Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Hey, guys, welcome to the Raj call podcast again. I've got a very special guest today, probably.
I'm ever so grateful for him to come on here, actually, because I've been listening to his music for a long time as well. So an absolute pleasure. Amo, introduce yourself.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah, my name is Amo. My production name is Chaos Productions. And yeah, I've been doing music, like you mentioned, for a very long time. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: So when did you. Just. When did you start doing music?
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Just. You're talking about start on an instrument. I started at eight years old.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: And I started playing a tabla. And that was for my dad because my dad's git mainly and stuff like that. He's been. He's been in the Dharma scene like for years. So when I'm talking, I'll probably. I'm going to give the game away. But I am old. Probably 80, 1980, around about there. 80, 81. That's when I started in the early eighties. I started on the doubler. And Mike Jacha, he's a doubler player.
He used to play for DC's in their heyday, you know, when one, two, three, go and all that.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: So my Dutch, I was playing for DCs, so he kind of showed me how to put your hands on the double r and where you're finger placement goes and everything. And got. I got the first gadda from him, which is very basic. Kerba. And then from the. From there on, it was all about. For me personally, it was all about watch other people and then try and make. Make it work for yourself, kind of.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: So before we. So after you finish. After you.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Sorry. No, no, go on, carry on.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Before we go, I just want to know a bit about where you're from and. And so we touched on it a bit. So what would you from. And just a bit about your upbringing, really.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Me born and bred in Derby.
Derby led, yeah, Derby head moved to Leicester about ten years ago, but in between we've been. We emigrated to Canada for a few years as well. Oh, really?
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah. So I did some music out there, which kind of turned out to be quite popular in the end. We'll touch on that afterwards.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: So what was. What was that like in Canada?
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Canada? Darcy. We left. We had a cassette shop, you know, when music was on cassette. Yeah, we had a cassette shop in the.
From about 89 to 93 in Derby on like Derby's version of Soho Road. So it was really packed out. Busy up on his shops everywhere. And the shop was called Hair Music center. And we used to be one of the leading shops in Derby and ticket agents, that kind of thing.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Why does that ring a bell to me?
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Hey, music shop, you know, the gig posters, I take it?
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Probably, yeah, it really rings a bell.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Unless you've been Derby and been to the shop, you've probably seen it there because that's used to be the main. One of the main dangers for the gigs.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: I've been to Derby a few times, but not to the main asian high street sort of thing.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: I've got relatives and stuff there, so. Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: So, yeah, Derby boys, man. Darby, born and bred myself through school as well. He's from Derby.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: I know.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Golvinda, Joel Gurpierge, blah. These guys, all derby heads. Wow. JK. Of course not forgetting AJD, there's quite a lot of music people in Derby.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: It's pretty cool, to be fair. Like, it's nice. It's nice to have a. Because you got. Almost got these pockets, haven't you, of musicians you used to have, like, used to be Birmingham, Wolverhampton.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Then it moved to Derby, then up north and, you know, it just spread out quite a bit now.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, he got skilled people everywhere in music, man. Where you. Where you're based is just literally chance, man. Some people landed in Gravesend and stayed there. I think that's where the first Punjabis came to Gravesend, Slough. Busy.
But for us it's always been the East Midlands. So Derby now, Leicester. So we're east side is, man.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Are you based in Leicester now, are you?
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah, based in Leicester now.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I was there in Leicester a.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Few, probably a few about maybe a few months ago on Eva FM. Yeah, I've been there as well.
Yeah. A few interviews with him. I've just been there a couple of weeks ago myself, actually. Yeah. Nice.
Yeah, actually.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah, actually, I think I seen you on his post. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you started off here and then you moved to Canada, then you come back. So what was the experience in Canada, like, in terms of, like, lifestyle?
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Oh, it's very difficult, I think. Yeah. The point I raised was we had this shop, it was extremely busy, like you would expect on, so that kind of vibe. And from then we emigrated to Canada and Canada was completely different. It was like he was just. Everything's gone quiet all of a sudden. There was no. There was no, you know, interaction as much with upper inventory. You know, like in a small town, if you walk up the high street, you're going to see your mates, you're going to see a few guys drive past, you're going to see whatever even this is going. Before cell phones, before people had means.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: To WhatsApp was this in the eighties and the nineties?
[00:05:37] Speaker B: This was late eighties to early nineties. So, like, when we first got the shop for New Zealand, people used to use our shop as a meeting place. Really? Yeah.
