of that. But in 2013 as I wanted to grow, I knew that I had to, this would set me apart, taking these vocal lessons and hopefully it will help me grow as a musician because classical Indian music is very, very difficult. And even if I suck at it, I'll be better than where I was when I was, where I started so that was my thinking that this would just toughen me up. So I took those lessons for about three years and it really ignited the passion within my heart to go back to Pakistan and revisit everything I ran away from. I really, once I was in Canada and I had my own life. I didn't want to be a Pakistani. I didn't want to be a Muslim. I didn't want to be these things that were assigned to me at birth. I just wanted to find myself outside of those boxes. And then years later, taking these classical Indian vocal lessons, I'm just like, did I make a mistake? Or is there something I left behind? Or maybe I should go back and see where I come from. Maybe it will clarify. Like I was trying to find myself at that point. I was still on the journey of finding myself. So I went to Pakistan in 2016 and quickly discovered that there were no women doing what I was doing. So I'm like, wow, God. So you created me - you created me to come here and disturb some serious shit. I was there for three weeks and then I decided to come back to Canada, work hard, save money for like six, seven months. And then I moved to Pakistan for four months and it was crazy. Like it was very, it was really, really hard. Cause I like, bit more than I could chew off, like mentally, emotionally, I wasn't like that strong. And since then, every time I've gone to Pakistan, things that I go through just make me stronger and stronger and stronger. So yeah, when I returned for six months in 2016 and lived out there, I networked within the independent community. I put up a lineup of Pakistani musicians who performed with me, and in January of 2017, I did my debut performance independently. In Karachi and after that I returned back to Canada and then just like I felt lost because now I've had a taste of that and then I'm in Canada living my real life and then I decided that, I had such a tough time getting a venue. I had such a tough time finding collaborators. The independent industry was just like, driven by rich boys and like, it was just very difficult for me to get my step in or do anything, even as a foreigner so then I decided that what if I created a platform called craft fest and actually that was one of the things that I wanted to create a platform for Pakistan. And while I was in Pakistan, I ran into a couple of trans women once when I was in a rickshaw, and I didn't know they're trans, and they're like begging for money, and I was like, I'm not gonna give you money, but I'm gonna go eat food with my cousin there, but - so you guys can come over. So there were two of them, and six of them showed up. And then I'm asking them, why are you begging? Because you're so pretty, you could be like a model or an actress. And they're like, we're transgender. And I'm like, and? And they're like, oh. So we can't work. We're only allowed to beg and prostitute. Because there's no financial infrastructure in place to support the trans community.

And for my Canadian brain, it was like, what do you mean? You're being forced to beg and prostitute. I couldn't believe that human beings would do that to human beings. So at that point, there was this really, in my heart to do something for them. And I felt like as a musician, the only thing I could do was create a platform. And after having faced the difficulty that I faced getting my, my step into the industry, I decided that I want to make a festival called Scrap Fest, where I would have trans women as my headliners. So they will be given the same respect other musicians get. So I was creating a scene that didn't exist, which would bring together queer, trans minorities. And just have an event that just featured all the minorities, but was headlined by the women who were not allowed to work and have education and have basic rights. I was going to prioritise them. And yeah, in 2018, I went back to Pakistan. My dream failed. Everybody thought I was crazy. Everybody's like, yo, your venue's going to be set on fire.

And then everybody just backed off. They're like, this girl is crazy. Like, we're all going to die because of her. And then I was very depressed, came back to Canada and I'm like, ah, I can't believe I couldn't do it. So in 2019, I decided to launch Scrapfest in Canada, in Mississauga. And there were just three artists, myself, a drag queen, and another artist. And that was the launch of Scrapfest. And then COVID happened. And then in 2021, I decided to go back to Pakistan again and give it a try. And this time I was able to launch Scrapfest. And I did two events, successfully underground. And which led us to our first public event, like a festival type event that was supposed to happen at a park in Pakistan this year on February 4th. But a couple of days before the event was supposed to happen, a provincial high court revoked my permits and in a way put a ban on my event. And it was straight out because they're transphobic. They convinced them that in Pakistan they would like Make money rain on these women but I was giving that same money to them in an envelope with respect and They are okay with me doing it behind closed doors. They just don't want that to be public which is the hypocrisy of it you feel me? So I feel like scrap fest has been very controversial But I think it's good this practice is also a platform where people can have a conversation and I'm going back to Pakistan in two weeks and we're gonna try and pull another event and we're gonna keep at it and yeah, that's the story of Scrapfest.

Zee: Yeah, congratulations on making the attempt to do so, because I know there's a lot of legal implications, a lot of societal ones that can stand against you, and you're really fighting the odds there. You find that a lot with mixed culture kids who live abroad or have moved abroad from the South Asian subcontinent trying to bring back that freedom, or that taste of freedom back to their culture. And it's interesting to see that you're still pushing on, so that's great. And I really hope that it continues to go in a positive direction. And I think the more you push on, you'll have more people sign up or be a part of it.

Urvah: Yeah, exactly. I remember from the first time I thought of this idea was in 2017. And where the events are, the folks that are involved. All my friends - trans activists, politicians, and it's just, it's an awesome journey. I've definitely made a lot of good friends on the way, and it feels good because I'm no longer doing it alone. I believe that.

Zee: You also were actively participating or introduced Muslim Pride in Toronto. Do you want to tell our listeners about that?

Urvah: Yeah, definitely. In 2020, I decided, came up with this idea of Muslim Pride. I'm like, hey, this really doesn't exist. I mean, it exists, like, what is Muslim Pride technically, right? Muslims have been advocating for their rights within the queer and trans community for a very long time. So like this Muslim pride is definitely not the first because there's been a lot of things that can be categorised as Muslim pride, but were never advertised as right. So what I wanted to do once again, as a musician, as an artist was to create a platform that would prioritise. And showcase queer and trans Muslims artists to show that we exist so in 2020, I sat down with the Islamic studies department at the university of Toronto and they co-funded this event with me. It was an online event because it was mid-COVID. So it made it easier for me to search and feature international artists. We had, I think about like 12 or 13 artists from drag kings, drag queens, poets, musicians. So it was pretty cool. It was a nice way to build this online community of a bunch of queer trans Muslim folks who came together. In 2021, we expanded Muslim Pride to make it a three day festival, and had more departments, more artists. I think we ended up featuring about 24 queer and trans Muslim artists from all over the world. 2022, it became very difficult for me to handle it because I'd just come back from doing ScrapFest and [inaudible] in 2021.

So we decided to take a break for a year because I think we were at the spot where we needed to go live. And I just had so much going on and it just is a huge step to take Muslim pride live and because of all the controversy around scrap as in Pakistan, there's just like a lot of fear 2022. I decided to take a break. So in 2023 this year, we decided to go live and it was awesome. It was, we got together about like. 16 or 18 queer and trans Muslim artists from Toronto, and we had a great night, a fun burlesque, drag, musicians, spoken word artists, singers, it was something very beautiful, and for everyone who was there, they felt it. It's like we had Muslims of all colours, shapes, and sizes, and everyone was in that room. And when people first came in, I remember being backstage and looking out, people looked so scared. Like nobody knew what to expect, right? Like some people were thinking it was going to be a dance party. Some people are thinking, okay, this is going to be performances. So, it was really nice, we finally got to go live with Muslim Pride and then we hope to do more events with Muslim Pride. We're expanding into Montreal next year, so we'll definitely have an event at Montreal Pride next year as well. So yeah, it's just one of those things, sometimes you just gotta, as I said, you gotta listen to every little idea that comes to your heart, right? Because if you try, it just might come true.

Zee: Oh, absolutely, and I'm really curious to know how you feel when you're like, Looking at this take place, or when you're looking at these people on stage, that you've curated these artists to come together and just celebrate. each other and identity and freedom. How are you feeling about this?

Urvah: , it's very difficult for me to feel anything while everything's going on because there's just so much pressure and there's just so many things going on. So I'm also like, I'm the artist, so I'll perform, but I'm also the organiser and like I'm a part of like running stuff the day of the event. I'm a part of the marketing. There's a lot of things I'm part of. So like a lot of times I'm just like in autopilot, just getting stuff done. And then, for me, the main goal is I want to treat my artists the way I wasn't treated. So I don't think about how I feel. I make sure that my artists feel good. I make sure they're fed. I make sure they're paid. I make sure they're happy. Because I had complaints as an artist being in Toronto, and the complaints that I had as an artist, I want to make sure that I, as an organiser, make sure my artists don't feel that. So, for me, respecting my artists is important. When my artist is happy, when the audience is happy, then I'm happy. But like when stuff like that, like Scrapfest in Pakistan, when the permits got revoked and stuff. It was a very uncomfortable moment for me. It became like chaos and there was a security - there were security threats on my friends, myself. It was because we still decided to go through with the event. We filmed it and we put it online for everyone to watch. So basically we're. Gone, secret, and hiding, and had to just do all this crazy stuff that now when I look back, like, it was just very scary. So at those times, you're just, like, scared, and you're, I guess what you're more scared about is if something happens to someone, it's all my fault. You feel me? If somebody dies, or something happens, and like if somebody does anything, then it's my fault. And that is very difficult. That is something new that I've been exposed to since this year. And something that's very difficult. But like, I'm trying to come to terms with it. That it is a political thing that I'm doing in Pakistan. And I just gotta protect myself. And roll with the punches. So I'm not gonna struggle to find happiness. In doing what I'm doing in Pakistan. Cause half the time I'm scared. But I still do what I'm supposed to do. Cause I tell myself, it's okay if you're scared Urvah. But just do what you have to do.

A lot of time people are like, Oh, you're so strong. You're so brave. And I'm like, no, I'm actually really weak and really scared. But the difference between me and a weaker person is even though I'm scared, I'm going to do it. So yeah, in Pakistan, there's a lot of things on my mind, but this year with Muslim Pride, I was really happy because everyone was happy. And it was a nice change from what I went through in Pakistan. It was the complete opposite. So it was nice. It was a boost that I needed. So I was like, praise God. Thank you for protecting us.

Zee: Yeah, with the political aspects of what you've mentioned, you are essentially using music as a form of activism or to create change. Do you think that you look up to other artists that do that as well? Or do you think there needs to be more of that?

Urvah: I think there are a lot of artists who share their story, right? For me, as I said, like I, my goal isn't to be political. My goal is to share my story. And I want to, as an organiser, as a musician, I want to create a scene where people are treated the way I want to be treated as an artist. And where organisers are giving equal opportunity to folk people from minority groups. That is something that needs to be done. We have to prioritise people who haven't been treated right. They have to be put on the top of the ladder. That's what I keep my focus on when I'm doing what I'm doing.

Zee: I feel like we've spoken a lot about what's visible to audiences or the outside about your music and your brand. but I'm curious to also know about your creative process and how you make a song, and I know you recently opened for Bif Naked. Tell us about how you felt then and how Canadian Music Week was for you.

Urvah: Yeah, so Bif Naked, that's awesome because I remember seeing Biff Naked on TV like 20 years ago. And Bif Naked is Canadian. She's a white woman who was born in India. And she was adopted and brought over to Canada. So she has this connection to the South Asian community. And, it's crazy when you see someone on TV. And I remember watching her on TV and I was disappointed that she didn't have any tablas or any brown people instruments because I'm like, but then my head I remember watching on tv and going like If there's a white-Indian girl making rock music a brown rocker chick is around the corner and then it was crazy when she got in touch with me because she's like, yeah, that's you You're that brown rocker chick so it was just very mind blowing and she was very humble and she's so kind and honestly, after being a musician for so long, it's so validating to have a rock icon, tell you that you're so important and the work you're doing is so important and for someone to finally understand you, I've never had the privileges that a lot of Western bands have, such as going on big tours or having a committed band, I have always been independent and like always has session players and it's my business. It's my brand. I'm running it and it's shocking like there are no sponsors. There are no brand names and it was really nice to just be appreciated by someone who I saw on TV, someone who is a rocker chick. Someone who I did look up to and wow, like that, that girl's cool, just the story is cool. She's Indian, so my creative process is pretty much, I write a lot of songs. I feel a lot of things. And the exact technical process is I write my melodies and my lyrics first. That is the first thing that's ever written: the wording and the melody. And then I sit with my guitarist. We come up with a guitar course structure and then we get a whole band in. So the basics is obviously the songwriting first, some artists sit with their band and create the whole song together. I like to just be by myself so I can feel what I'm trying to write about. So I usually draw inspiration from things I've been through. I'll start a song thinking about a feeling someone made me feel and like the same feeling how someone else made me feel. And then take that feeling and be like, how can I put it in a manner where someone else can relate to that feeling? I wrote a lot of songs about wanting to be free and just my journey and stuff. And that's something I'm good at expressing myself. And because I go to Pakistan and I go through so much, I always have content, I'm never going to run out of things to say. I think. Writing is so important. That is the first step in anything. Even when I decide to make a festival, anything I do, the first thing I do is put my pen to my pad. You gotta put it on paper. You gotta make it real. So, as a musician, I know a lot of people write songs on their phone and stuff. I record humming on my phone, but I have all my songs on paper. All of them, my whole career. And, yeah. It gives you something to go back to and complete a whole song. And yeah, it's a fun process.

Zee: Yes, and you've been doing this for 14 years. Has there been any point where you found it challenging creatively to go on? Or have you felt this creative drop for a certain period, maybe during COVID?

Urvah: I worked with my ex-guitarist for about 11 years, and I recently stopped working with him mid COVID, and I've been working with a new guitarist. It was a very difficult Relationship being a woman in the music industry is not easy. I would say my creativity was being hindered as a musician. Working with someone for so long and it's someone that you look up to as somebody that you've learned from is difficult for them to understand when you need your own space and there can be too many chefs in the kitchen at the same time.

Zee: Right.

Urvah: So, yeah, there was a time period in my life where I really struggled with my ex-guitarist and really struggled and it was very difficult to finally make the decision to leave him because I started my rock career with him. It was the first guitarist I ever worked with. He taught me to sing. He taught me so much cool stuff about rock and roll. But at the end of the day, I had to make a decision that was good for me and I had to be respected in the manner that I wanted to be respected. And the truth is, being a brown woman in a male dominated industry, especially a white male dominated industry, is not easy. And I had to fight for myself, and I had to love myself and tell myself that I was someone without him, that he was a part of my story, not the whole story, against what he believes and once I broke ways with him, I went through a hard time because I thought I was a shitty singer. I thought that I was just a half-ass rapper. There's all these things that he has said that were sitting within me. And I remember when I started working with my new guitarist and I wanted to sing a song and I was like, I couldn't even write because I was so depressed and so broken. I was broken over the years. And I remember I told him that I wanted to cover ‘I Will Survive’ and the first time I got into the studio to sing with him, I couldn't. And when I did sing and he sent me my vocals back, I'm like, Hey, you did a good job at like, there's this technique in audio production called Melodyning and doesn't change your voice. It just, if you hit a bad note, it can fix that one note or like whatever you want. It's not like autotune. Autotune is just too much, but a production tool that producers and mixers and people who master music would have used a lot would be Melodyne. So I'm like, Hey, you did a good job in Melodyning all my vocals. And he's like, I didn't, those are your raw vocals. And I could not believe that my ex-guitarist had lied to me and told me that I was a bad singer and he was Melodyning all my vocals. And I think at that point, that is what I needed. I needed that one song without him to just prove to myself that I was someone without him. So as a musician, there are a lot of behind the scenes that people never see, right? Especially with musicians who've been around for so long. You have relationships with people, not romantic, but you have relationships and they get difficult and at times. You gotta protect what's yours and you got to protect what you want to do and you got to stand up for yourself and it's difficult, it's difficult when you have to stand up to the person who thought you most of what you know, but a lot of women do stand up for themselves. And then,we have to deal with all the shaming and blah blah. But, I think I did good. Cause here I am, working on my seventh album.

