Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Hey, guys, welcome once again to the Raj Podcast. And I've got. I, I talk about this next guest a lot on my podcast because of the advice he's given me all the time. And there's not many people in the industry who take the time out just to give you random advice, like, especially because diamond and me and network just giving it away. Who is diamond and myself, we've never met in person, but what a guy.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: So thank you. Thanks for the intro.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah. So is it all right to call you Diamond?
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Yeah, you can call me Diamond. Some people know me as DJ Swami, but Diamond is actually my real name.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: So as I said this as I was talking to you, I think this scenes, this thing's about musical excellence. But I want to just get. For the people who don't know you or will, who know you in the past sort of thing, tell us a bit about yourself in terms of where you're from originally. I think you're from my bend.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm from Handsworth, Birmingham. That's where I was born.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: And I, I grew up there. Teens to my early 20s. And in my, in my teens I was playing in local bands. I mean, Handsworth and Birmingham is very multicultural. Growing up playing, you know, Punjabi music, Indian music, reggae music, rock music.
I'm a guitar player, so I started out playing guitar and playing in local bands and that kind of thing, and then went on to record with my cousin, Apache Indian, and ended up producing all his early hits. And only then it kind of came a bit more serious.
So, yeah, that's where we'll start.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: So just a bit about your childhood. I know we just. We've got another thing which I do with my wife, which is the Bangladesh Museum. So we covered a bit some of this on there, so we're not going to touch it just too much. But I want to go into the sort of technical side. So when you were a kid, how did you end up picking up the, the, the guitar or any other instruments? Kind of. You could play a few other things.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: As well, I guess. I was always interested in music and there was always a lot of music around. And even if you would go to a wedding back then, or Indian wedding or an event, you'd see a live band or that kind of thing. So it's very much part of Punjabi culture, music and live music, and it's, it's, it's a very inclusive thing.
I remember that at my brother's school they had musical instruments because we lived near to his school, so his music Teacher used to let him bring like an instrument home sometimes in the evening. And then I. You know, one time he brought a guitar home and I started playing it and thinking or trying to play it. I thought, yeah, I could really get into this.
So, you know, a couple of, you know, sessions playing with that and thinking. Eventually I got my own acoustic guitar and started learning how to play it myself. And the first things I started to learn to play that were easy to play was. Was reggae because all I had to do was go ching ching. And just. And I thought, you know, and. And when you start playing with other people in a band together, you think, oh, this is nice. It's a. It's a good collaborative environment and. And it kind of started there. I guess my, my first entry into music was playing that guitar, which my brother borrowed from the school and learning how to play some reggae chops.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Is that your brother, is it Simon?
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Simon, yeah, my older brother. Yeah. Who's who? Who was who? You know, who was the drummer mainly. And he was playing drums a lot and I was playing guitar a lot. It's quite a popular combination if you look at a lot of musicians. There'll be like two brothers where one plays the guitar and one plays the drums.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Ross was it. Was it Ross?
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Bros. Van Halen. Yeah, I'm sure there's more.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah, there's more. Yeah. Interesting. I watched a documentary on Bros and how they got. They got really done over by the label and stuff. Did you ever see that documentary?
[00:04:25] Speaker B: I heard about it. I know that, you know, because they. They were effectively marketed like a boy band, weren't they? So I mean, I don't know if you know this as well, but I. I was also the guitar player for Boyzone as well.
I. Did I ever tell you that?
[00:04:41] Speaker A: You told me so much things. Right. But not boys. You told me about Robbie Williams last time I spoke.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Yeah, but I said Robbie was on tour with us with Boys. And so I used to, you know, perform with Robbie and with Boyzone and Peter Andre. But I know this Boyzone documentary has come out on sky, but I haven't seen it yet. I thought people saying y'all better watch it because I might be in it somewhere, so it's worth a watch.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: I mean, so we're digressing that. But it's a bit.