We went from Raurag Milla, which was what it was. And night before, we took to Canada, and Canada was extremely opposite. It was like everybody's all work, work, work, priorities of work. And I remember there was a running joke people here used to make to say, oh, Kanidaj, if you're going to go visit someone, so you can't just turn up someone's house like people used to do here.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Yeah, those are the days on them.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: I know, as it happens, we kind of turn into the same ourselves here now. You can't just turn up on a house now.
Back then, UK used to be just giving each other a knock and it wasn't a problem. But yeah, it was very extreme. It was very difficult. And plus we were on the east coast, so we were near Toronto, Mississauga. Those ends.
The weather there, it changes rapidly from cold. Yeah. So because of that, you know, when it's extreme cold, we're talking about -20 degrees, man.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll see it, man.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Then you're just hibernating. Literally. You're staying indoors and it's just your immediate family that you contact with or come to. Down. I go home and stay home. And that was hard for us to get used to, man. Wow.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: So how long were you in Canada for?
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Four years. Did you say? No, no, about two years. Two years? Yeah. Yeah. But I did discover something while I was there. There was an underground remix scene there that we never heard of in the UK.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: That was my next question I was going to ask you. Ask you about the music scene.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Basically, they had to tape off the tape in their stores. And I was like, I've never heard of this, never seen this before. And they were all like, remixes. Bollywood was big and Punjabi, and there was some top names that turned into Bhongara producers, like DJ Sanj.
He was doing that scene then when I moved over there. So that's the first I heard of him. Then there was this guy, DJ Sunshine, and he had this album called Jemkiddler's Revenge.
It was just Jim Killer remixes. The whole album was. And I'm looking at that thinking, damn, this is like, this is. They've got a scene within a scene. We never knew existed in the UK. Why?
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Never knew that as all.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah, so it was quite pleasant, shocking and amazing at the same time. And then it just got my brain ticking because the point that I haven't made yet is I wasn't really allowed to do bhangra music because my dad was in the Talmud scene. In them days, you were very strictly one or the other. You were polarized. You have to be, if you're in Dharmaga, he can't go off and produce like, even the Talmud music, it wasn't beats. It wasn't like bass lines and hard beats because they'd be like, you'd get in trouble. You would get in trouble. People like music, you know what I mean?
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: And now I know dharnamic.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: It's changed now, isn't it?
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Yeah, but it was all about Melody then. So I was making albums with my dad, which was Dalmak, which was all melody based.
And that scene I discovered in Canada, I spoke to my dad and he goes, look, you can do a remix. Because he knew a guy who had a store, one of the main stores, did a little video in Toronto, so he was going to release it as the record label. And my dad was like, yeah, you can put it out, but don't put your real names on it. Just make a name. So that my first taste of releasing a non religious product was there a.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Lot of stigma attached around it at that time because you.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: I mean, look, coming from, I was, uh, I was ten years old when Operation Bluestar happened in 1984. Yeah. And that was a whole change. Everything changed when 84 happened. Golden Temple got invaded. Everybody went really strictly religious at that time. Do you remember as a kid we were going to the, the early demonstrations in London, mass demonstrations, and we were like. And there was. Everybody was like, oh, you know, because what happened was such, of such shock. Yeah, I think everybody went. Came back to the religion then. And then it got very sort of. Because before that, I do remember, you know, the bhangra bands, they used to go to the godwoli and do other weddings. They used to do Sierra Sikya, so they used to sing inside the godworld on the Godwara stage and that normalized. But then after 84, that got banned because obviously it was just one of these cultural things rather than religious things. We've got ugly yandies and there was a lot of whole host of changes that came about because everybody was more in tune with their religious identity.
And that's what it was for us. It was like, like I said, if you're involved in that world. You were. You weren't really given a license to do both, one or the other, so.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: So you said you started learning the tabla at eight and you washa, you said.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Who gave you the initial.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: Initial sort of schooling? Just the basics. You know, how to put your hand, you know, get the basic kedal, everything.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: Yeah, but I'm rubbish at Daal. I've just been trying to get my daal, like I practice Daal now. I've been and Dean talent, actually, Deen Talon practicing with, you know, when you do it with your hands. Have you ever seen that?
[00:11:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: 1234-123-4123 for Kali and so, yeah, because I'm trying to get that grasp a bit better because I come from mainly a singing background.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: It's all singing as well.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: It is, yeah. So that's probably my weakness is Dal. So I'm trying to do a bit more practice on it to do my hands.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: It should be. It's a lot of. I realized this as a producer when I got into production, I realized how the relationship between both interacts. If I'm a vaja player, I still got to know Dal. If I'm a player, I've got a Dolgi player I gotta know Dawg player, I've got to know. It doesn't matter who you are, what you play mandolin, you got to know everything.