Zee: Absolutely. We've spoken so much about how you established yourself as a musician, your journey, your activism, how you're now regaining your identity without your old guitarist, so it's been really interesting and yeah, coming to your seventh album, how is that going?

Urvah: It is going awesome. Honestly, the past 3 years with my new guitarist, my drummer's been working with me for about 10 years. I got a new bassist. He's half Scottish, half Pakistani, so I love him. He gets my sound and my team is so awesome. They're not toxic at all. They're so awesome. Everyone respects me. We respect one another. I've been sober for 17 months, by the way, so that has also helped the dynamics of my music career. Like, my last album introduces my journey to Pakistan because I took a big break between 2015 and 2020, just exploring Pakistan, and I didn't put out any music, so I put out an album in 2020, and then I put out this album in 2023, this year. So these songs, because I'm always working on songs, people always hear what I'm going through two years later. So the last album that came out this year actually captures the past few years, right? So this album I'm working on has more current stuff, the journey that is happening in Pakistan right now and things I've been through recently. So yeah, it's exciting. I am really happy. I'm living my best life. And it's so awesome to just take those steps. At times people like we don't take steps because we're so comfortable in a misery and we're just like oh what happens if we leave what happened blah blah but honestly just going for it and going for your happiness is so important because you gotta you gotta keep it positive For it to be sustainable for you to want to keep it alive forever. Especially if you're an independent artist, if there's people throwing money, there's millions of dollars being invested into you, you have time to be depressed but when you're independent, you just gotta keep going and yeah. I'm living my best life. I'm so happy.

Zee: That's so good to know. And just for context for some of our listeners - Urvah released her sixth album, YYZ to KHI, earlier this year and based on what you just said, it covers your journey back to Pakistan and your experiences there. So definitely go and have a listen. It's been really great talking to you today, Urvah. And as a parting question, I'd just like to ask you if you have any advice for anybody looking to become big in the music scene in Pakistan or in Canada or just worldwide, especially if it's a brown kid somewhere trying to make it big, do you have advice for them?

Urvah: Yeah, my advice would be don't be afraid to put out something and suck. When I first started making music, I used to put myself on Myspace and I still have those songs and you could hear the fire, you could hear someone who's passionate, but those are not professional songs. But I needed those and I made my first demo, which was like five songs, which I just took beats from the internet, from YouTube, just beats. And I rapped on them and I made five songs, just the beat and my vocals, took it to real producers, got with the team, and built a team around me. And don't be afraid to fail. I have failed so many times in my life, even with Scrapfest in a way of success, but it's also a big setback, right? So don't be afraid to fail. Just go out there and do you. You'll only get better. So just don't be afraid to take the first step and just whenever you have an idea or you have that little voice at the back of your head telling you to do something, listen to it. Because that voice will get louder when you listen to it. If you don't listen to it, it'll just quiet down. And the more you listen to that voice, the more you will practise doing what you're meant to do. Because the universe is speaking to you. So just listen to that voice and don't be realistic. Be crazy. And go out there and do stuff, even if you fail, it doesn't matter. You're writing your legacy and the more you write, the more there'll be to read.

Zee: Thank you. I think that will really help some of our listeners to gain the confidence to start out if that's what's stopping them. Thank you so much for chatting about all your experiences and your journey. It's really incredible and thank you for being on our podcast and before we end though if there's anything I missed out, or if there's anything you'd like to drop in, please feel free to do so.

Urvah: I guess if there's something I could say, it would be - the world is a very difficult place for trans-folks at the moment. They're definitely being targeted and anyone who's listening should connect with local organisations that they can support and support trans rights in any way that's possible. Because we're all human beings and at the end of the day, our gender, our identities, these are not things that we should be judged upon or be treated differently. There's power in conversation. There's power in numbers. So we need to continue the conversation. So just go out there, talk to more people, connect with white folks, and support trans artists as much as possible.

Outro

Zee: Thank you for listening to ‘We are the Weirdos, Aunty-ji’, a podcast by WEIRDO Zine and Collective. WEIRDO is a volunteer-run project that was created to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives and contributions of South Asian people in alternative subcultures across the diaspora and Indian subcontinent.

If you want to find out more about us, join our collective or support our work, visit our website weirdozine.com, or follow us on Instagram @weirdo.zine.

Read Zee’s article about Urvah (coming soon)

Follow Urvah on Instagram

Follow ScrapFest on Instagram

Intro

Neil:  Hello and welcome to We Are The Weirdos Aunty-Ji, a podcast by WEIRDO Zine & Collective. My name is Neil and I'm the editor of this podcast and occasionally the host. WEIRDO exists to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives and contributions of south Asian people in the alternative subcultures around the world.

We do this through our print zine, articles on our website, events and sharing stories via this podcast. In each episode of We Are The Weirdos Aunty-Ji, we interview a South Asian creative to find out about their journey in the alternative scene and their career to date.

Today's guest is Som Wardner, the lead vocalist and guitarist of alt rockers MyVitriol who released their seminal debut album, Fine Lines, in 2001 to huge critical acclaim. From the success of Fine Lines, the band soon found themselves achieving prominent live spots at festivals such as Glastonbury, V Festival, Reading and Leeds as well as appearances on Top of the Pops. As a testament to their skills, they counted fans amongst peers, established artists and heroes alike, landing support slots with many of them; Butch Vig and Shirley Manson from Garbage, Chino Moreno from Deftones, Placebo, A Perfect Circle, Vida, Ash, to name a few.

Unexpectedly, at the end of 2002, after three years of solid touring, Som announced their hiatus and just like that, they were gone. However, in 2016, after a long break, they returned with The Secret Sessions, a self released album of new material. Despite not being a fully promoted official second album, many fans still referred to the collection as another masterpiece.

This recording took place in April of 2023, right after touring the UK with 100 Reasons and Hell Is For Heroes. Som discussed its successes with My Vitriol as well as his experiences in writing and recording Fine Lines and the early days of the band. So without further ado, here's the WEIRDO interview with Som Wardner.

Interview

Neil: Welcome to the podcast, Som. Thanks for coming on!

Som: Thanks for having me.

N: I caught you recently on your tour with Heads for Heroes and 100 Reasons. How did that all go?

S: It was great. We jumped on that tour right at the last minute because it had been on sale since 2021. We talked about playing with those guys multiple times because we come from similar time periods with British rock music.

We've been friends for ages. And they went, “we're going out on tour” and then it was, should we jump on the tour right at the last minute? And we were like “yeah, why not? It'll be fun”. And it was, it was great. I mean we had to go on early because being the last edition - much much later, I think we were announced three months before.. or maybe even less, I don't know, before the tour started, so we had to go on pretty early. And people were getting frustrated. A lot of fans arrived early to see us, but the queues were so big around the block that it took so long for people to get in. Some people missed the first couple of songs but it was great.

N: Yeah. you guys came at about 7:30 in Birmingham. It was bonkers. I literally walked in and you guys were on!

S: Yeah stage time was 7:20, sometimes we knocked it back to 7:30. What was interesting is that after every show, people were telling me that they were moved to tears, which is really interesting, because music was such an emotional thing for me as well. And as a teenager and stuff, getting so moved by music is what inspired me to want to try and create music that would hopefully have the same emotional impact on people. And then, I don't tend to look into the audience, because it can put me off a little bit.

We hadn't played a show since… I think we did Japan in 2019. So, it'd been a long time, so I didn't want to get thrown off. I knew how rusty we were probably gonna be but after every show, when we met people and they said they were moved to tears. I think it was in Birmingham, one gentleman was 39 years of age and he was with his son who was 17 and then he said he was moved to tears I said, oh which song and then he said “well pretty much all of them” and then his son was yeah… it was pretty blubbering all the way through that kind of thing and that was quite touching and I felt really wow, this is amazing. I'm making grown men cry and I don't even wear a bikini to do it.

N: That’s a sight to see. I don’t want to come off too much like a fan, I'm trying to hold back a little bit but those songs are incredibly important to me as well. When you play something like Cemented Shoes and I think about how I've been listening to this album, these songs for 20 years. I discovered you guys when I was 15 years old, and now I'm 36. You got this one album and it holds so much weight to this day. From the person who wrote these songs, what kind of feeling is that? Describe that.

S: It's magical that so many people that we don't know have let us into their lives and it is incredible because after I'd heard people say that they were moved to tears and stuff… I don't know, we're not Lana Del Rey, we're a rock band, and we're still moving people to tears, and so I was quite intrigued.

So in London, in the show with the Hammersmith Apollo, four songs in when the technical gremlins hadn't turned up, and the things were running fairly smoothly, I decided I would look into the audience, and, lo and behold, I did see some people who looked very… they were crying, or they were very emotional, then I saw other people who looked like they were having an orgasm on the moon, they were out in space blissing out like and then I saw other people pumping their fists like you're doing it a rock gig. And I was like, Hang on a minute. We've got all those three emotions at the exact same time. How did we manage that? It was wonderful.

N: Yeah, it’s interesting. One thing I will say from the audience and the couple of times I've seen you over the years. I've glanced around and the people there seem to be really into you.

There's no curious folk. I don't know, you probably have a different perspective, but everybody seems to know you guys. And they know every word to every song on the album. We're like this small group of people who just love your band.

S: Yeah, I joked in the BBC that the longer it was that we didn't release an album, the more fanatical people got, so most other people just went off and found other bands to listen to but there was a core group of people that stuck around for 20 years. Well, I was joking when I said they must be nuts but it's a really beautiful thing that those songs actually meant so much to them, and we have very loyal fans in that way, and it's a blessing.

There's so many bands that were much bigger than us back in the day, they had much more exposure. I don't want to name names because that's not really very nice. But they sold a lot more records but you literally never hear about them anymore.

Sometimes these bands tour and they don't really have many people turn up. So we know that it's incredibly lucky, but it's because we went the extra mile we really didn't do it for anything other than the music. We were fanatics about music and despite our inexperience getting signed after only seven gigs and seven months and hardly knowing each other and all that stuff. Ravi and I lived next door to each other and we can talk about that because it's interesting how all that panned out, especially if you're focusing on the South Asian stuff Ravi being Tamil, me being Sinhalese.

That was being pushed in the deep end and learning how to swim and I burned myself out because I knew how lucky we were to actually have that opportunity that so many other, thousands of musicians around the world would love to have and there I've been given it.

We went the extra mile for that reason and even the cover story we got on the NME I mentioned like 20 bands to try and give everybody else a leg up of all my friends bands and stuff and I was like “I don't know if we're part of a scene but there's so many great bands in London and around the country” and I named them all and they cherry picked out I don't know quite a lot actually about 10 of the 20 I said and so I was hoping to give everybody a leg up and I knew how lucky we were. I would really work very hard, all my waking hours had something to do with the band. And I think the rest of the band had more of a healthy work-life balance so it was very easy for them to check out and go right, I've done my bit in the studio, I'm off. But for me it was always on and that's what really made me burn out. The good side of that is that really wanting to even structure the album Fine Lines, the way that the order of the tracks run and the keys and how they work into each other. There was stuff that I really paid a lot of attention to and so it feels nice when people recognise the hard work you put in.

N: And when you listen back to those songs, do you ever listen back to those songs, actually?

S: It was hard for me to listen to Final Lines for a long time because it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.

There were aspects of it that turned out great, some of the guitar sounds and all that stuff. But there was other stuff, I don't think Ravi and I were particularly happy with the drum sounds. We're getting closer to that stuff now. I wasn't really happy with the vocal takes, that was partly my fault, not being that experienced, I didn't really consider myself a singer at all, I still don't, I don't even consider myself a musician, there are people who play musical instruments much better than me, I'm self-taught, I'm just a guy who loves music and happens to play musical instruments to create music, basically and that made it very hard to, it was such a painful birthing experience, that it was very hard for me to listen to Fine Lines without the critical side coming out.

Then after years passed by, I went to see my friend Chris - he used to be in Three Colours Red, and he was playing, blaring my music out as I arrived, probably to embarrass me but he was probably just trying to remember, because he promotes gigs and stuff, and then I went “shit, this is actually pretty good” and it was almost like a third-person perspective a little bit more, which is very important, by the way, and In anything creative is taking a third person perspective, removing, the bias of the self from it.

N: Yeah, absolutely. So let's wind it back then. It was interesting that you said you and Ravi lived next door to each other.

S: Yeah, in halls. So that's how we met. It was completely by coincidence because we were both at UCL studying different degrees and we weren't even gonna meet in our degrees. He was doing biochem, I was doing human genetics, for my sins. It's because I had no grades - it was the whole Asian parent thing of you've got no grades, have something to fall back on. I didn't apply to Oxbridge because, from a political perspective, I didn't like the fact that Oxford and Cambridge wouldn't allow women and non-Anglicans… because you couldn't be Jewish, you couldn't be Catholic and get an education.

UCL was set up by a guy called Jeremy Bentham, who's Jewish, who happened to basically open that up to everybody. And I love the idea of that foundation of UCL, like opening up for everybody, whether you're women, Jews, Catholics, everybody, right? And it's London. So I was like okay, London's better for music maybe and that turned out to be absolutely right.

It was the same for Coldplay, of course who were also in UCL just before us. And then, it was just fortunate that Ravi happened to be next door to me. I was F6 and he was F5 in Goldsmith Hall and he happened to be a great drummer. It was really funny because he would have his drum kit in his room and I would plug into my hi-fi speakers and we would be jamming guitar to drums across the roof, like, really loud.

And then the lady of the house, Moira, would come up and she'd just open the door and just look at me like “what the hell do you think you're doing?” And the funny thing is when we did Top of the Pops a couple of times I actually went back because I had to get my mail that was being delivered to the hall, and then she turns to me and she's this Irish woman and she's so lovely. She was actually very supportive even though we were being idiots for playing so loud in the bloody hall the whole hall could hear it. But she turns and goes “I always knew you were going to be famous” and I'm like well if Top of the Pops counts as fame, fair dos.

We hadn't actually got together. My band at school was quite popular locally, it was called Shock Syndrome and it was just a bunch of school friends and I'd never been in another band and I’d come to UCL and was trying to put one together. And then I found that it was quite interesting because, unlike my friends at school, who listened to a lot of the same music so we had that starting point. In UCL, it was people from all sorts of different musical backgrounds and a lot of the musicians were actually quite like the proper musicians, people who can sight read like crazy and are grade eight and everything like my sister.

She's the proper musician, not me. I'm self-taught completely but then Ravi and I happened to be, by fate, next door and even though we had some Venn diagram of crossover of music, there was a lot of difference as well, which, initially, it might be a bit of a struggle, but actually turned out to be an asset that we can both learn from each other and all that stuff and then the CD ended up on the radio with Steve Lamacq when I gave it to him. The story's funny because we had a CD that was… A friend of Ravi's actually put us in the studio and we came up with this thing that sounded like a mess, but there was something, some kind of emotion, some kind of magic there. So I was forced by my friend who loved the CD to give Steve Lamacq the CD.

And I'm like, I can't do that. And he just bounds up to Steve, going “you have to listen to this man's music, it's brilliant”. And then I give it to Steve and I go, “it's a bit shit”. And then Steve bursts out laughing and he goes, “Normally, when people give me their CD, they tell me they're gonna be the new Radiohead or Nirvana and you just told me it's shit ha ha!” And I go, “well, I don't think we did the best job of it”. And then, nothing really happened. And then a couple of weeks later I bump into him at some gig. It was just in the loo or something. And then he says, I've been meaning to listen to your record.