It's a bit. It's really sad how they were stripped of everything. They had these lots, sports cars and everything. But the let the deal they had with the label, they would just take everything was Taken off them because they didn't want to do.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, I was quite close with them at the time because we would tour together and. But I could see they were going through a lot of things. Friction with the management and that's the hard part, part about this music industry. You know, you say, you know, how did you start as a kid? And that you start these things for love and because you love playing an instrument. But at some point it turns into a business and then it's a different set of emotions, you know, to deal with, you know, like, you know, I used to like my guitar there, you know, when I got my first guitar. Clean it and look after it and polish it and I mean, I still look after them, but it's a tool for my work.
And there's, you know, there was a transition point where it's not like, oh, wow, you know, play instruments. It's like, these are my tools and this is my job.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: How do you keep that passion going? Like, you know, when it turns out.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. That. How do you keep the passion going? I think that, I think the passion only goes out if you become a very negative person because of the industry. I think this industry takes no prisoners and it will eat you alive. And it, it's not for the faint hearted. It's a very tough industry to be involved in.
But the passion has to come by keeping that positive attitude of why you want to do music in the first place. And in this is what I've always maintained in my mind. I want to make music in music because I want to help people. I want people to be happy. I want people to know, figure out who they, what, where they come from and who they are and where they belong. And you know, the songs that I've always been involved in as, you know, have a sense of like optimism or pushing some boundaries about who we are as people and that so that other people will see us not in a stereotypical way, in a way in which we can achieve great things and, and be visionary as well. And so my, my mental attitude is, is that, you know, have a positive mindset about it even when it's, when it's, when it's difficult.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Hi guys, this is Raj Kaul. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you want to support the rest of my music, if you could go and check me out on Spotify or Apple Music and add my songs to your playlists if you like them. Thank you.
Like you guys, when you, when you did. Did Apache stuff. You. You were way ahead of the game. Way ahead of the game. No one was doing that. And that's why that was. That was like. I think that was one of my first cassettes I had when I was a kid. Yeah.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: So just like Movie Over India and Chalk there and all of that.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Yeah, those. Yeah, yeah. I rem. My cousin Suki, he had a.
A hi fi at that time in the stacked highis. And this was a silver one, really old. And they had that. They had a Chuck there playing on there. What. What's this?
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, imagine. It sounded quite, I don't know, just like different from everything else. But because, because that those records were made, you know, I said you like in a family environment within the. Within what goes on inside your own family home and stuff, you're just having a laugh and fun. That was just basically me, Stephen, Apache and my, my brother Simon just having a laugh and just. We recorded it. But there's such an honesty and innocence to it. There was no great like Master Plan with loads of like strategic marketing or anything. We were just doing what we grew up on and recorded it.
And I think that's what resonated with people. They heard the honesty in it. We weren't trying to be something, we were just doing something and having fun doing it. Because if you listen to the lyrics in Choctaw and Movie Owen, it's all about growing up and trying to like fit in with the surroundings. And we're Indian and it's like it.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: Spoke to us because I was from Handout as well. So even though I was a kid.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: I sort of, I could relate to all those lyrics.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you would do. Yeah. Growing up in Handsworth would be like, you know, you're like the day one people. You're just like, you know, you know, these things are just like normal everyday, everyday life to, to us. And you know what? That's something also very special growing up in Handsworth compared to everywhere else. I mean, I've lived in London for the past 20 odd years and I still know that I was. There's no place I would want to have had my musical education other than Handsworth, where it was, you know, such rooted in authenticity that it was the perfect place to be. Because like I said, you know, I grew up on reggae music, Indian music and you know, Birmingham is the home of rock music as well.
So it's like you get the best.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Of all three and not many people like sort of especially, especially in the, in the, in the bang. Industry. Not many people, I don't know whether not acknowledge it or they're not aware of how big the rock scene was here in Birmingham.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Well, Ozzy Osbourne, when. Heavy Metals in Birmingham.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: And when, when I was about 12 or 14, obviously I discovered the guitar shops in Birmingham, these two on Snow Hill. There used to be musical exchanges on the corner as you were going into, into town. And I. I used to get the bus there from school and go and sit in there in my school uniform because they would. I got to know the guys in there and they would let you play the guitars in there and they would be like vintage Gibson guitars and everything, but they cost a fortune now. But back then, you know, there was sawdust on the floor and you could pick up a guitar and I'd be sitting there in my school uniform playing the guitar and I'd look around and then Tony Iommi would walk in from Black Sabbath or Dave Hill from the band Slade. And I was like, wow, these guys were legends.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: There are legends. They are legends. I see them, I think I want to be like them, you know?