It's been at the top of my pile. It's just been too busy. And I just thought he probably didn't like it. And I said “no big deal”. And then the very next day I get all these phone calls coming in quick and turn on radio on and then there it was and it sounded great in the radio and he goes well when the singer gave me the CD, he told me it was rubbish but it wasn't rubbish, it’s one of the best things I’ve heard in ages but we had to spend about 45 minutes cleaning up the hiss off of it. And then he wrote in his biography saying it was the demo that really made him rekindle his faith in new music and what he picked up on was that excitement that we had and it's really such an emotional thing and this is what production protocol I have in my head is - perfection is boring, but mistakes are a distraction. And it's between those, that's the framework that you have to apply. And there has to be an emotional connection, even if the particular mix isn't perfect, if it makes you feel something, go with that.

Forget the [inaudible] this is something that we've done wrong and so many other people have done wrong is you tweak and keep tweaking, you're making it more perfect and you don't realise, but you've lost the feeling and 10 different mixes down the road, it sounds much better and technically everything's clearer but you've completely lost the emotion.

N: So that was ‘Delusions of Grandeur’. Is that correct?

S: Yeah, hence the title with the Buddha with the guitar. Yeah, that's the one.

N: I haven't thought about that for a long time. And what was on there? There was a lot on there.

S: There was ‘Infantile’, ‘Cemented Shoes’, ‘Tongue Tied’. There was ‘By the Water’, which we've actually rekindled just to do as a release maybe sometime soon because it's really vibey, it's really energetic and punky in a way which I've started to miss some of the punkiness around, because that's disappearing a little bit.

That's just me, the contrarian. We start doing the shoegaze or whatever you want to call it, when it was completely uncool and then after Fine Lines, I was going down a synth avenue, and ‘My Old World Implodes’ actually sound great from that time, but I sent it to the guy who signed us “Yeah, I'm going down a synth Avenue”, and he goes, “Oh no, as long as you don't tell me Depeche Mode - I was thinking more Alien Ant Farm and Papa Roach for you guys”, and I'm like Oops! And I actually reminded him of that after The Killers broke in 2004 or 5. I said, “Remember when I said Depeche Mode and you said it should be Alien Ant Farm?” He goes “you're a fucker - you were right”.

And when I was a kid, I was watching this cartoon about the Beatles, well it was, it was a Beatles cartoon that most people don't even know exists, but it was shown in Sri Lanka. And I remember watching it and I said to my mum, Who is this Beatles? Because I didn't think they were real, I thought they were a cartoon or something, but I loved the music.

And she goes, oh no, they're the most famous band in the world. And then I saw, I discovered their songs and I remember crying, the first time I ever cried to a song was Eleanor Rigby. I asked my mum, What does he mean all the lonely people and I think my mom said something to the effect of maybe it's because you're born alone and you die alone and then literally I ran into the other room and started crying, I don't think my Mum even realised but he's quite a sensitive Sod and any music what really took I took to Michael Jackson that that stuff and and music really gave me so much joy but not just joy. It just made me very emotional in a good and bad way I guess but I was just really fascinated how melodies can make you cry now. It's very interesting thinking how life pans out because Tasha's our bass player - her grandfather is Ringo from the Beatles so yeah…

N: I didn't realise that until Ravi told me in the Birmingham gig because after I had a chat with you I bumped into him and I said “who's your bass player?” and he was like “oh that's the granddaughter of Ringo Starr” I was like wow!

S: Tasha's our friend I mean - we don't make a big deal out of it, she's a great bass player, she's in the band because she's actually great and she really likes the music. She gets it. The way Natasha and I look at music is very similar in that it's all about the feel. It's not about technicality as much as it's about feel. Rav is the tech wizard, he's really into Neil Peart and he's really into technical drumming and that style of drumming I actually liked when we first met was completely diametrically opposite to Rav, because Ringo comes from that feel-drumming, right?

He's a great drummer. With Ringo Starr, it was never about standing out as an exceptional drummer but having to be in a song because that's the only way a drummer would get attention. That wasn't what Ringo Starr was about, they were called the Beat Beatles, right?

Ringo Starr was actually making those songs the best that they could be, which is kind of like Dave Grohl in Nirvana. It wasn't the technical wizardry, it was the feel, it was the gut. And that's the school of drumming that I was into when Ravi and I met. And it was interesting because he was from the completely other side. He was very prog rock and he didn't even rim the snare and all that stuff, which is very, as he said back then is a very power drummer thing to do. He was into Neil Peart and as all technical drummers are, because Neil Peart's a genius, in more ways than just drumming, by the way.

Neil Peart was an incredibly intelligent guy and we met somewhere in the middle which is really what being in a band is about isn't it? It's about learning from each other and I think we both have, but yeah, the Beatles thing is just quite remarkable. We don't make a big deal out of it because it’s a bit of a gimmicky thing.

We haven't even played Liverpool. I think every single review that we had, not a single one actually mentioned that. Some of them said it was great to have a bass player back but nobody actually mentioned that Tasha's grandfather is in one of my favourite bands. But there you go.

N: So The Beatles were an initial influence for you then. And was it the Beatles that influenced you to pick up a guitar?

S: No, actually not the guitar. That was Nirvana. The thing about the Beatles, I think, is a lot of genius, it works on multiple levels. Meaning, If you're a songwriter you know how brilliant their songwriting is, especially if you look at a ‘Because’ and see how the harmonies work.

It's just really quite phenomenal. And also how their chord progressions, the one thing I really love about the Beatles is how they twisted stuff. Back in the 60s the palette was much greater than it became much later. With Nirvana they simplified it down to, people think they're a three chord wonder, but they're not, because, again, Kurt would always try to find that missing chord and go out, in ‘Lithium’, for example, that fifth chord that is going out of what you would normally go to which is what makes it sound sad. So where it goes “I'm so happy because today” and on that “day” you go to that chord, which is a major chord but it sounds sad because of the way he's structured that.

So that's the genius incur and Beatles had a lot of that going on as well songwriting wise they weren't pedestrian. There was something exceptional, but a child could love it. That's the key about the Beatles is that, a child was singing it like they were singing a nursery rhyme because the melodies were so catchy and in some ways simple, but there was also a complexity that only the advanced listener would actually pick up on.

N: Yeah, absolutely. I'm a massive Beatles fan myself and I couldn't agree more. When I was growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s, Nirvana would never be likened to the Beatles, but now, they're very much likened to the Beatles - and I can hear it - and I know Kurt Cobain was a massive fan but it's that affective simplicity, isn't it that just sort of works so well.

S: There’s lots of similarities. So the Beatles, they were actually considered quite heavy at the time. People didn't realise this but if you listen to Helter Skelter, You can hear the blueprint of a lot of that noisy rock that came much later, Black Sabbath and all that - they were a huge fans of The Beatles too. The similarities with Nirvana is that it was basically really loud pop music because it was pop music, but in the rock format, but the loudest it was of its generation and in a way, I gave up on just trying to be the loudest because there was a saturation point where you couldn't get much further.

And I love heavy music, don't get me wrong, but the important thing about those two bands, even though the loudness is really what got them a lot of attention, The Beatles, it was a beat spelt like that, because there was a strong beat compared to a lot of the stuff that came before it, and people don't know that now, because we have a different frame of reference. And Paul McCartney used to scream, they used to go [screams] in the intro and so all of that stuff, they originate from the Beatles but they metastasised into different things. But technology has changed the way we now listen to music. And on hi-fis, ‘Nevermind’ sounds great on a hi-fi, but it doesn't sound as great on a laptop or an iPhone.

And I think that's the key that all of us bands in the rock genre have to really evolve with the times, otherwise we would get left behind. Even ‘Nevermind’ itself was a monumental leap forward because of the CDs, right? Because that Rage Against The Machine first album and ‘Nevermind’ you could put a lot of bottom end on it without blowing because as long as vinyl was still selling there was a problem on your hand. Because you could never mix a record with too much bottom-end. Because it would just distort the whole thing. But by 1991, 1992 which is like Rage in ‘93 people weren't really buying vinyl anymore during the time of ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson, people were buying all three formats.

They bought the vinyl first. Then they bought this, the tape to carry around in their Walkman. And then they would buy the CD because it sounded better when it came out. But once the vinyl wasn't a consideration and even the tape, and it was just the CD. You could really crank up that bottom end and that's when the kick drum really started to kick because prior to that It was like AC/DC's album that everybody thought was the blueprint for a heavy rock album and that got to the closest you could get to with that heavy sound but then often all the Andy Wallace stuff, because he came from a hip hop background so he turned that kick drum up really loud. And that's what really changed the sound of modern rock.. cause the sound of acoustic drums, I can't stand them. I've got to be honest. I even said that at the door. I'm completely going over everything. I was like, I bloody hate the sound of these acoustic drums.

I don't want to hear it. It sounds better once it's gone through the PA and compression and all that stuff. That's what I want to hear. And it's giving me bloody tinnitus, all those cymbals. I can hear it really loudly as I'm going deaf for a living like Steve Lamacq. I've said it before, I’m going deaf for a living.

I was basically realising that I was damaging my health a lot with that stuff. And at that point, I said to myself I'm not in this to end up with a bullet in my head or something right? I'm in this because I love music. And if, if music is a thing that I'm now having to escape from then just stop.

Only do music if you really really want to. Because when bands sign contracts and they're forced to churn out albums in that cycle, they get, they have a hit album and then what happens is they end up touring it. Sure, there's a lot of excitement around that and that's great, but you can end up with no time to really hone your new material.

And then suddenly you're like, okay, release the next album and quick. And then they rush it out and then it's a disaster for most people. You take one step forward, but two steps back. And if you do that twice, which is what happened to a lot of bands then because the second album often has a couple of good songs on it but the first album had loads of good songs on it. And then the third album doesn’t have any exceptional songs, it was just retreading your formula. And at that point you lose. You lose the passion for it and people lose the passion for. I don't know if you heard The Secret Sessions?

N: I did yeah.

S: So that was never meant to be a piece, an album. It's just a collection of songs. People were writing it to us for so many years saying please do more. I love every single song you've released blah blah blah. You've got to come up with more. It was like an addiction that I had to feed. So I'm okay, right, let's do it. People were selling me these different ideas over the years - let's do this format. I was like, okay, let's try this idea of a crowd funder. There's a reason why the PledgeMusic thing went down.

Because, The problem is the creative endeavour isn't making a burger where you can predict it and the problem with a lot of people is that they've got so much into this consumerist society idea that they think it's just so, you know me and Rav were doing the work of an entire team of people because we wanted to out of respect to our fans that have been with us so long. It wasn't an economic exercise. The whole thing was going to lose money and we pretty much knew it. But it was a case of having respect for the people that have been with us for so long.

So we did it and it was going to be tough work and we knew it was going to run for a long time. Ravi had a kid, we had all these things to try and manage. We're doing, the two of us - me in particular the work of multiple people. Literally every waking hour I was doing something with that whole thing, and we've never released a record on our own imprint before.

All this paperwork stuff that you never think about, AP2 licences, all this crap that you've got to put together is a nightmare. But anyway, it runs late, and then some people are gonna start complaining, they think they're ordering a burger at McDonald's and it's been delayed by a fucking hour or a month. That really made me a little bit jaded. I'm like, hang on a minute. We're doing this for you at a loss, right? And some people were getting really irrational and almost like we owed them something. And then as it transpired and PledgeMusic could confirm this, which is why I copied them in on their email chain like it was only eight people that asked for a refund.

We go to refund three other individuals who refused to take it but they were constantly complaining every time it was delayed. But at that point, if you're a rational human being, you've got three options. Number one, cancel the entire project, but that’s a waste of your time. Number two, release it unfinished. Well, why would you, right? If it's unfinished no one's going to be happy, or number three, just offer refunds for whoever's getting upset with the delayed timeline. And if you wish to come back, you can. And if you don't ever want to hear from us ever again, so be it.

That's, that's your choice. We're not forcing anyone to like our music. We're not forcing anyone to contribute to It's not like we all bought tickets to Barbados and holidayed with the money. We had to put our own money into it. It lost money, technically, right? So that made me even more jaded. I went because there's a part of me that goes, all right, I did this for you. And where were you there to stick up for me when these guys were being unfair? And it gave ammunition to the detractors from all these people who are essentially jealous of the exposure we got.

“We're a much better band.. or we're more talented”. There are all these people that come up with that stuff. Despite how much I tried to help other artists, there are people who are driven by envy. They tend to coalesce together and they tend to just want to cause you harm and the delays gave these people something to smirk about and there you have it. And all of a sudden they're going where is everybody else sticking up for us here? Because we're not the bad guys.

N: Does that have any explanation on why there was such a big gap between Fine Lines and The Secret Sessions?

S: It wasn't a particularly pleasurable experience making either record, right? I got sick of fighting, frankly because you've got to fight record companies who don't really understand what you want to do. And at some point - I've got to be honest and the guys know it because I tell them all the time - I felt like I was fighting alone.

And everybody else was willing to just have the good stuff but not do the dishes after and I was like I feel like I'm on my own here and that I think is a big part of it. Because if we were all in a boat together rowing in the same direction, then I think we would have got to the other side much quicker and easier.

But sometimes, I mean this may be a little bit unfair, but it did feel sometimes people were in the same boat as me, but pushing in the other direction - rowing in the bloody other direction. I'd be like what the hell's going on here? But these are the kind of things that happen in every band. All you have to do is watch Some Kind of Monster. The tension between Lars and James, that's a classic. You gotta watch Get Back!

N: It’s 2023 - do you have any advice for people looking into getting into a band or starting to write music in this current climate?

S: The music industry has changed so much. Bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and Muse don't even have top 40 hits anymore, they don't even scrape anywhere near. The biggest bands in rock just don't have a top 40. So I don't even know how you would get in there. Now it's all viral and stuff, but having said that, I want to try and offer something positive. Just saying I don't know isn't good enough. I would say the good news is that there's a lot of technology that makes it much easier to create music now than we ever had.

Even learning how to play the guitar, I had to do it intuitively and teach myself. There were never any YouTube tutorials for me as a kid. Learning how to write songs, I had to do it completely, intuitively just by playing other people's songs and then things would go in subconsciously, but now you've actually got very detailed videos about what makes a good song and all this stuff.

I never watched any of that stuff because it takes the mystery out of the whole thing for me. But there's so many tools at young people's disposal now that I never had at 14 and technology is a double-edged sword, but it's incredible what you can achieve now on a laptop, compared to the four tracks of the past. So now people really have to learn how to use the modern formats but the key is to always write songs and make sure they sound fresh. I mean, if you're just doing what everybody else is doing, I don't think you're going to stand out. You've got to do something that sounds fresh and it's got to have an emotional connection. That's the key really.

N: So, do you think if you were however old you were when you first signed up for Trill now, do you think you wouldn't aspire to the heights you achieved, given the landscape of music right now?

S: I mean, nobody calls themselves My Vitriol and expects it to be a household name [Inaudible] So our success was… success is a relative thing, right? When Alanis Morissette released that second album and it sold 8 million, it was considered a failure because her first album sold 30 million or whatever, one of the highest selling of all time. Everything's relative. As far as I'm concerned, we were very successful because we got way beyond anything we ever thought we would. We didn't think we were going to end up on Top of the Pops and Top 40 hits when At The Drive-In and Queens of the Stone Age didn't have them.

There was no dream of thinking that we would end up with those hits when those bands didn't. So I'm very grateful for how it went and I'm really grateful to how loyal our fans have been to stick with us for so long. But I do think, why not think big? You don't necessarily need to think like me. I'm a bit odd. If you're listening to this and you want to be the biggest band in the world, you should go for it. I'm behind you. That wasn't our thing to do, but then why be like us? Go be like Coldplay or Muse.

I saw that because I know Chris, I know Coldplay. He said “anything less than number one isn't good enough”. I remember him saying that to me like it was yesterday. And we were both young and naive and so enthusiastic about music and I said, “but Chris, Nirvana and Radiohead haven't had a number one” and he goes, “yeah, but I want one”. And he finally got it - I think the fourth album, he got a number one hit song. So suppose they transcended beyond Radiohead and Nirvana. They exist in a space that doesn't even… it's beyond that. I can't even explain what Coldplay are.

When we headlined the second stage and they headlined the first stage at a festival called Quart in Norway, we were going through and Chris goes, “Make way for the new U2”. And I went wait where did that come from? U2? I thought they were meant to be like Radiohead and all that.

That was in 2002 or something. It revealed the real aim was to become the biggest rock stadium band and cross into the pop world. And that's what I'm saying to people listening to this - think big because Chris did. For me, I just wanted to be in an alternative band.

Being in the next Blonde Redhead would have been fine for me. So in that case, yeah, alright, fine, I'm happy with everything. But Chris was thinking a lot bigger, and I remember saying this to Johnny. I love Johnny. He's such a sweet guy. I said to him you guys are gonna be bigger than Radiohead. And he goes, really?! I said, yeah because I can imagine even people's grandmas really appreciating your music. He goes I don't know if that's a compliment or an insult. But right now it's a compliment.

N: Well, Som, you were right! Brilliant, thank you so much. It's been great fun having you on the show.

Outro

N: Thank you for listening to We Are The Weirdos, Aunty-Ji, a podcast by WEIRDO Zine & Collective. WEIRDO is a volunteer-run project that was created to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives, and contributions of South Asian people in alternative subcultures across the diaspora and Indian subcontinent. If you want to find out more about us, join our collective or support our work, visit our website weirdozine.com and follow us on Instagram @weirdo.zine.

Transcript by Ella Patenall

Read Neil’s article about Som

Follow My Vitriol on Instagram

Listen to My Vitriol

Intro

Naz:  Hi! Welcome to ‘We Are The Weirdos Aunty-Ji’, a podcast by WEIRDO Zine & Collective. My name is Naz Toorabally, and I'm the founder and editor of WEIRDO Zine and I have the pleasure of hosting this episode. WEIRDO exists to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives, and contributions of South Asian people in alternative subcultures around the world.

We do this through our print zine, articles on our website, events, and by sharing people's stories on this podcast. In each episode of We are the Weirdos RTG, We interview a South Asian creative to find out about their journey in the alternative scene and their career to date. Today's guest is Anjali Bhatia.

Anjali is a solo artist and the former frontwoman of riot grrrl band Voodoo Queens. Voodoo Queens formed in North London in 1992 and disbanded in 99, although their final release was in 95. Voodoo Queens are one of the few bands fronted by a South Asian woman at the time and they left their mark on the Riot Grrrl scene from their very first gig.

In this interview, Anjali and I chat about voodoo queens, her music as a solo artist, and her advice for new musicians.

Interview

Naz: Hi Anjali, welcome to the podcast, how are you doing?

Anjali: Yes, not bad, enjoying the last bits of summer, the Indian summer. It's been very toasty recently. I don't know when people will be listening to this but right now it's September, and it's about 31 degrees outside. It's about 40 degrees in my flat as well which isn't that pleasant when you've got lots of equipment on too.

N: Oh yeah my laptop's already making loads of noise so that's fun.

A: Are you cooking eggs on it now?

N: I could be. Thank you so much for coming to chat with us on the podcast. We're going to talk about your music and your background in the riot grrrl scene as well. Before we get on to all of that, can you tell me a little bit about the music scenes you were part of in the 90s?

A: The 90s were such an exciting time. It was a fantastic era to be part of a scene, especially in London. There were a lot of musicians and artists living in slums, squats and housing co-ops created a really interesting, homogenised creative community where everyone seemed to be an art student or a musician and there was always someone to start a band with or do an artistic project with and we were living in these Edwardian and Victorian semi-dilapidated houses because a lot of parts of London were not gentrified back then.

And we had the space in our houses to indulge ourselves with an art room, a music room, have parties and raves so it was a really exciting time to be a creative person.

N: Oh yeah, absolutely. What kind of music were you listening to at the time and what gigs were you going to then?

A: Oh my god, well, there was so much going on at the time and we used to go see bands such as Stereolab and other bands would come over from the States such as Bratmobile and there were always so many interesting bands and gigs. It was a time where if there was a buzz about a band, you had to go see them.

You couldn't just listen to them on the internet or do a Shazam or whatever. I used to live in Islington and up and down Upper Street, there were endless music venues, really interesting pubs and clubs. It was just a great time. That's why I think there were a lot of scenes created because you had to physically go see these bands. It was just a really fabulous time.

N: I love that. I can imagine people really showed up for bands a lot more back then as well. Now you can just sort of listen to a band on Spotify or something, um, and not necessarily have to sort of go and see them live to experience it. Now with sort of music just at your fingertips, perhaps maybe that's impacted some of the scenes sort of forming and not just forming but thriving as well, right?

A: Yeah, I mean, maybe there are thriving scenes, but I don't feel I'm really a part of that. Maybe I'm just a little bit too long in the tooth right now, trying to protect my ears from getting endless amounts of ringing tinnitus. But yeah, I'm sure there's exciting things still happening but it was a great time then. You had to physically go turn up to a gig and you met really interesting people - kindred spirits.

N: So in terms of your journey into making music, not just going to gigs. When did you start playing music and writing your own songs?

A: My dad actually bought me and my sister a guitar when I was about 10 years old. He came back from work one evening and bought us this acoustic guitar. Me and my sister were really excited, and we took it out of the case. We bashed around with it for a while and pretended we were in Blondie or Girls School or whatever the bands we were listening to at the time.

Then it got relegated into the loft. When I was about 12 years old in secondary school, I decided I wanted to stop playing guitar. So I started to take some guitar lessons, and it was fantastic. I think that's when my music taste really formulated because I was playing some jazz standards like Cole Porter and ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ and [inaudible] for me alongside all the traditional songs like ‘Greensleeves’ and ‘The Streets of London’.

I started to get into easy listening at quite a young age. I was also writing, and started to write my own songs. I learned a few chords, and I was writing silly songs about probably boys I fancied at school that had no interest in me, the story of my life. Then I got into listening to John Peel, like a lot of people at the time did. That really was an ear-opener, forget about an eye-opener because it just introduced you to this vortex of unusual quirky music. One minute you'd be listening to Maximum Joy, the next minute he'd be playing Napalm Death, and it was just a really great way of discovering interesting music.

N: When you got your first guitar, did you ask your dad for it? Or did he just randomly bring it home?

A: He used to work down in Rathbone Place just off Tottenham Court Road, and he used to work in the main post office, the sorting office. There was a music shop, still there, can't remember its name. On his way home, he would pass this music shop on Rathbone Place. He said he used to look in the window every day at these guitars, and one day there was a sale. He was like, you know, I'm going to buy this guitar for the girls. So, no, we didn't ask for the guitar. He just bought us the guitar.

Every time he used to complain about the music I was playing, I don't think he was quite a fan of Voodoo Queens, maybe more of my solo career stuff. I used to blame him and say, well, you're the one that bought me the guitar. So it's totally his fault.

N: You also mentioned John Peel. Voodoo Queens did a few sessions with John Peel, which is amazing. You went from listening to his shows and being really inspired by them to then doing a live session or a few with him. So let's talk a bit about Voodoo Queens now. What's the story behind the formation of Voodoo Queens? What was that journey like for you being in that band?

A: Well, basically, I was already in a band. I've been in a few bands and I was playing drums and singing at the same time, which I found rather challenging. I felt as though I wanted to go back to my natural home, my native home of playing the guitar and singing.

So I just decided to form a band, and it was a lot to do with the timing. The timing seemed right. My sister joined the band; she was on the keyboards. I got my childhood friend and jeweler to join the band. We basically threw a bass guitar at her and said, play. She was absolutely fantastic, a real natural. She looked great on stage as well.

Then we had a drummer called Sunny, but she went off to do another project, and we were gifted with Steffi, who was the princess of the voodoo beats until the bitter end, until Voodoo Queens kind of dissipated.

And then we had another friend, Ella Garou, who's an artist. She came and joined as a second guitarist. We only had three songs and we were asked to support Corner Shop at the Bull & Gate in Kentish Town. So we were like, okay, we'll do it. There weren't many people in the audience, and we noticed that John Peel was there. We were already nervous, excited, and freaking out.

So we played the gig. Gary from Ouija Records, who got us the gig, ran up after we played and said, look, John Peel really loved your performance, but he's too embarrassed and shy to come and talk to you. So he introduced us to John Peel, and we chatted with him. John Peel basically said that he was so excited by the gig; it reminded him of the first time he saw The Slits. For us, that was the zenith of all compliments. He offered us a Peel session on the spot, and we were like, we've only got three songs. He said write another one, so that's what we did!

Basically, one minute we were rehearsing, practising in this dingy, squalid, damp rehearsal room in a squat in Islington and half of us were learning how to play the instruments, and the next minute we were recording in plush studios in Maida Vale that had seen luminaries like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. It was completely crazy, very much pinch, pinch, pinch moments.

N: I mean, that's incredible going from just having three songs to going to Maida Vale to record a live session with John Peel, who was too shy to come and speak to you guys, which is so funny. How big were Cornershop at the time? That's a pretty cool gig to get as well, right?

A: That was, I think, in the embryonic stages, they were getting really good press. You know, they hadn't had the big hit yet, but they were just starting out like us. Then it happened really quickly for them. They had a great remix, and we were all in this scene, and it was exciting to be part of a movement.

N: Absolutely. Voodoo Queens only lasted around three years, I think. The first single was released in 92, if I'm not mistaken?

A: You remember better than I do. Let's shake on ‘92. I was at art college, Goldsmiths, doing my textile design degree. So I think it was around ‘92.

N: It's quite a big deal as an all-women band, annoying that it's a big deal, as an all-women band and also women of colour fronted by you as well. And there weren't that many other sort of South Asian women fronted bands at the time. I think the only one that I can remember around the same time would be Sonya Maden from Echobelly. Did it feel like a big deal at the time being in a sort of all-girl group for lack of a better term?

A: It kind of did and didn't because as an Asian woman at the time, I suddenly had this sense of belonging, being part of this scene. You felt as though you were with kindred spirits, the oddballs, the misfits, maybe those who were bullied at school. It felt like we were outsiders, but we'd all convened together, and you felt like you could express yourself, and no one would really judge you. Like I said, it was great to be part of this movement. We were sometimes compared to Cornershop, probably because they were the only other Asian band around, and it was probably more annoying for them than us because they were slightly more professional.

But it wasn't a big deal. It was great to be part of. It felt like a monumental movement at the time. We didn't even think that deeply about it, but it was just great fun. The band still has an impact today in terms of when people discover it. I've seen lots of people online chatting about seeing Voodoo Queens, liking the videos on YouTube, and being inspired to start their own bands. People not believing that a South Asian woman fronted a punk band like this back in the day. It's so cool and has gone on to inspire people.

N: So yeah, I was so excited when I discovered Voodoo Queens a few years ago. Can you tell me what are some of your favourite memories of being in the band? Do you have any interesting stories to tell that you're allowed to tell?

A: Probably many that have to go into hiding and never resurface. But, you know, I just think it was a whirlwind. It didn't last for a long time, but it was really great. When we did a Peel session, we ended up setting a speaker alight. I don't know how we did that, maybe the guitars were too loud or something, but yeah, a speaker just went up in flames, and they had to call the fire brigade.

This was in Maida Vale Studios and so it was just one of those moments like, wow, this is insane, everything that's happening. We were recording this session and then the fire brigade turned up, about 10 firemen tried to put it out, and it was great. We were really excited that we'd blown up a speaker. Luckily, we didn't have to pay for it!

N: So you mentioned that your sister was in the band with you as well. When I read that I thought it was really interesting because I used to be in a band and my sister played drums in the band. What was that like working with your sister in Voodoo Queens?

A: It was good fun. Obviously, siblings have their moments, don't they? But it was really great to have the support. Your sister's got your best interest at heart, and it just felt like a gang. It felt really cool, like when we were 10 years old and got that guitar out, pretending we were in Girls School or Blondie or whatever. It felt like that all over again. It was fantastic.

N: My sister and I definitely clashed a few times but supported each other at the same time. So, I get that. In terms of how Voodoo Queens sat within the overall guitar music scene at the time, it was seen as part of the riot grrrl scene and I guess in part due to releasing songs like Supermodel Superficial, which is the theme tune we've chosen for this podcast - thank you for letting us use it. Was it intentional to go down the Riot Grrrl root or was it more press that was pushing that narrative?

A: Again it just felt like there were all these bands that were kind of quite similar and had a similar outlook and kind of manifesto. We were making music at the same time and it was good in a way to be part of that scene and we were thrown into this whole kind of Riot Grrrl Circus press scene. But, like I said, it wasn't really a bad thing because it felt like we were part of a movement and there was always a great band to be on the same bill with so I think it gave us some opportunities as well.

N: Do you remember any of the bands that you got to, that you got to play with at the time?

A: Yes, now I have to dust off my memory. Well, we did play with other bands that were on Too Pure as well at the time. We played with The Fall. That was amazing. We supported The Cramps. It was so great supporting The Fall because we were really big fans of theirs so we really played at the ready. I can't remember the lineup, but we just played with so many great bands. We were really lucky.

N: Moving on from Voodoo Queens a little bit. How did it all come to an end?

A: You know, I think as an artist, if you're a musician, a designer, any kind of creative person, you need to evolve, you need to stay fresh. Especially if you've got ideas, and I always had ideas, I kind of got a bit tired of being in the band format.

I felt like I was getting more into electronic music. There were some really cool scenes happening, and I was going to the Blue Note a lot, which was a fantastic venue/club in Shoreditch and Old Street. I was basically there eight nights a week because there was so much interesting music and interesting DJs playing, like from the [inaudible] night where you'd get to hear a lot of Mo’ Wax tunes, then Metalheadz, which was just mind-blowing.

And then Anuka as well, where there was this new kind of fusion with Indian music and dance music. It just felt like something that hadn't really happened previously. So I just felt like I wanted to evolve as an artist.

N: Did you say eight days a week? Haha. I know you started getting into more electronic music and more on the pop side as well. So can you tell me a bit about the beginning journey in terms of trying out to make this new kind of music. How did you get into it? What was the first piece of kit that you started working with? What did some of those early songs sound like and what inspired you to write them?

A: Well it was very challenging to go from playing a guitar to suddenly saying, Daddy, I want a sampler or whatever - not that my dad bought me a sampler. I bought it myself. It was quite difficult initially to learn the technology, the technical side of everything. But I went on a music technology course at Islington Music Workshop so that really helped me. I had an Atari, and I'm still so into it. I wish I could use the Atari today, but obviously, we've evolved so much with musical equipment and software. It took time to learn the ropes, but it gave you so much freedom, and that was the most important thing. I always had ideas of wanting to layer up sounds and use synthesisers and stuff. So yeah, it was a really good direction for me to go into.