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Yeah, that's crazy.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: So, yeah, you know, we have everything in Birmingham. Everything was accessible. And also people were always super friendly about music. Music was the common language where you would communicate with other cultures.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And like, you'd hear like sort of reggae bass lines.
What happened? What? I remember quite fondly walking past, Walking Soho Road. You had remixed with the regular reggae baseline stuff.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: I like that. Yeah, yeah, I like that. Yeah. I mean, there were a lot of people. There are a lot of key people in Birmingham who, who I a lot of respect for. You know, when Mick Sinclair set up his studio and there were a couple of guys working there, one in particular, Nils, Nils Edstrom. I don't know if you know Nils.
So he was the engineer and one of the producers at Mix Studio and he did that Sutrong record and I learned a lot from him because he was like experienced in recording and you know, with multi tracks and, and how to, how to work with that. And he, he lectures in music at South Birmingham College now and he's been a lifelong friend. I've. I've even taken him on tour with me to America and really places to do the front of house sound and when I toured Punjabtronics over there. So, you know, I have some lifelong friends who, who taught me the ropes of the music industry who are from Birmingham. I mean, the sad thing is, is that unfortunately a lot of people learn their skills in Birmingham. But then they leave, me included. You know, I had to leave because I was getting involved more in DJing and working in London and stuff. And it would be nice if, you know, I mean I do come back a lot, but it would be nice if the, you know, the scene could, could, you know, grow within Birmingham as well.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: Things are trying to move here. This, there's things moving, but it's, I think it's like one, the problem is, you know, when you were around, you had so many different genres and so many different flavors. Now it's just one type of Punjabi music you get here, if that makes any sense.
I mean like a Punjabi spoken, not, not necessarily the fusion stuff like it, you have like almost like the jazzy vehicle, Monarch style. That's it, that's all you've got at the moment. So.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Well, I think, you know, Punjabi music and indie music has moved on. I mean globally. If you look at where Dilgit is or Karanujala and AP Dylan and all of this thing that's happening and it's, it's moved into like a different dimension now where the sounds don't exist necessarily within the music, but the culture is represented in the lyrics and you know, and the, and what, and the, and the way that's being communicated and, and I, I, I know that a lot of the Birmingham, you know, Bungara Punjabi scene is associated with the legacy sound of all the instruments. It's like that's not so prevalent in the music anymore, which is, you know, that, you know, even for me it's just like, you know, they, to make a song today that's got a Punjabi hit quality about.
Might not necessarily need the door on it. And even for me that's a, that's a tough one. And you have to make these decisions about what's appealing now to the next generation and the, there are some good artists in Birmingham who are trying these new things and out. And I think that that is a way, is, is a way forward. There's other ways to represent our culture than just through the instruments as well. And if this is what the public wants, we've got to find ways to engage that as well. Absolutely.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: Because you gotta, you gotta meet them. Which is what you guys did with Apache Annual music. Sorry is, you, you, you met people at, at where they at at the moment. You know, I mean like where they were. If people listen to like sort of.
I remember when Apache's Jack Day came out. If, if I, if I remember correctly, I was very young then, so Vanilla Ice was Out, I think. Ice ice baby. Roughly around that time. And I could be wrong, but.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, probably, probably. Yeah, around that time. Yeah.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: So I've got this memory of like Apache listen, like merely stabilized and listening to, listen to Apache. That's like, you know, it's, it's, it's. I could relate to it.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: We never really had rappers from our community, did we?