N: Definitely. Synthesisers are becoming more popular and often feel at the beginning, there's much to learn. It sounds like you eventually muddled your way through and created some beautiful music as part of your solo project. Now, you're working on newer music, and you're in the studio. Can you tell us a bit about what you're currently working on and maybe some of the inspiration behind that?

A: Well, I'm halfway through a new album, which I'm really excited about. I'm not gonna give myself a deadline because these creative projects have a life and a mind of their own. When it's finished, it's finished. I've got a lot of songs, and I feel like I'm at a creative zenith, which is really good. I'm not using samples so everything is created live. I'm playing a lot of guitar again and it's quite experimental. It's really exciting and I can't wait to finish it and get my mental health back on track.

N: You pour so much into creating music. And I think you're right in saying to not give yourself a deadline necessarily or to have a loose deadline in mind to keep you motivated, but to not have this fixed deadline that stresses you out, especially when you say about getting your mental health on track.

A: Well, my sanity. Mental health sounds a bit too serious.

N: When the album is ready and you'll be playing it live - hopefully. Will you be playing with a band, or will you be on your own, or what will that look like?

A: It'd be great to be with a band. I think that would be wonderful to have a live band. I think there's a couple of tracks where I'm just doing a few acoustic things on my own, but mostly it's live musicians. So it'd be great to be in… to play with a band.

N: And in terms of the sound, I know you said that you're, it's sort of a bit more experimental. What kind of sounds can we expect?

A: Oh God, it could just change overnight!

N: It's so interesting because I feel like today more than ever it's, it's much more challenging to sort of fit music into certain genres. I feel a lot more artists are sort of genre-less or don't quite know where to place their music. I guess I'm really interested to know where you would place the music that you're currently working on.

A: I would say it's genre-less.

N: That's cheating!

A: I'm sticking with that!

N: Okay, I'll accept that. As part of this podcast we're speaking to people who have all sorts of experiences and backgrounds and as people who've worked in the music industry, do you have any advice for people looking to get into a career as a musician?

A: Oh gosh, well after being in the creative world industry for a good few decades - I guess I should whisper that, there are a lot of ups and there are plentiful downs, but you need to be made of tough stuff. And I would say, an important piece of advice is to be true to yourself.

Don't follow any trends because trends are transient and you need to think about being timeless. And even if it means just wrapping yourself in a cocoon and cutting yourself off from the outside world, just be true to yourself. If you have any songwriting ability, work on that, work on your songwriting and work on trying to be a producer, work on trying to be self reliant, I always feel like it must be really difficult for a vocalist who has to rely on someone to write a song for them, then a production team to come to them and take them into a studio.

It's a very convoluted, stressful process. So I would say it's really important to be self reliant. And, if you can try and learn an instrument, you don't have to be session musician standard, just a few chords here and there is absolutely fine. And also, if you can't afford to get a state of the art laptop and the software and the plugins, use GarageBand.

GarageBand is, I don't want to plug anything here, but I must admit GarageBand is absolutely brilliant. And when I haven't had my new setup set up. I used GarageBand. A lot of the demos that I used, that I made on GarageBand, I've carried some of those sounds over to the final versions of my songs that I'm using on Logic Pro X.

So, I would say, just try and be as self reliant as you can. Basically, and also it's really good if you have a good friend who's an engineer that you can call up and say, Dave, I plugged this in. It's not working. What's going on? And then they say something like, have you switched it on? And you're like, Oh, yes, sorry, I forgot about that!

These moments happen. And I found that engineers have been some of the most patient, capable people that I've worked with in studios and whatever, so it's always good to have an extra friend who's a bit techie and that you can ring up in a moment of crisis.

N: I think that's really brilliant advice. There's definitely a lot of help out there even if you don't have an engineer friend.

There's so many YouTube videos out there right that can help you through troubleshooting, even things like GarageBand and Logic. And it's great to have access to all that information at your fingertips, basically.

A: Oh God, yeah. I'm constantly on YouTube trying to troubleshoot and it's absolutely amazing because, back in the day, you were just stuck. And so, I would definitely say utilise those brilliant engineers or whatever that create their own YouTube videos and they're really helpful.

N: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Anjali, for coming on to the podcast and speaking with us. It's been a pleasure chatting with you and I can't wait to see you play live and hear new music.

A: Thanks for having me!

Outro

N: Thank you for listening to We Are The Weirdos, Aunty-Ji, a podcast by WEIRDO Zine & Collective. WEIRDO is a volunteer-run project that was created to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives and contributions of South Asian people in alternative subcultures across the diaspora and Indian subcontinent.

If you want to find out more about us, join our collective or support our work, visit our website weirdozine.com and follow us on Instagram @weirdo.zine

Transcript by Ella Patenall

Read Naz’s article about Voodoo Queens (coming soon)

Follow Anjali on Instagram

Subscribe to Anjali’s YouTube Channel

Intro

Rajen: Hi, welcome. We Are The Weirdos Aunty-ji is a podcast by WEIRDO Zine and Collective. My name is Rajen Bhatt, and I'm a writer for WEIRDO’s website. WEIRDO exists to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives, and contributions of South Asian people and alternative subcultures around the world. We do this through our print zine, articles on our website, events, and sharing stories via this podcast. In each episode of this podcast, one of our collective members interviews a South Asian creative to find out about their journey in the alternative scene and their career to date.

Today we are speaking with Sahil Makhija, better known as Demonstealer. He's long been one of the pillars of the heavy metal scene in India, from being the vanguard of fledgling metal scene to becoming one of the most visible and respected proponents today. Sahil has been [integral] to the growth of the Indian metal community and in 2000 he formed Demonic Resurrection, one of India's best known and biggest metal bands. But in 2011 he started India's first heavy metal cooking show called Headbangers Kitchen.

Interview

Rajen: That is very cool. Welcome to the podcast! How are you doing?

Sahil: I'm good. Thank you for having me.

R: I've read a number of interviews about growing up in India and having huge challenges… anything from securing practice spaces, venues to equipment. What was it like playing death metal in 2000 and what's changed?

S: So when I got into the music scene in Bombay, the scene was largely dominated by cover bands and most of the metal you were listening to was.. I've been into Metallica, Pantera, Sepultura. There was like one death metal band in the city. And maybe one black metal band.

R: Is Dying Embrace from Mumbai?

S: No, they're from Bangalore. So in Mumbai and even in Bangalore, while there was a lot more regional music there, it was still a largely cover-dominated scene across the country. It was unique for sure, but especially at the bigger concerts, we faced a lot of trouble like we…and we weren't even like a great band, to be honest. We were 16 year old kids, 17 year olds, just playing in our first band. So we weren't the tightest band. I'd been playing guitar for like two years. I was not the most proficient guitarist or singer.

So in hindsight, yeah, it was probably warranted, but like people didn't get the music, especially the bigger concerts because anyway, they were there to listen to their favourite Metallica or Megadeth cover or some more rock stuff. But largely death metal was like, what is this? What is this guy growling? What are these songs? We don't understand them. So yeah, it was a lot of that, but in the underground space, we actually got a fair bit of respect and we had a bunch of fans who came out for our smaller shows and a lot of the older bands were pretty encouraging about what we were doing.

So, in terms of that, it was a mixed bag, which even today, I think if you threw us on a festival bill that was really big maybe it wouldn't be as violent a crowd as back in 2000 but then one show we got like stones thrown at us and stuff yeah so it wouldn't be a violent a crowd but definitely you see the stage area empty out and you have a handful of people watching us but it's just it is an extreme form of music and it's never going to quite hit the same way.

I think because metal is very very niche in India it doesn't cause much of a ruckus about most things because it's too small - nobody cares. If you're doing something in the mainstream then you can get interference from a lot of people.

I think the worst thing that happened was some festival in Goa got cancelled because some reporter went undercover and asked the organiser if he would be able to get drugs at the show and the organiser said I can't send you any but if you have some you can smoke it so they put that together with an article saying this satanic band Demonic Resurrection is coming and demonic was in… Goa is a slightly more Christian community, so it had a little more weight than it was Demonic Resurrection so all that together got our show cancelled, but that's probably the worst thing that happened in terms of being accepted or something like that.

R: How did you connect to other underground musicians? Did you ever get into tape trading and collecting and sending zines and stuff like that?

S: Not as much as you would think. I got a lot of stuff from my friends who were into metal, who got me into metal. And the scene in Bombay was very small. I would meet other metalheads at my drum teacher's house and I'd exchange stuff with them. I met a friend to a friend who would come to my house and I would exchange CDs with Nolan from Kryptos when I would go to Bangalore for a show and I'd hear the house and we'd burn CDs and exchange.

That was stuff we did, but like Zines and all, there weren't many. We had started our own, in fact, for our festival in 2004, where we did a little small printed zine that we gave free with entry. And of course, I would collect Metal Hammer magazines. There would be a local paper month that would have like secondhand issues and stuff, which you could buy. So we did all that, but like, there wasn't that huge scene like there was in America, zine trading in the Bay Area and stuff like that. And this is much smaller, restricted to a bunch of college kids.

R: That's cool. I mean, get in, however you can, I guess. Another question then is how did you even get into extreme metal in the first place?

S: So when I got into metal, it was a bunch of my friends who gave me Metallica, Iron Maiden and bands like that. And then I would buy Metal Hammer magazines and I would see Emperor. I saw Emperor's album get a 9 out of 10, I think it was 9 for equilibrium. I saw Cradle of Filth online. I saw that music video. So a lot of it was through the internet, going on in those days there was the MIRC chat room. There was like this old software, MIRC chat rooms, Yahoo chat rooms and you just talk to people and they'd recommend bands and I just start downloading stuff and I was lucky that my parents, I think they had some relatives living in America who travelled to India, as every Indian does. I managed to save up like all my birthday money and I just ordered like a bunch of like 20 CDs from Century Media.

I remember spending a little over $150 over the whole thing because they would give you free shipping if you ordered $150 worth of stuff. So I ordered like the stuff so that it will be shipped to my uncle in America and then he could bring it so I ordered like Emperor and Samael and Ancient and all these bands that I had been downloading and listening to and in those days, that's all you could really do, you download these albums on MIRC, the internet was just coming to India. So we had dial-up connections. It would take us like six hours to download one 10 minute Cradle of Filth song. So it was crazy, but yeah, we did that. And then we just shared it among whoever we knew and met.

R: That's cool. All super relatable. I think the technology changes, but the channels are always the same. How did you decide specifically to focus on death metal versus starting a thrash or black metal or doom metal? Like how'd you specifically settle on death metal?

S: So I think death metal is actually something more recent that I've been using as the genre to describe Demonic Resurrection and my own material. I think when we started out, it was more inspired by gothic bands and black metal bands. I used to listen to Immortal and all these other bands and I saw Immortal used to call themselves “holocaust metal” or some shit like that. So there were some creeps. I was like, you know what, we make demonic metal. And it's basically all my influences, which was everything from like a Nightwish to a Hystania to a Lacuna Coil to a Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth.

And I was listening to a lot of these bands and all of them had a female vocalist or they had vocal sections. So for me that became an integral part of the sound that DR was going to have, which is why our first album, I mean, not the first version of the first album, but I think at some point we just couldn't find anyone because I guess in India, having women in the metal scene is a small number, don't actually perform, those who could commit to a band and stuff - even smaller. So it's changing a bit now, but it's still not as much as in the West. But even in the West, I think the ratio is a bit skewed.

R: Yeah, that's a huge topic of discussion here and elsewhere, but yeah, that's a good point. So let's talk a little bit about the new release, which it's interesting, you mentioned that it's like not really settling on one genre, but calling it that, because there are so many moving parts on ‘The Propaganda Machine’.

Tell me about your vision with it. I mean, you have so many amazing guest musicians on it. Like how did you conceive of ‘The Propaganda Machine’ and how did you connect with those musicians to realise that vision?

S: Yeah, so I got into this whole space back in 2014 or 2015 where I wanted to, I had an idea to actually create songs and have different musicians play on each song.

Like my favourite drummers, I would get them because I'm like a drum freak. I love drums. I think I love drums more than I love guitar or singing or anything. And if I was a better drummer, I would probably be playing more drums. I really have a fascination for drums. And I guess maybe it's because I can't play drums that well that I follow more drummers than guitar players.

And I think I had written to Hans Grossmann at that point - 2014 or 2015 - maybe, that could you play two songs on my album and my idea was to do two songs with the musician and have like all the album on a CD and then put out each song like a play-through video because everybody was doing play-through videos and play-through videos of drummers was like the most exciting thing for me.

So I remember writing to Hans Grossmann and he was like “yeah sure I'll do it” but then when I wrote to George Kolias, he said “I want to do the whole album”. So I was like, okay. So I did the 2016 album, This Burden Is Mine with George Kolias. And after that organically went into the Last Sept in India where I really took this idea to the next level where I had five drummers on the album.

I had two bass players, three or four lead guitar players. And I managed to get that collective of musicians to play on the album. And that became my.. that's the way I was going to do albums, except that I had a bit of a down moment with the music where I gave up on being a musician and trying to reach my goals as an artist. But then the pandemic changed my whole perspective on life and the fact that I have so much privilege and the ability to write music while there were so many people like who weren't even able to get a meal in the middle of COVID. So I did my 2020 EP on my own, but I had already started the process for ‘The Propaganda Machine’. I started writing to drummers, Hans Grossmann said yes, Sebastian Lancer, said yes. A little later on in 2020, James Payne I think said yes, and then finally in 2022 I confirmed Ken Biden and got his recording. So I had already started putting the pieces of that album together, but obviously it was going to take me time to do it, so that's why I did my 2020 EP all by myself.

Actually before the 2020 EP I started another EP because I knew the album would take two years at least. So I started The Holocene Termination. Quickly realised that The Holocene Termination was going to take a year more than I anticipated. So that's why I did the 2020 EP, then wrapped up the 2021 EP and then finally in 2023, ‘The Propaganda Machine’ dropped. So this was all happening simultaneously. And with just a lot of like meaning the musicians the guitar tracks and they sent me a rough idea and they'd be like, it's okay. I'm like, yeah, sounds good to me.

I give them a blank slate. This is just the guitar track. You do what you want. And then such talented drummers,, I don't think there was much input from my side. Maybe just like a point here or there that, hey, this could be try something here.

But largely, yeah, they recorded it they sent it to me I then figured out the bass player sent them the drums and guitar and said do what you want same with the guitar player as well and Annabelle on keys we had a chat we've been wanting to work together for a while and I said she would be a good fit for this album so I said yeah here's the song just knock it first off and then once I had everything together, I started to work on the vocals and lyrics and things like that. But I'd also been writing ideas down and things like that, putting the pieces together.

Again, this is all over a period of literally from 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and literally three or four years of pieces being put together. That's kind of how it happened, and in the end, it just all comes together.

R: Going to the lyrics, I think there is so much happening. I mean, when you listen to it, you can listen to it five, six, seven, even ten times and pick out different pieces. But I think the one thing that is probably the most salient thing, I think there's the message in it. So I don't want to speak too much, but what is The Propaganda Machine? Take me a little bit through like the beginning of the album to the end and like what is it addressing?

S: Like the inspiration for the album has come from world events. Right from and obviously stuff happening in India right from 2016 when Brexit was happening in the UK to the Trump election, the storming of the January 6 Capitol building, the Ukraine-Russia war, the protests that took place in India for the CAA and the NRC bills that were supposed to be introduced. The riots in Delhi where Hindu extremists killed Muslims and ransacked their houses and things like that.