[00:16:24] Speaker A: No, no, no.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: And if you look at the whole of the scene, Indian scene now, and it's all rappers and you know, he, he really set a Preston there and we, and we weren't using many Indian sounds, only where we wanted to and we felt like they would fit and they needed to be, um. So it, it was a very much a natural progression. I think that's, that's so important to go with your instinct of what you feel right to do. You don't have to like, you know, always be like thinking about your culture up front. You got to think about who you are as the, as the, as the main consideration. And if your day to day life is being British and being Indian and listening to this and listening to that, then that should be your music, you know, because that's true representation of who you are. I mean, if you're trying to be proper Punjabi in what you do, you got an uphill struggle because you got artists in Punjab who are just, you know, way ahead of you in that game.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: And what is being Punjab Punjabi now? Because if you go in India, if you go Punjab in India, there's. They're just trap beats. Yeah, every song is a trap beat song there, you know, so.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, pretty much so I think, you know, they pick up on different trends and things that are happening and there was, you know, grime and other stuff and now you probably, you know, realize that even in India and for the younger generation who are making Punjabi influence music, they're back on the two step garage thing.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: So now like people are pulling out my pure garage records from the early 2000s and you know, and playing them and wanting to do this and do that and you know, which is great. You know, things do go in full circle.
I think, I think the thing for me that's exciting about Punjabi music is, is the energy. And that's what I always look for. Yeah, some sometimes when the songs get a bit too kind of slow and stuff like that and my attention span drifts.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: But, but there's a whole genre, isn't it? It's called senti music. Yeah. Sentimental music, you know. Yeah, that, that's the whole like April and all that, they'll be classed as senti music.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, if you look. I mean that whole scene has been driven by, you know, a certain few artists in from India have gone to Canada.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: And there's a lot of development happening in India. It's a capitalized on that from the major labels as well. Some of them have referred to it as I pop now. You know, we had K Pop and now they're calling it IPOP as Indian Pop.
You know, I hope that Indian music can go as big as K Pop and be the next big thing. You know, that. That would be really, really great. But I think there needs to be more English content because not everybody understands the language. You start getting too deep into the verses and you don't understand Punjabi and that, then you're kind of lost.
So that's. So. And that's, you know, like you said, that's. We always were singing in English with Apache stuff and then putting something joby in there as reference points.
Yeah. That was way ahead of his time. Now I look back, I realize how ahead of his time it was.
And I'll tell you, there was one incident that happened because everybody wanted to. To sign him. All the major labels, they were all knocking on my mom and dad's door, you know, sending like representatives and stuff. And I remember we had a meeting with, you know, Pete Tong is.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: Yeah, Pete Tong was one of the biggest.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Yeah, so. So Pete Tong invited us that he wanted to sign him. So I'm sitting there with my brother in. In. In his office in London Records in London. And then he says, so how did you come up with the concept of Apache Indian?
And we were like, really confused. And then I said to him, what concept? There's no concept. This is who we are.
This is all we know.
He actually thought we'd come up with a calculated plan to mix reggae with some Indian, you know, because there's a strategic target market here and blah, blah.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: So that's kind of probably how naive we were as well.
That's the shows in the music then the naivety is the beauty of it. It's kind of we're just doing our thing.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: And I think that's. That's what matters most with any artist at any point in development in their career. It's like the honesty of what you do. It's like, don't try and be someone else because that seat's already taken. Do your thing and stay. Stay in your expert niche of whatever that complexity of you is.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Okay. We We've, we've got this. It's my own fault. I think we've got distracted in terms of music. But it's all cool. It's, it's, it's a nice informal chat and so I like it. So back to your guitar playing. Let's go, let's go back a bit. How when you used to come home, like, you've got, you've got your guitar. I remember you telling me before that you were self taught.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Self taught, yeah.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: What was the process behind being self taught? Like, like when, if I pick the guitar up, I've got guitar here, you know, first I'm not going to know what I'm doing. Did you get a book or.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I would, I would. There was no YouTube then, obviously, so a few things.