Like all that stuff culminated into ‘The Propaganda Machine’. So in terms of the album, the way it flows is ‘The Fear Campaign’, like self explanatory, like politicians in India use tactics to keep the majority in fear, and this has happened in, in Britain, I mean, all over, like, basically, in America, oh, white people are under attack, in India, the Hindus are under attack, don't let the Muslim population go and take us over, I mean, they're like a tiny fraction, they need to, like, multiply by the thousands over another hundred years to get anywhere close to even making a dent.

Similarly in the UK, when Brexit was happening, all the false promises from the politicians about how Brexit is going to be amazing and you'll all get your jobs back and all that. But that creating this atmosphere of fear in, and funnily enough, the majority population, the ones who actually have the privilege and the power, they are made to fear the minorities.

So that's what ‘The Fear Campaign’ is about. The monolith of hate, I mean, basically you make them fear and then you make them hate. I have so many arguments, fights about people just blatantly being [inaudible] in things they say against certain religions or based on people's race or whatever.

And again, that's the same thing world over, right? In Britain, they make you hate the immigrants. In America, you hate black people, you hate Mexicans. Like, it's just the hate is, and it's stored from such a young age now. It's basically, that's the weapon of choice. And the proper and random machine, the next song just talks about the actual needs.

Like in India the ruling party literally had, like, an IT cell. Where they have employed, like, probably, like, thousands of people. Who just create misinformation and they send it on WhatsApp to, like, thousands of people. And they can get anything trending on Twitter in, like, a matter of minutes. And you can see it like, like copy pasted across like hundreds of accounts, the same thing.

And the funny thing is sometimes there can be a typo in it. And then you can spot it in like thousands of accounts, the same typo or the same bit of misinformation. And that's ‘The Propaganda Machine’. Like there's actual machinery in place working. At it, the art of disinformation, the same thing using technology like Twitter and WhatsApp to spread misinformation.

There have been so many lynchings and killings in India just because of WhatsApp forward has gone and there's been no substantial evidence even. It's just the mob has lost control because this one message is gone and people have been killed, literally murdered over different issues, all sorts of things.

So, ‘The Art of Disinformation’ talks about how information is a weapon these days. And just like either withholding information in India, the moment anything goes wrong, the internet is cut. You're, you're lost there completely. Like right now, there are riots happening in the northeastern part of India.

There are major communal clashes there, but the internet is shut off. They're trying to keep all the information out. There were two women who were literally stripped and paraded naked and the government is more concerned that the video got out rather than the incident actually happened.

That kind of thing is very common here. ‘Screams of Those Dying’, obviously, we're talking about people who have lost their lives in these incidents in the riots, in the Delhi riot, 2002, go back all the way to Godhra, go back to the Mumbai riots in the 90s, you know? Communal riots have been a thing in India, and as you dwell deep into it, you see that it is largely violent mobs killing Muslim people, like that's what happened in Godhra, that's what happened in Delhi as well. After that, I think it was a great dictator. I guess we can see the the rise of righting leaders in the world world, whether it's the Donald Trump or Boris Johnson or whoever the Brazilian guy was, even though they are in democracy, I mean the politics they plays very dictate dictator so that that song, the anti-national in India, if you say anything against the government, you are branded in anti-national.

You're not allowed to criticise the government or anything indeed. The moment you do that, you're anti-national. That's what they call you. So that's what that song is about. And finally, I think I wanted to end the album on the positive note that at the end of the day, we will get through this. We will hopefully rise above all the hate and we will leave this place better than we found it.

R: The elephant in the room anytime you go to a metal show is - Is there going to be politics? And what kind of politics? So it's unfashionable, it's been historically unfashionable to talk about politics. Props to you for tackling this subject. My family's from Gujarat, so it's like that right-wing extremism in metal. And I've seen it, there's so many national socialist bands that are adopting Hindu mythology and this kind of thing to try to bolster their positions, which is totally insane.

But like you said there's like a Narendra Modi in Brazil. There's Hindutva in Hungary. All these things are universal, I think. It was cool to hear that last track. It's like, come on, we got to end on a good note!

S: So like, so for me, when I find metalheads who are like right wing and very fascist and their views and like hate minorities and all, I am always perplexed because the metal that I grew up with was all about fighting politics and standing up for the little guy and being a community that is so misunderstood and misrepresented.

Like you think that we wouldn't be the kind that discriminates against other people. Like you realise that as a metalhead, I'm judged, I'm discriminated, people judge you, I'm like a funny junkie, and like, hopped up on crack, and possessed by Satan, but I'm just normal and so what if you are of any religion or race or whatever, you're just another person who's being misunderstood, you're not a bad person, so for me, like Sepultura refuses this, the protest, like all those songs, so, Holy Wars, Negative Attract, I never understood when metalheads got political on the wrong side of the spectrum.

But I guess I think that my learning is that metalheads are just normal people. That's why they behave like regular people. It's a different kind of music taste. That's all.

R: Absolutely. So, where are you gonna go from ‘The Propaganda Machine’? What's next?

S: I actually don't know because I haven't picked up my guitar in a year now to write any music. I do know that there are certain drummers that I wanna write music with so I've already narrowed down the drummers. I just need to now pick up the guitar and start writing.

Lyrically, I don't know where I'll go. But I think it's gonna be life. It's gonna be the situation and the world that affects what I write. Even the Holocene termination, seeing how humans are only destroying the planet on so many levels. So all that stuff finds its way into my lyrics in one way or another even if it's gonna take some time to stay down the mold.Sometimes it's just buried under metaphors. I think,

R: Yeah, I'm excited to see what you do next. I hope that people will see that a lot of the topics that you're covering are not going to go away and that it keeps evolving. So that's cool. But speaking of evolving, can we talk about your cooking show?

Tell us a little bit about that. I saw a couple of episodes - the hot sauce one was very excellent. I enjoyed that. But do you also have episodes like, how do I lose weight? So what inspired this cooking show?

S: When I started Headbanger's Kitchen at that point, the idea was to have a heavy metal cooking show where I would call a band and I would interview the band and I'd cook a dish that was inspired by a song title or the band name. After the interview, the band would taste the food and give us their input. And I did this for about four years. I had the pleasure of interviewing bands like Lamb of God, Gojira, Wolf, George Kollias, Ayaan El Mohamed, Scribe, pretty much I could tick a lot of things off my bucket list with that show!

But after four years, it wasn't going anywhere. So it was, each episode maybe got 2,000 views. I had about 4,000 subscribers. And the amount of effort that I was putting to make the show happen was way more than the reward I was getting in return. Because, I mean, there was no money being made, nor was there a super viewership or anything.

So, I felt that I could use my time better. The same effort I put into the show, I could put it into more of the band-related things. So I said to myself, I'm just going to film on my own. Because like I said, for this, I was putting in a whole bunch of effort. I had a crew and editors.

I had to take everything out of my living room and set up a stove over there. And like, so I was like I'm just going to shoot in the kitchen when I'm making something that's interesting and I'm just going to let it. And I pretty much did that for, I think, about almost two years. I had a few musicians on, local guys, to come and taste like a burger that I made.

I'd interview them. And I was doing that. And I was happy with that. And then my friend lost about 40 kilos doing the keto diet. Then my wife followed the diet and she lost 20 kilos. And then she explained the whole diet to me and the science behind it and everything. And I said, let's do it. I was making coffee with butter and coconut fat in it and I was making pizza out of cauliflower.

I was like I gotta film these videos and put them up. It was my luck. At that point in time, the keto diet was starting to become really big in the US and there were not many creators on YouTube that were actually doing keto recipes. And I think over the years I had enough experience that my videos looked reasonably good.

Cause you see a lot of people doing recipes, but they look like they're in a jail cell or something, it looks really bad. So I had a decent quality of video. I had recipes that were actually good, that people were enjoying. And there was a gap in the market that I was able to fill. So I actually, over the next year, actually built a very large network that jumped from 5,000 subs to 10,000 subs to 100,000 subs.

I was signed by some YouTube company, and I think I left them in March of 2016 maybe, and they paid me $95. That's all I had owned from 2011 to 2016 March for five years of YouTube. I got a check of $95 the next month without them being on board with the new keto recipes. I made a hundred dollars.

I said, the next month, 150, 200, 250, and I'm just like, wow. And at some point I was able to quit my job. And that became my job making keto recipes full time on YouTube. And I did that. I'm still a full-time content creator, but that's where the channel evolved into the keto diet. So that's where all the how to lose weight and things like that started.

And I became an authority in the keto community. I authored three keto cookbooks. I really went into that world. And then at some point keto became unsustainable for me and I started to move away from that. So now I do a slightly different style of recipe and I've also started a bit of a podcast thing because the podcast is the new thing.

So I'm still trying to figure out where to go now as a food creator, but that's how I became one.

R: That's a really cool journey. I think if you can find as many different avenues as possible outside of music, like that can give you that holistic well being. And I think related to that, you also have a comedy band. Can you briefly tell us?

S: Yes, I had a comedy rock band called Workshop, which was active from about 2007 till about 2012 or 13. So I disbanded it but basically I was responsible for bringing ESP guitars to India. I worked with a music import company.

So there's a company called Furtados Music in India, and they import musical instruments, and they also have a retail source where they sell. So they imported brands like Yamaha, Mapex Drum, Pearl Drum, Ian Symbols, et. And when I joined I told my boss like, we should really get ESP guitars down and I took my ESP guitar to him because I got it from [inaudible] he showed it to him, in the schools and he wrote to them.

And the next thing you know, we are bringing ESP to India. And I'm obviously in charge of the promotion and the brand and the social and everything. And I decided to do a guitar workshop, - like a clinic. And for that, I asked a drummer friend of mine. So the thing is, I didn't want to do an extreme metal clinic because I wanted to show that the guitar can be used for all styles. So I had this drummer friend who played in like a... Well, he was a tone worshipper, so lets just say anything in that way [inaudible].

And I had another friend who was a bass player, whose band I had recorded, and he was a classic rock bass player. So I asked them to be my backing band. And I wrote a few songs that were not very extreme, just heavy rock, heavy metal kind of stuff. And we started jamming and doing those workshops, and then the drummer kept pestering me to form a proper band.

I was like, okay, let's just do it. And I said we'll call it Workshop because we make it a workshop. And we did one impromptu gig where we literally made up songs on the spot, made gibberish lyrics and it was a really hilarious show. Like we were goofing off, we were making fun. It was almost like stand up comedy and music together.

Except I was completely rubbish. It was, it was probably not very good, but people loved it for whatever reason. The energy was really good. But then I said, look, if you're going to do this, let's do it properly. Let's get the [inaudible], let's have a thing going. And that's how workshop came up.

And we had the hard ads and the broiler suits. And we looked for a neat guitar player who joined us. And then that's how it went forward. Unfortunately, keeping bands together in India is not easy at all. So, two of the members quit and we got another two members. One of whom was Devesh Dayal from Sky Harbour and then he also left because I guess he had to spend time with Sky Harbour. Playing in a comedy rock band is not good for your metal image. So yeah, the band just fell apart and it was just too hard to find new members who would fit the vibe. So I just let it go then.

R: That's cool. It's nice to have a side project, one that's also not serious. What is one thing you wish the South Asian diaspora knew about the scene for extreme metal in India right now that they may not be aware of?

S: Well, I think they may not be aware that the scene in India isn't as good as it might appear to be. It's a very complicated topic because I mean, obviously things are getting better. A lot more bands are starting to come down. They're starting to build a touring circuit. But in India, for the size of the country that we are, metal music is very, very small. English music is also small. Like, for example, if we did a lot of guitar theory with Furtados when I was working with them. Like, Matthias Eklund from Sweden, Christoph Gordon from France. These guys, they endorsed Lady Amps and they were coming to India to do these workshops. We struggled to pull in a hundred in Bombay, for example, we'd have to do like two or three cities and every city, maybe you'd get like a hundred people, 120, 150, if you're lucky.

Same musician in China, 400 people for a clinic, and there's a big social economic disparity in India, which is what prevents people from getting into this genre of music. Like metal music is the music of the more well-to-do people in India, people who have access to the internet, who understand English music, who have over time familiarised themselves with drums and guitar.

But your average working person - your plumbers, your electrician, your taxi driver, none of them would ever listen to Michael. The instruments are expensive, there is definitely a disconnect there. But if you go to say the northeastern part where Christianity is a major religion because of the church, because of going to church and singing hymns and seeing guitar, there's a lot more connection to those instruments.

So there are all these different factors in India, which make metal not as big as it could be. So even going to a concert, it's like a rich person's activity. If you're a working labourer class, you're going to a shady bar and drinking in the dark and going home and hopefully not beating your wife, it's literally like that.

Going to a concert is a very privileged person's thing. So it's not really like the smaller cities. The smaller cities then don't have shows. So you have to like fly between the major cities in India. So you can do five or six cities, maybe, if you're lucky. But the cost is too much. So, unlike in America, somewhere you can just drive around and you have flights between every city. That means excess luggage. The Indian audience is not really used to buying merch and music and things like that. Because it's mostly kids who grew up in houses where music was distracting you from study. So parents are not giving you money. You only understood downloading.

Now, of course, things are slowly getting a little bit better, but again, it's not a big chunk of things. It is getting better. Things are improving. Like, we just had Vidor and Dye Disease and Hate from Poland. All three bands come and do two cities in India. We have Marduk coming down and doing one show in Bangalore. So slowly, slowly things are tying in and they're tying in more when bands are touring this site, but it's still not as robust a scene as you would hope it would be.

R: Yeah, I think from the internet you never get the full understanding, but you're right. Yeah, infrastructure is a big thing. I've been to India and there's no way you can drive from like Delhi to Mumbai. There's like, you can do it, but oh my…

S: You can't do it. So we did a show in Gujarat, since you said you are from Gujarat. It was in Anand, where the Amul factory is.

R: Oh, okay! [laughs]

S: It was the most bat shit crazy show we have ever played. So you're talking about infrastructure. So when we reach the venue, First of all, the stage is like six inches from the ground. There's no drum riser, nothing. Do you remember tape recorders or hi-fi systems where you would have these red and black cables with like open wires that you would plug in to the back of the speaker?

R: Oh yeah.

S: That's what the PA was. It was a hundred speakers, like a wall of them created from all these different hi-fi systems, all wired into one mono system.

And there were all these weddings, like, if you've ever seen an Indian wedding, you've seen, like, this throne that the bride and the groom sit on, right? So there were, like, six of those arranged in a semicircle around the stage, where VIP guests were sitting, and then the audience was just standing behind those chairs and watching.

And the few kids that came in front to watch were taken out by security and [inaudible] a few times because they thought they were like being miscreants or something. So it was like, and we went absolutely bonkers being here in India, man.

R: That is really a great story. I can't even imagine. The last follow-up question, which is obviously going to be open-ended is, [have you got] any shout outs to anything we didn't cover that you want to just quickly drop in?

S: I think most people, I'm just grateful so thank you for having me on the podcast and thank you to everyone who's listened, especially those who have listened right up to the end.

You can check out my music on Spotify and all other digital platforms, YouTube as well. Look for me, I'm Demonstealer. My band is Demonic Resurrection, and I just hope everyone enjoys the music. And if you enjoy food and cooking, I am Headbanger's Kitchen on YouTube.

R: That's awesome. This may be a little bit schticky, but do you want to give us a quick death metal growl?!

S: I haven't done any vocal growls in ages, but I'll give you another to get back on it. [growls]

R: Yes, that's awesome!