I would watch a lot of music on tv, record stuff on video and pause it and see where people had their hands and what they're doing. I would buy books. You know, I did do music at school as well, so I thought it's important to understand scales and chords and keys and everything.
But what interested me was the point of where Western music crossed over with Indian music. Because When I was 14, my dad bought me a sitar from India.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: Really?
[00:22:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Took about two months to arrive, like, you know, like a wooden crate. But. But he. That was very nice of him. They got me a sitar. So I bought this book called by. Written by Ravi Shankar, called My Music, My Life. And then half the book is like his life story, you know, you know, you know, about how he grew up. And then the other half of the book is how to play the sitar. So I studied that as well. And then I made a little book where I used to write down all the Western scales and I used to write down the rags next to them. I said, oh, that one is that one and that one is that one. So I would kind of understand both at the same time. And that's. That would be like a way of me discovering music and from being, you know, born here, but being Indian, I guess you could say, like, it's a bit like a journey to discover your identity. I thought I'd do it through music. Some people do it through art, some people do it through sport, some people do it through fashion. I just happened to do it through music. And I thought, wrong. Right now I just kind of understand this. Let me try and bring those elements together in the kind of music that I make that's uniquely me and that's, that's what I was doing. And obviously, you know, Apache was doing that in his own way as well I could, you know, and there were other artists emerging from the scene, as, you know. You know, I became good friends with Taz, who was Johnny Z back then, and he was doing his thing, mixing the whole kind of Michael Jackson thing with Indian stuff. And I was a great admiration for people who pushed the boundaries of, of culture and music.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Hi guys, this is Raj Kaul. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you want to support the rest of my music, if you could go and check me out on Spotify, on Apple Music and add my songs to your playlists if you like them. Thank you.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Yeah, and if I was to listen to things that were pure and purely folk or purely classical or I would think, well, what parts of that would I incorporate in my style and what can I learn from that?
[00:25:04] Speaker A: Did you ever get into the rag side of it because it gets quite complex. I've studied a little bit of it. I'm not an expert by any means, but did you ever get into the rock side of it and, and the modes and stuff?
[00:25:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, very much so. You know, I'm, like I said, I'm a trained guitar player and I, I toured as a musician playing guitar.
So yeah, I'm very deep into guitar. I was studying guitar like five, six hours a day at one point.
And it's, that's, that's my reference point for music. Other people are pianists, other people, you know, are violinists. You know, the guitar is my go to instrument. If people want to write a song with me or I want to write a piece of music or I'm. Or I hear a piece of music and I'm going to figure out, figure it out. I will, I will go to the guitar. That's, that's my, I think it's really important even for young musicians starting out or artists or singers. Learn an instrument to a certain point. If you're a singer, you need to know your range. You know, you need to know where you sit on whether it's on the harmonium or the piano or the guitar. You need to know what your restrictions are and you need to know some basic chords or the kind of chords that complement your voice. And it's. These things are really important. I'm always telling new singers and new eyes, you know, learn, get a keyboard or what, or guitar if you prefer. Learn something basic that can accompany you to develop.
I mean, I'm not a singer as such, but I write songs and you know, I will put the ideas down as well.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: I mean, for singing, like, sort of. I even. I'd even recommend just getting a digital dumpura.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I have people who. Artists who do that. They tell me they do that or they go on YouTube and they find the tempura or the. Or the pad sound and they sing over that.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Start experimenting with you. With your picture, as you were saying, your range. And from there you can find your range, can't you? Okay, so I'm on C sharp at the moment, which is what. What you like, you practice on anyway. But then you can start experimenting with different.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: But the reason why that's important is because a lot of people, they'll start singing. They'll find like the tampura drone or the one chord, and they'll start singing the verse, right. And they think I'll sound great. And by the time they get to the chorus, it's too high for them to sing.
And they just think. And they should have thought.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: Realize at the beginning, especially with qualis.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: Qualities. That's. That's. Oh, gosh, like, I've got to practice qualities. I'm practicing a quality now and it's like, oh, yeah, I'm bouting the chorus out and the first bit kicks in. No, this is way too high.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So find the highest part of the song and just put it just in the comfortable range and then work backwards from there.
And let's make sure you make sure the verse isn't too low. That's always been a problem with the duets. Have you noticed in Indian, in Bollywood, or even in the folk stuff, they would always put the key of the song in the May, in the dominant males range.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: Which is why the woman's voice is so high.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: Absolutely.
Have you seen that? Remember that song from Koila?
[00:28:18] Speaker B: Which one?
All right. Yes.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Perfect example of that.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Voice is so high. It's like.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Yeah, respect. To be able to sing that high. It's. It's amazing.
But I think it's. It's for the western ear. That's kind of quite hard to listen to because the male's voice is down here. And then they suddenly, like, really super high for the women's voices, like, you know, despite the fact that they might be playing loads of, like, quarter tones and modal stuff as well. Yeah.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: So we're almost done. We're almost done to do a half an hour.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: It's okay. I. I'm. I'm good for another 10 minutes or so.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: That's fine. Yeah, I'll Keep you.
What's that? Sorry?
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Was there any specific questions that you noted that you wanted to ask me?
[00:29:09] Speaker A: No. Do you know what? I. I'm gonna be honest, I do this free because I'm. I just love chatting to musicians like yourself. And as you can see, I'm just like, just chatting as if we were at the pub.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: You know, when you mentioned the rags, I was going to say there's a song that I did with a classically trained female artist, she's from London Indian art called Unity Dasgupta. And we did a song together which is actually the theme tune on the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Really?
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's called Rise. But we're talking about Rags. I produced and co wrote a song with her called Delhi Yard Aarti Here, which is on Buddha Bar, you know, the Buddha Bar compilation.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: But if you listen to that, you know, I, I wrote all the music in a rug and you know, I'm actually playing all the guitar solos on a 12 string acoustic in that rag as well. I can't remember what rag it was. So you can listen to that and your listeners could listen to that and see, you know, how I'm approaching rags with, with classical singers.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Did you do when, when you were doing the rags? Because like, what, what. The thing I found really hard to get my head around rugs because, you know, you've got like your scales and then the. You. The actual Indian. Very. The Indian equivalent to that is tart.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: The scale. But rag.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: It's a. It's a different thing.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a. The way, the easiest way I found to understand playing in a particular rag. It's like, okay, this is like playing in the A minor scale, but I'm not allowed to play the fourth note ever.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Exactly that. Yeah.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: Okay. So now it's kind of messing with my brain, but I'll take on that challenge. So whenever I'm solo, I'm not allowed to play that note.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: So when you're ascending is different and when you're descending is different and then you got to play these patterns of notes.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: You know, like need. Like it was like need sr. It has to be need ASR. You can't be like straight and stuff.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Is it. It's like jazz, really? And. Yeah, I know I was brought up in this country to think with a western mindset. So I have to find the nearest equivalent of Western music that I can relate it to. It might be. Oh, it's, it's, it's, it's the Dorian mode. Or the Phrygian mode or this is that rug. But you're not allowed to play that note. And I just go with that in my mind because I learned guitar first.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: So you know that's, honestly that's phenomenal.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: That's how I, that's how I figure it out.
Yeah. I mean it's a different world when you come and getting onto like tablet cycles and stuff like that. And.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I can just about do Dean Dal which is the 16 one.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: And well that's an interesting thing. You know like it's interesting how most all of western pop in pop music is 44 but then a big, a big rhythm for us, you know that would get a crowd. Is The Dunda or 3:4, you know, doing K K.
You know, like it's a massive beat, you know. But they don't really have it in the west, do they?
[00:32:15] Speaker A: No, I mean I'm doing at the moment I was practice because, because when you practice your pte, you know the vocal exercises you. Because the patterns land. There might be like a five, a five note pattern. So that'll be like Japal, which is a ten beat cycle.
[00:32:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:31] Speaker A: And then you've got like a seven beat cycle which is I think no, six beat cycle.