Outro

R: Thank you for listening to We Are the Weirdos, Aunty-ji. A podcast by WEIRDO Zine and Collective. WEIRDO is a volunteer-run project that was created to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives, and contributions of South Asian people in alternative subcultures across the diaspora and Indian subcontinent.

If you want to find out more about us, join our collective or support our work. Visit our website, weirdozine.com and follow us on Instagram @weirdo.zine.

Transcript by Ella Patenall

Read Rajen’s article about Sahil (coming soon)

Follow Demonstealer on Instagram

Listen to Demonstealer

Follow Demonic Resurrection on Instagram

Check out Headbanger’s Kitchen on YouTube

Intro

Puja:  Hi and welcome to We Are The Weirdos, Aunty-ji, a podcast by WEIRDO Zine and Collective. My name is Puja and I'm a writer for WEIRDO, where you will find me on our website, musing about all things music and culture. WEIRDO exists to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives and contributions of South Asian people in alternative subcultures around the world.

We do this through our print zine, our website, events and this podcast. In each episode of We Are The Weirdos Aunty-ji, we interview a South Asian creative to find out about their journey in the alternative scene. I have the pleasure of hosting this episode where I speak to today's guest, Tjinder Singh.

Tjinder is the frontman of the pioneering band Cornershop, who many of you will know through their iconic single, Brimful of Asha. Its remixed version knocked Celine Dion off the top of the charts in 1998, and the single is still recognised around the world today. Cornershop have had a rich career spanning over 30 years.

Their debut album was signed on by Talking Heads legend David Byrne. They've toured with the likes of Oasis and Beck, collaborated with a Beat poet, covered a Beatles song with permission from Yoko and Paul, and of course, achieved critical acclaim with their extensive catalogue of 9 albums.

Before we get into it, our apologies in advance if the audio is a little sketchy. That's because the interview was recorded on my phone back in November 2022 (with permission). We hope you enjoy the interview anyway. So here it is.

Interview

Puja: So you grew up in Wolverhampton. Your dad was a headmaster in India. Then he came over to the UK looking for job opportunities and your mum then joined him later on with your older brother and you grew up in essentially the era of Enoch Powell, which must have been insane. Although I can't say it's really that different anymore but we'll touch on that later. So how was growing up in the same year that he made his infamous rivers of blood speech?

How was that and how was growing up in a place that kind of continuously attacked your ethnic identity, others around you? How did that shape you as a child and the person you are today?

Tjinder: Even when my parents came from Wolverhampton, there was still a sense that we're going to stay here for a little while and then move on. And in a way that was sort of etched into us. It was sewn into us as we were born that was going to be the case. So being in a bit of a dislocated community, away from the mainstay of what other people were doing. It wasn't weird. It was, you are a second class citizen and you know it, and you're told it.

Every day it's reinforced that you're different and second class. And in a way you think, well, we're not going to be here too long anyway, so that doesn't really matter. And then as time goes on bigger roots tend to settle and it's only then when you start confronting these things - If they're there in front of you, you just deal with them.

I just bought a book on three parts of Wolverhampton. I've only read a little bit, an introduction to Wednesfield, which is where I'm from. It was a town that was inaugurated in 910 by the Danes, which I thought was just wonderful, because that puts paid to the comments on Enoch Powell. We don't have to worry about that. We know that he's an idiot.

P: Yeah, that's interesting.

T: Because the Danes were there in 910. All of this pure stuff that he talks about is, it's not pure. I mean, he spent a lot of his time abroad in places like India, but one of the things it talks about was that in 1741, the people from Wednesfield would walk to their local church, which was actually in the centre, to St.Thomas's Church in the centre. And between walking there, there wasn’t roads, and it was quite a horrible walk, and they complained about it. And then if you skip to 1970, you've got Asians that were walking along the Sunbeam into town, turning when you get to the railway line and going to [inaudible] gurdwara because that was the only close temple, until the Sikh community paid him for a small temple to be inaugurated, which is right near St. Thomas’s.

Just those few paragraphs, it was quite enlightening. People have done the same journey that we've done, and they were English, or they were Danish, or whatever. And then it repeated itself in the 70s, and every 30 years in between, I would say. Well, obviously, that's a backdrop we wouldn't have known, and we didn't know. Books tell you that but I didn't even see that book until now!

P: That's interesting, isn't it? It's always been a melting pot of cultures, which is ironic for The Enoch Powell era.

T: It renders it ridiculous, the Enoch Powell era. And it just stops a lot of arguments.

P: Yeah, that is interesting and I'm sure there's countless other small towns and cities where that is obviously the case, especially Birmingham has always historically been a melting pot of cultures, but then for some reason is a bit of a breeding ground for the BNP and things like that.

T: I would wager most, but yeah, Preston was the same. Preston was very odd when I first started there in ‘86. Very violent, just a very aggressive town anyway. Again, it was frightening on the streets. I mean, they hated students anyway. But they certainly hated Asians as well.

P: Why did they hate students?

T: They hated students of all colours and creeds, yeah, they were easily discernible. They dressed differently to the townies.

P: So it was more a class thing?

T: It was a different thing. It was a community that was readily available to be picked on.

P: That's interesting. How was it for your parents to acclimatise and how did that reflect on the way you kind of self-identified? For example, at school, were you the only Asian kid?

T: No, there were a lot of Asians. A lot of blacks and a lot of whites. It was a mixture of everything. Asians tended not to talk about the partition, but actually, they tended not to talk about anything. And anything that was not so unpalatable. It wasn't necessarily a talking point. They might say, you know, you've got to be careful. They certainly said, you've got to look after each other when you go out.

I think they were too busy, just getting on with their own shit. The Indian kitchen, which I spend a lot of time with my mum and my aunties in the kitchen, having a very good laugh. But really, it was parochial, it wasn’t about political things or anything like that. Really, it was, it was more like a Punjabi folk song. So really, we didn't talk about it.

P: Do you think your parents were alive to the fact that that sentiment was everywhere at that point?

T: Yes, they were. My dad was political in terms of a Labour person. We were Labour people. Never too far left, he became a teacher, he was aware that there were elements of that that he didn't like. You'd hear the odd things, but generally, they would keep things away from you.

P: That's a very common thing amongst diasporic parents. It's the same with my mum. She was brought up in the Indo-Bangladesh war. It's only when I ask her about it, that's when she's suddenly like, yeah I had to hide in all these bunkers when I was ten years old, and I'm like, oh my god mum!

T: It might be because of their background that they didn't want to talk. Or it might be that the people just didn't have the capacity in those days. Nowadays, everyone's free to talk. I mean, even doing the fanzine is an element of communication and talking things over. People just kept to themselves in those days.

P: Yeah and I guess there was that feeling of, we've come here for a better life so let's just get on with it. Just ignore all the rubbish and just get on with it.

T: Well, I think they just kept away from it. If someone got attacked in the streets, there might be people out on the streets for the next couple of weeks, just making sure that that doesn't happen again. Everything was fast in terms of the communication. If something got burgled, other people would know about it. If someone had a television, everyone else would know about it. Essentially, the twain didn't meet. It was still an element of… we're only here for a while. Let's just get on with it.

P: Did you have any instances of racism directed at you growing up?

T: Yeah, I mean, as I say, every few days you heard what people thought of you. We lived next to two brothers, and they looked like twins, so we called them twins, but they weren’t. And they were very aggressive to most people. Luckily, we lived near them, so if there was some aggression towards us, they would probably stick up for us. But if there were other Asians walking past, then they would stop them, and I met one of my good friends, and he was stopped, and they just made people sit down, and then they'd just tease them and taunt them for however long they wanted to.

That's what people did. If people didn't like you, they would just stop you and... Keep you in a corner with a stick is what, you know, that's what they did. Then we had fires burnt around us, and we were made to dance, things like that. In a way, you didn't confront it, but you bounced around by it. Because there's nothing that you could do, it was there. You were bounced from one conversation of people not liking you to in a conversation of people sticking up for you again, someone just jumping on you and knocking you down to the ground just because they feel like it. It just wasn't nice, but it was also a very day-to-day thing.

P: Growing up in that environment, did you ever feel like you stuck out, because many of the readers of WEIRDO who are South Asian and listen to things like rock, punk, grunge, indie, etc. They often describe feelings of sticking out amongst their peers, and they've often described going to gigs and literally being the only brown person, and I can definitely attest to that. I've been to so many gigs where I'm literally one out of three Asian or Black people in the entire venue at let's say the Roundhouse or whatever. So, did you ever get that sort of feeling growing up and do you ever get that feeling now?

T: Yeah, of course I got that feeling. Me and my brother generally went out together. We would be the only Asians. The only blacks at a gig.

P: It's interesting that you describe yourselves as black because there was a point in time where Asians were describing themselves as part of the black community and that's because there was this collective understanding between people of colour that actually you needed to sort of band together to be to be heard in the most effective way, whereas now, we don't really identify with that word anymore, but it's interesting to see how that's changed over time.

T: Well I personally. I mean, people get very offended by words, but blacks, that's how I grew up with the term and you are black - not because you band together - but because you're not white, so that's where black comes from.

I like the term, and a lot of people have discussed it, but I consider myself a WOG, and I think there's a lot of pride in that word for me. It being an acronym, it being Western Oriental Gentleman, or Gentleperson, or Gentlewoman. There's a lot of reasons to keep that vocabulary there. Because of what it conjures up, it shuts a lot of people up, because they don't know what to say about it. But if you get rid of it, then you also get rid of the history behind it. So rather than talking as I have done, in long words, I'm lulled to the fact that three letters can say all of that, and more.

P: Yeah, that's interesting. Is that the impetus behind your track from your last album, ‘The Wog Army Road’.

T: Yeah there is that. We did a song called ‘Wog’, we had a song called ‘Wog's Riverwalk’, and there’s about five other songs with the word wog in as well. It's just recurring as racism itself. And then taking things up to modern times. I happened to go and get short notice to the Union Chapel and I was shocked that actually at the door, I think there was an Asian doing the tickets. And the security was black. But going in, and into the arena, not one black person. I was quite shocked.

P: Was that a white artist that you went to see?

T: It was, well it was a couple of artists that were white, yeah. But they're also not from England as well so there's every opportunity for anyone to come and see them.

P: Yeah, it is strange how in this day and age, I just don't know where all the Asian people are at gigs. Well, it's not really that it's our fault for not going to these venues, it's more like, well there's probably different factors, one being cost..

T: I think part of it might be that when I was growing up, you either liked alternative music or you liked danceable music, whether that's R’n’B or soul or whatever. And me and my brother liked alternative music. So we were absolutely cut off at times from our own community, and it was our own community that first would have ostracised us before we went into any club, which is what we talked about, and it was our own community that, you know, again, the poor chap, my friend, who was sat on the floor by my neighbours, he said “I'll do whatever you want, I won't stop seeing the Singh brothers, because I know what they're about, I know what they're like, so don't just look at them and say what they're like.

You know, he would have been about 15 when he said that. And those are the sort of things you remember. That's a big statement. But it was the Asian community that first did the ostracisation. That's when you go out into the world, and then you can look for good old fashioned ostracisation that anyone can feel.

You know, for an Asian to be in a band was... Not just rare, it was as rare as hen's teeth. For an Asian to have a guitar, that was sacrilege. For an Asian to sing in English, you’d even get hit.

P: To sing English as opposed to your own heritage language like Punjabi?

T: I'm thinking your own heritage again doesn't enter into it. If you sing in English you are what they call a soul gone astray. There's no helping it, you've moved on. Heavy Rock was big in those days and our chess teacher would have it playing [inaudible] and Deep Purple and what have you.

We played wogs against whites on the cricket pitch. That was lovely. Everyone got on. That was great. But every now and then, some of the whites would go away because they'd go to see Status Quo or something like that. And we would think, oh wow, that sounds pretty exciting, seeing Thin Lizzy, that's great. But it was a world away from what we would do, because we just didn't do that. That’s what I mean, going back to the feeling that you are there, but in a way you're not there. You can think about those things, but in a way you stop thinking about those things because it's not really of you and none of it was of us.

We liked records from about the mid 80s and we started getting into records, but before that it was always Sikh devotional music and Punjabi folk music. And then it started slowly in the mid 80s getting into Western music. Before that we really didn't really care and there were videos and Hindi and Punjabi films.

And then slowly it was a case of getting into music that only me and my brother who were Asian would like. Everyone else, even our cousins, didn't like it. Asians that like Western music when you go to a polytechnic, they liked James Brown, and that was it. Or they liked R’n’B. That loved up wine bar nonsense. And it was - to us - it was shit. But that's what they liked. So there was still a strict demarcation. But, it slowly... Very slowly started to evaporate into what you've got now. And now you wish there was fucking demarcation!

P: What do you mean?

T: Sometimes it's nice to have a clear line and know what you are. I mean, one of the things about music is that it can be political. And in those days it was political. It reflected what was going on. Nowadays it doesn't seem to reflect what's going on, or it reflects what's going on in a ballpark, or it reflects what's going on in the greenroom of a club and it reflects not that much.

It's a very sad thing for me, because that's one of the reasons to be doing music, the political side of things - is to change people's thoughts or try to change them.

P: Do you feel you may have changed the thoughts of the Punjabi or South Asian community that was around you in Wolverhampton or other places in England? Do you think Cornershop's music has changed thought patterns?

T: Oh, definitely. I think it's created thought patterns, the Asian underground scene... There was only one group that was Asian and underground. Everyone else was on big deals so there's nothing underground about that.

P: But I meant the minds of people who weren't born here. So your parents, for example, or that generation who are here.

T: I think slowly. Those things did melt a little. Maybe they softened a bit. Well, they must have softened. There's more people doing it. But really I think that the bigger thing was that people were writing to us and saying, well, we don't do music, we do fashion. We do this. We're a journalist. We do whatever we do. And my parents can't understand it all. The sexuality is something that the Asians don't appreciate, but through your music, we get a feeling that we belong a bit more. That's the sort of stuff that certainly did happen then.

And, you know my father wasn't really enamoured with what we were doing as a group. Even when there was success, not that it matters because one of the things that I didn't answer was, “did you get support from your parents?” - of course I didn't! If we got support from our parents, we wouldn't be doing it. One of the things actually, something, I read when I was in Leicester. I was there for a little while, so I went into the library for a bit, and I read excerpts of the book on V. S. Naipaul talking about letters that he either sent to his father or his sisters, or vice-versa, when he was in Oxford studying in 1950. His father was a journalist who worked for the Guardian and the Evening Post in Trinidad, his sisters were probably better writers than V.S Naipaul, but they were doing different things.

It was all about encouragement. His father would say “oh, I can see that writing was developed, you've gotta do this. You've gotta do ..”. He got encouragement totally out in the fifties because he was in a profession that wasn't alien to his parents. That they could take him under their wing, that they could be proud of, that they could encourage… that wasn't what we had with our parents. In fact never the twain shall meet and if the twain did meet, as I say, sticks would come out because it was anathema to them when we first started the elements of what we were doing was not very palatable to them and we certainly got chased out of a few labour clubs and working men's clubs because they couldn't understand - I would say juxtaposition of what we were trying to do. Sometimes you cannot have your parents liking it. And it is the job of youth to do something that’s totally different to what their parents are doing. It's the job of youth to move, move things over, to turn the soil.

P: Is that something that you encourage your own kids. Do you have two children?

T: I've got two children. Two boys. I don't encourage them, they encourage me! We were dignified enough to not allow our parents to be… to always be one removed from our parents in doing, in doing what we did.