I think pronounce the name. But yeah, so it's, it's quite interesting what you're saying.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So like you know, my approach is whatever I can understand and what I will work with that and I'll apply my logic to, to that and it might come out slightly differently.
But I guess that's the beauty of being uniquely you.
And as I said earlier, I said be the expert in the niche, in the way what you, what you are, your DNA is uniquely you. Let that be your music.
That's what, that's what I think. You know, I'm inspired by a lot of great, great artists and even certain Indian artists. There was a guitar player called Bridge Bushran Cabra. I don't know if you know there's an album called Call of the Valley and Indian classical album which is a big influence on me. I think it's Bridge pusher and cabra. Shivkush Marma on the Suntour and Hari Prasad on the flute.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Prasad.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So you know, in fact I, I, I produce Rakesh's nephew. Is it his nephew? Rakesh Jiraisia because he featured on the Shania Twain album.
So but working with these kinds of musicians but at the same time I'm listening to Jimi Hendrix, I'm listening to you know, Van Halen. I'm listening to all of this other western stuff and jazz stuff as well, as well as R B and Salt on the. And the big producers and a lot of hip hop. I grew up on a lot of 90s hip hop and.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Yeah, you would in Handsworth.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: Yeah. But then listening to 90s hip hop, that I'd listen to those records and I think, oh, what did they sample? And then I started discovering all the 70s music as well. I. So, you know, that's. That's kind of, you know, all of these things. That's the thing about music, isn't it? It's infinite. You don't get. You'll never get bored of it because it. One pathway reads you to another, to another, to another.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: We haven't even touched a lot based on your production side yet and we've only got a few minutes left. So you. How did you get into the production part?
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Okay, so the first band that I ever played in, we. We ended up signing to a record to Warner's record label. And I was the guitar player in the band. And I was 18 at the time. And when we got to the studio, I realized that the person at the mixing desk, the producer, had the control over the whole sound. This was at UB40 studio. And I was, you know, playing the guitar and then we would record everything. And I realized he can mute me out if he wants to, could turn me to put me in the background. I thought, you know what? I should learn that job.
Because that seems to be the person in control. So from the time I spent in that band, you know, saved up some money, me and my brother saved up some money and we built a little recording studio in my mom and dad's garage. And then with a lot of help from N. Nils, who I mentioned earlier, Nils Edstrom, who had a studio in his house around the corner. And he was a bit more of an expert in all these things. We used to go and ask him, how do you do this? How do you work with that? And how do you mix, how does the compressor work? And, you know, gain and everything and just learning how to make music on our. On our own. And around that time, the Atari computer had come out and you could use MIDI on it to plug into another keyboard and got a little eight track. And then just. And then it was. It wasn't long after that we started recording with a. With Apache. And all of that was originally done like in the home studio, just on a little eight track, you know, home studio set up.
So it Progressed from there, really. Just kind of learning.
As I said, There was no YouTube. There were magazines and there were things on TV occasionally if you managed to like video record them and, and figure things out.
But yeah, it's crazy really, because now you can just go on YouTube, you can look up a particular song and slow it down and there'll be somebody teaching you how to play it.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think the thing with the YouTube, I find this too much information and sometimes you're, you're looking for something and you, it's just, you get so much information, you can't find a specific thing that you want. With YouTube, that's what I find at least. Where's, where's. I've got, I've got a piano teacher and she, I find the piano teacher far better than anything on YouTube because she sits with me and does it, you know.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: Well, that human connection is super important. It's, it's missing. And with a lot, you know, I work with a lot of younger artists and help them strategically move forward because they don't. The opportunities are different now and there is too much information out there and sometimes they get a bit lost in it all and they need that one to one human connection to say, you know, you should try this, you should try that when you're in the room, you know, collaborate. Don't just put your headphones on and make beats on your own.
Just collaborate with the people in the room and share your ideas. And that's, you know, teamwork is everything.
That's what's important. And I think we need more of that teamwork to make great music. No, nobody's gonna make amazing records just on their own. Unless you're Prince or someone like that.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Absolutely. Don't. I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut you.