It's a world away from now. If they'd have known what we were doing, the things that you talked about, then they would have worried. So we kept it away. That's why I'm so disgusted with my oldest kid, because... He comes in and out of the house and I see everything that he does, and I don't wanna see it. He needs to, you know, spread his wings. Do it away from me, because I don't want to see it.

P: *laughs* fair enough. What do you think about the current rock and indie scene and how it allows for more diverse representation than say back in the 90s or early noughties? Because to me, it still seems very white.

And obviously there are bands like you guys, Cornershot, then there aren't really that many others. Our zine tries to give a bit of a platform to bands that are starting out on their journey or very early on. So we try to give a platform to a lot of bands who aren't just solely white.

But yeah, what do you think about the current sort of music, the music industry in terms of rock, indie, grunge, et cetera, punk? Do you think it's more or less diverse than back in the 90s or noughties?

T: No, looking back at the 90s, it was not just diverse in terms of the people doing it, but it was also diverse in terms of the music that people were playing, but also the mixture of musics that people were playing as well.

When you come to 2000, you go back to The Strokes, you go back to four white blokes in a group. You go to people who are wealthy and you go to four good looking white chaps. That's it. All that was done in the nineties is now finished. And then you go to girl groups and then you realise, well, it's cheaper to have just one person. So it's a girl group, one person, solo guitarist and economics come into place.

P: Yeah, and it still seems to be the case that not only is there just a dearth of brown and black people, but also... There aren't that many women in bands either, and it doesn't seem like it's moved on at all, like we've gone retrograde.

T: When we first started out on the first label that we were on, we were also considered a riot grrrl group, because there were lots of riot grrrls on that label so we were honorary riot grrrls, even though there wasn't a girl in our group at all. It was a bit like when the punks in the 70s found friendships with the Rastas who also had things to say. So we consider ourselves a bit like that, in terms of females being on the scene. Yes, it has all gone its separate ways. I think, unfortunately, it's totally changed. It's not got the roots. Music, it doesn't have the roots that it used to have. It's not something that flourishes from the working men's clubs or pubs. You're straight there. People are heard as they're fully formed. They're moved through the industry fully formed. They're spat out a lot quicker. And in terms of that... If things have to be spat out a lot quicker, it's a lot easier to just try to put your money where there's going to be a quicker return.

P: Do you think the lack of diversity in music here is worse than in the States?

I think I heard you on a recent podcast where you mentioned that you thought some sections, like, some sections of American society being a bit more forward thinking than here, and actually that reflects what some other non white creatives like Riz Ahmed, has described breaking into the American scene as being much easier than here and I just wonder why that is and you know, do you have any thoughts on that? Are we more latently racist here? Is that maybe one factor?

T: I think America has a stream of people that are always doing something a bit different. They're open, they're clever, they're inclusive. They're everything that we think the Americans aren't. I'm not saying that they're all like that - obviously they're not because a lot of them are Trumpian idiots. We have our Trumps here as well. Those trumps are linked to colonialism. Johnson's claim to any stake in this country is all about idiots like Churchill and other colonial idiots. And I think because of the colonialism, England has a certain way of looking at itself. And wogs don't enter into that. Unless they're used for the system. Which is the new fashion nowadays with Braverman and Patel and even Sajid Javid - you’re a Birmingham person, that is about the only place where blacks have done well.

Because they've been colonised into it. Braverman is not in that position because she's shown any modicum of talent. She's in that position because it's harder to beat down a person of colour, having a go at other people of colour.

And it validates what the right wing of the Conservative Party wants to do. In England, it's there, it's there in the colonialism. In America, it's there in the past as well. If you get to Texas and you see the cunts, even at a music night, it’s scary.

Everything's scary. Nothing will be completely right in this world. There's always that fluidity. And that's why I like music because music can take a claim to that fluidity and try to give some focus to certain parts of it. And if it's not there, like it's not at the moment, as far as I'm concerned, then, nothing really, well music, music was everything, music was a lifestyle. Music was the friend that you had. Music was the attitude that you had to other people, but also to things in life. It was the way that you dressed up. It was the purpose for getting up. When music and the calibre of music can be taken over by a very special baked piece of bread, you know that music's lost it. When a cappuccino is more important than what you want to listen to, then music has lost that edge.

P: Totally agree. I think that's a good little lead into the next topic. The most famous song that Cornershop is known for is Brimful of Asher, and I love how it entered the charts - it entered the charts at number one in Feb 1998, and it knocked off Celine Dion's Titanic theme song, My Heart Will Go On. So, how did it feel to knock Celine Dion off the charts?

T: When you've been doing a group and you've had to really fight for every element of what has gone on for every day that that group has been coming. When you've had to go to Europe because you've lost the focus in England. You've had to go to America to open things up there and you've been well received and your album is Spin Magazine's Album of the Year.

Everything is hard fought for. So when it came to Brimful getting the number one slot, it was great. It was as good as having Brimful be John Peel's Festive 50 number one a couple of months beforehand. And it was a matter of great pride for us that it worked so hard in getting the traducers that were against us back on our side.

And it wasn't just about me, it was about the industry, it was about the art, the artwork, the videos, the interviews. Working as a band, and that's what we were very all of it was, we were very pleased with. In terms of the actual song itself, it goes back to what I said about record collecting and liking different kinds of music.

And in terms of a song that talked about record collections and put together very strange types of music or elements of music from many different countries. There's Jacques Dutranc with French, there's Chi Chi music - which is autotuned - who is Welsh, there's obviously the Indian elements of Mohammed Rafi, [inaudible] and Asha Bhosle, Trojan records which is reggae. But to put all of those elements together in one song. We pushed as people, that's what we were pushing as people. We like those kinds of music. We like the idea of music. And we like the politics that music gave to us. And we put it all in one song. It does talk about politics. It does talk about the Narmada Dam before Arundhati Roy talked about the Narmada Dam, it talks about governments. So it's quite relevant to anything that's going on now as well.

P: Yeah, it is. And there's a sense of, like, obviously the irony is that Afshan means hope as well as being a reference to Asha Bhosle. That's quite nice. Was the sort of intention to keep with that hopeful, optimistic feeling, but then also there's that paragraph in the song, which is about - we don't care about no government warning, about the promotion of a simple life, and the dams they're building. You're keeping that hope going, but also not forgetting that there are problems.

T: Yeah, in spite of yeah, basically saying, well I might have iterated in the interview actually and weaved into it but basically saying that you can have solace, from whatever's going on, in music and that can be your diva, that can be your diva.

Your light through whatever's going on in the world. And certainly that's what the song was about. That music can get you through from one day to the next. Because that's how we certainly lived. You have to get from one day to the next.

P: Yeah, it's such a great song.

T: Most of our songs are upbeat anyway. I mean, even ‘Everywhere That Wog Army Roam’ regardless of what it might be about or not, is upbeat. ‘St Marie Under Cannon’, upbeat. ‘Sleep on the Left Side’, not so upbeat, but still comes across as, with a glint in it. We tend not to write dark, gloomy songs - we don't have the time for that.

P: That's interesting because it leads me on to my next point, or my next question, which is about your last album, ‘England is a Garden’. The whole to me is so groovy and really laid back and has this general cheerful atmosphere to it. But then, when you look closer at the lyrics, there's this kind of juxtaposition, because a lot of the songs have these darker undertones, which convey feelings around the recent politics around the post-Brexit era that we're living in and the British Empire and things like that. So with ‘England is a Garden’, what was your main focus behind the album?

T: Well really, it was to make a compelling album. That's what we've always tried to do. I think when we first started out it was not so easy to make compelling albums because we didn't have the money or the knowledge to do that. But we've learned, we've learned very quickly.

We've always liked stuff like William Morris, where in the arts and crafts movement, he would encourage people to either do things themselves or get their friends in to help them do it and then do it themselves. So that's how we've gone through our whole career. With an element of the limitation of what's around us, whether that's money or whether that's technology, resources or time.

So really, that album was approached like any other album. We've had a lot of faith in our albums as we’ve gone through them. When I was sponsoring it, it did very well, but we thought ‘Handcream for a Generation’ was far better. And then ‘Judy Sucks a Lemon’ was done after the Clinton album, we thought that was quite a compelling album and I think it's still as compelling. It still carries on. We had a single off that with Third Man [Records]. People are still into it. There was no new approach to it. It was just an approach to getting done and to do it to the best that we could do.

P: I mean, I absolutely love the album. I think it's so infectious. It's got a very infectious energy about it. But also it seems to be like a kind of an album that connects all of your previous albums and is a real well-rounded picture of what Cornershop is about. Like in both in terms of your lyrics and also your sound.

T: We use lyrics from old songs and keep them going, and I've used characters from old songs and kept them going. I mean, Bubbley Kaur, was a character that was in ‘Wogs Will Walk’ that was on the ‘Judy…’ album. And then Bubbley Kaur turns in the flesh, to come and do the Bubbley Kaur album. I think it has created, not just a garden, but its own sort of household and the village around it, in terms of albums, tries to reflect what's going on in people's mind politically and generally, and what keeps people going.

And therefore the variety of music that's on all of them. We love collecting records, we’ve always collected them. We've never really just been into one element of music, regardless of liking more independent music after liking it. The 90s did that. In the 80s everyone was different.

Their wine bars were their wine bars, their bars. Their pubs were their pubs. In the 90s everyone went to wine bars and pubs. Everything mixed. People thought, well this is music and you can have rock and you can have African singing on top of it, and technology brought a lot of things together. We believe that the music that we collect doesn't have to be too separate.

There's always an element of where music meets. And that's… we've tried to emphasise that with some of the collaborations that we've done, but actually one of the things we tried not to do, 'cause you said, what did you try to do with this album - one of the things we tried not to do was to have big collaborations on it, of people's names because we wanted the albums just… no one could knock it, no one could say it's because of such and such. It's still going. And we're very proud of it.

P: If no one's heard you guys before, it's a really great, this is what you're all about sort of album.

T: Well, that's great. Couldn't ask for more than that.

P: So you talked about how it’s great to meld all these things together in music. And, one way that I think Cornershop does that so brilliantly is through the use of language. Like you obviously sing a lot in Punjabi which is amazing and it's still pretty unusual for a British audience to hear a different language let alone Punjabi or any Indian language in a rock song or an indie song or whatever you call it, even though diaspora communities here are so big. And obviously, notably, you did a cover of the famous Beatles track, Norwegian Wood. With Norwegian Wood in particular, what made you want to cover that in Punjabi?

T: First and foremost, we just like the song. A way of doing such a song that's so well known was to simply change it into Punjabi. After that, it's then what other people have placed on it, saying that it's having a go at the Beatles, reclaiming whatever. That's not really the case. After that, other people put their own inflection onto it.

P: When we're talking about some people reacting in that way, is that because Norwegian Wood seems to have opened the door to the likes of Ravi Shanker and having the sitar as the key instrument in it. In a way, there's something kind of empowering listening to the song in Punjabi, maybe from my personal perspective, there's something quite empowering about it because it's - not taking anything back or anything like that - but it just feels like we can own that part that is very proudly associated with Indian culture, South Asian culture, and which, which so brilliantly made Norwegian Wood so successful at the time it came out from The Beatles.

T: Well, again, I wouldn't say that. That's for other people to say, but growing up with certain types of Asian music, going to some functions with just Asians there and saw some music as being a higher art form, and it was a time for people to come out and really flash themselves by showing other people that they were into it, whether they were dancing or whether they were giving money or whether they were just getting into it.

And I thought Ravi Shankar himself actually was a little more of that high art form, and I've never really totally got into that because of the class of it, because it was a higher class. Punjabi folk music, it's pretty much down to the earth that they sing about, but I also found him quite, well there was a documentary that he did where bemoaned the idea that India nowadays is so much like America, that it has its miles, that it has its fast food, and he's not pretty happy with that. But so speaks a man who went off to America to create his own schools and teach his own things, to spread his semen, and to live a Western life as much as any of them. So for him to come back to his considered motherland and say that. I didn't think that was very fair.

P: Going back to the album ‘England is a Garden’ and language being a key thing for Cronershop. With the song ‘Slingshot’, I really like that. It was very trippy and very happy with the little flutterings of the flute. The lyrics are in Punjabi and although I grew up in Birmingham with lots of Punjabi friends, I didn't actually pick up the language that well. So what's that song about for those of us who can't understand?

T: Well, it's actually quite a soft song. It's like the two beats apart is the main chorus part and then it opens up into other elements that are linked to general life experiences, not necessarily love. I'm not the best at Punjabi myself and when I write in Punjabi, it's more… there has to be a reason to write and to sing, which then gives the song its sort of way to go. Like Jalinder [inaudible] was like that.

P: With No Rock Savin Roll from Englander's Garden - that is a banger of a track. It seems to be an ode to the musical history of the West Midlands. Which on a personal level, makes me very proud. What made you want to make that particular track?

T: Well, we've always liked a bit of metal. Heavy metal. And the song is saying that you can't have one thing without another. It talks about the foreman, and that fetches it back to the Midlands in terms of the machinery and the industry. It does link those two and that's how I like my rock, I like to link it to Birmingham rather than America. When it comes to heavy metal.

The songs are done or started and if a song.. if one feels that a song can be taken forward, then that's what happens. Most of the time I take songs forward and very little is lost, a song like that, I think it just had a very good feel to it as well.

P: Just to wrap up, do you have any tips for young South Asian, aspiring musicians who have to battle certain types of conditioning that they've been like and been grown up with or, you know, like expectations are lumbered on them from their immediate circle? How can they feel empowered to follow paths that are less travelled, such as yours?

T: I don't give anyone any tips. It's a waste of time. If someone's into anything, whether they're in a band or whatever, then they will take it upon themselves to do what is natural to them. And good luck has a great deal to play with it. Perseverance has a great element of play towards it. Hard work, actually, is probably the biggest one. If you can do those three things, nothing can go wrong.

P: I think that's pretty solid advice, to be honest. So, thank you for that.

T: Except she might be absolutely fucked after a few years and yeah, not have a penny to piss on. Yeah. But don't put that conclusion in!

P: But that's reality. Maybe, maybe people read the reality shock!

T: No, you need to just put the first three in. I'm joking - whatever! But yeah, life is tough, and good luck has a great element to play in it. The youth have to do whatever the youth need to do. They need to break things down, and build them up again, or whatever they need to do. And they need to do it differently.

P: What do you think is the most positive thing we can all focus on at the moment? In our communities.

T: I think it's the same as it ever was. Voting is the only thing that's positive.If we can vote and get things changed through voting then we're laughing. It's when we can't vote, that's gonna be the goal, because at the moment, that's the way things are looking. America's knocking on the door of democracy and trying to break it down. And when that's gone. Then we are fucked. We're as fucked as any country has ever been in life. And that's the positive side.

P: I know, I was just about to say that I asked for the positive side. And the last thing he said is we're fucked!

T: *laughs* well, I don't know. I said if we don't, if we can't concentrate on the one… But I think that's quite good. There's a right way and there's a wrong way. And if we can do things properly, if things are done properly, then our options are open. If not, then we are fucked.

Outro

P: Thank you for listening to We Are The Weirdos, Aunty-Ji, a podcast by WEIRDO Zine and Collective. Weirdo is a volunteer-run project that was created to document and celebrate the experiences, perspectives, and contributions of South Asian people in alternative subcultures across the diaspora and Indian subcontinent.

If you want to find out more about us, join our collective or support our work, visit our website weirdozine.com and follow us on Instagram at @weirdo.zine.

Transcript by Ella Patenall

Follow Cornershop on Instagram

Read Puja’s article on her interview with Tjinder