As I said, the motto of the, of, of the podcast is musical excellence. In the pursuit of musical excellence. What, what advice would you give before you finish to up and coming musicians? How, how, how should they pursue musical excellence?
[00:38:23] Speaker B: I think the way to pursue musical excellence is know what your unique skill set is, whether you're a singer, whether you're a guitar player or whatever, and pursue that. And it's, it's not just about having the greatness of what you do. It's about how you communicate that with other people to work with. You're never going to do all of this stuff on your own. So as well as being, you know, learning your craft as a singer, you know, learn some music theory, but learn how to communicate, to do the things that you can't do with other people who you trust to give out positive energy and people you can work with. That's how you get things done in this. In this world. It's not about trying to be, you know, a master of the universe from your own computer. You have to know how to communicate with other people to do the things that, you know you cannot do, but stay true to your vision and whatever your expert niche is, that's how you'll succeed.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: Phenomenal, guys, that was Diamond. Any last words before we cut off?
[00:39:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's important for people to go out of their comfort zone as well, try and experience things which might not be the usual things that you do or the usual things you listen to for inspiration, because there's a whole world out there of possibilities. And the reason why we do music is we want to create something that's never been heard before. So always go out of your comfort zone as well, and there's always something to learn from, something new.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: So thank you so much, Darren, for coming on the podcast. It's been phenomenal again. And honestly, if you're ever down Birmingham, we've got to link up this time.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah, I do like Birmingham. And there's a trend happening now here in London of dessi pubs, and it's like. Oh, yeah, it's like original desi pubs are in Birmingham, mate.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that was that.
[00:40:23] Speaker B: So we'll have to do that one. I'm sure you know where they are. We'll have to do that one time.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Go for a mixed grill. Yeah, yeah. So, guys, I'm gonna. I'm gonna stop recording. We. We'll carry on the conversation just after. So, guys, that's Diamond DJ Swami. Where can we catch you?
[00:40:40] Speaker B: Yeah, people can see me online, DJ Swami on all the socials. And they can also go to my website, diamond, google.com, and they can even listen to some of my music links there on Spotify.
Sometimes there's, you know, music that people don't know I've produced that is popular in the west, which is Western music. But you'll be able to see which songs I produced and which kind of artists I work with.
So, yeah, they, they can find me in both.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: Fantastic. I do want to mention one last thing, which I, I, I, I big you up on something on them. It was on Tick Tock and someone was saying, look, this is someone's track, an Indian track came on the new FIFA game. It was. And that says. And I said, this is the first time. And a Punjabi tracks. Come on. On one of those. I said, that's not true.
I've spoken to. I've spoken to. To Dive and then these trackers and does it World Cup 2006 or something?
[00:41:36] Speaker B: FIFA World Cup 2006. Desi Rock.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: Yeah, There you go, guys.
[00:41:42] Speaker B: I've never had so many messages from kids from like, Brazil, I won the World cup to your song.
Yeah.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: So we've got to do this again because, like, I've already just touched on stuff and I've rushed through. So we'll do a part two if. If you wouldn't mind at some point.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: Of course, yeah. Or, you know, I'm always open to questions and if people, you know, want to ask me questions about anything I've said, then I'm always.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: So I just want to say one thing. If you want part. If you want a part two, send me the question that you want me to ask. Ask Style. And then the.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm always happy to give advice to upcoming singers and artists and. And, you know, pathways for them to move forward with. With what they want to do.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: And that is 100 true. Dom is not just saying that because I've rang him out of the blue and he's given me a half an hour master class in. In sync licensing. So that's. That's over for you. And I will never forget that. I'd always, always say that to people.
[00:42:36] Speaker B: Well, there's, you know, and I can always tell them, you know, as I do, there's a lot of societies we have in this country, from PRs to the Ivers to the BPI to the musicians union, all of this information and the people are there to talk to. So, you know, it's. We're lucky to have that here.
[00:42:54] Speaker A: Fantastic. So we carried on a bit over. So thank you guys and catch you next time on the Rajpull podcast. God bless you.