And I think because I started on tabula, which seemed to be one of the harder instruments to learn, I think it gives you a sort of little heads up into the rest of the family of instruments, especially percussion instruments. Double R, for me, is the hardest and Dolgi doll and that. It comes a bit easier.
Vaja was a bit of a transition that wasn't easy. I mean, that's a whole different ballgame, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: So let's go back to Tabla. So you were learning from, you taught by church. How did you teach yourself from there? Because you mentioned Gadwa and.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. Dad used to sit down at home in the living room, and me and my older brother as well. Then we used to get double out and we used to play the basic gadbar ball alongside him. And then we were in the Gondwana a lot as kids, so we used to watch other people, other professionals playing. Then I used to think, okay, that's an advanced version of what I'm doing. So what's these bits that he's playing in between? So I started working it out in my mind, and one of my main tools was actually VHS tapes of nusud fadi Ali Khan. So we used the video recorder used to put a three hour tape of gowaliya in. And you know how they're so tight with the rhythm, that doubler, that was almost hypnotic to me. I used to just move like this as a kid on the sofa. I just sort of sway to the beat.
And I did find that I don't. I didn't know at the time what I was doing, but I was absorbing la gadi in my brain. It was like getting to the inside. And then a bit later, I started trying to play along to Gwaliya because Gwalia long, so it gives you a good, good practice session.
And. Yeah, so they were. That was my method. I was like that. We had no Internet. We had. In the absence of a formal, formal training, I started working things out from there and going. Then dad started taking me to Godwola and then started playing on stage, basically in at the deep end. And let's just took it off from there at that point.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: That's fascinating, especially when you said about the.
Listen to Nazar Pateli Khandi. Because like when you like, as a. As an amateur, you listen to, you don't know if these things, but as you start learning more music, you start realizing, man, they go on, off, on, off here, this, that you don't coming, landing here, coming up and you thinking. You realize how complex they play, don't you? Yeah, it's pretty fascinating that you just listen to that and you're just taking it in, but sort of soaking.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Yeah, you're vibing to the rhythm, basically. And that's the root of everything in music for me. It all branched off that and it was that the way the guy played, the same, the way he was playing with the early Khan, it was so upbeat, you know what I mean? And it was energetic. And that was obviously, as kids, you want to play like sort of banging stuff, you know, me. And it's like, for me, it was like just. Oh, yeah, man, just give it some.
I just used to play as hard as you could, like, then you start building your arm muscles and things like that and just work it out from there. And then I started inventing roles, you know, on stage, like with my dad, because I was like bored of the same one. So I didn't have any intuition to learn new ones. So I was just piecing bits together and just like trying to land on spot and used to get some wrong, some right. But that was me, like trying to work out okay, what if I added this role with that roll or half of this and a quarter of that and a quarter of the other one? What will it sound like? And I just sort of pieced it all together.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: That's fascinating, honestly. That's like.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: It is quite a different way of doing things.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: No, but it's really fascinating that. How your brain was and how old were you?
[00:16:15] Speaker B: This was when we are. Yeah. Going on ten, 1112 into the teens. And I started playing probably about. In the cordiale. Probably about ten. And then from there, about ten years. And then those ten years, obviously my dad was quite popular in the scene. And we still. We used to go international as well. We went Norway a lot.
Germany, Austria, us, Canada. Um, so, so many places where just for the Goldwater Girtan programs. And then when you're going abroad, they would expect you to do like two, two, 3 hours. So you get your practice, so you.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: Actually lay on the. On the road.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Really? Yeah, yeah. Sessions were okay. You. I used to play at home. Uh, but you know, when you're just staring at your four walls, it's a bit different. Yeah. When you're on stage, you. You've got more going on around you. And I think I found that was a lot easier.
And that was my practice, practicing on stage. Really? That's phenomenal.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: That's a totally different way because, like. No, it's not different way. I tell you why. Because I've got a friend who's, who's a guitarist and he's. He. When he practiced, right, when he learned guitar, he didn't. He learned it, same as you. He was at college, but they were given assignments to, like, the assignments at college was to play together and band. And so they'd just sit in a studio all day.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Practicing, jamming to songs and stuff and jamming to oasis and things like that. But that's how he learned. So when, sometimes when we're discussing music and stuff and he's saying, he says, man, like, what I do is really boring. So I, so when I practice, I do sort of a polite doing polite on a tempo, increasing it. And it is really boring to me. So I wish had a bit more of that, you know, because you need other musicians with you when you're doing that. And so you don't always get that.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: So.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's nice that you had that. And it's pretty fascinating.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: I mean, in them days, I used to think, I wish I had a formal teacher. Yeah. And actually I did get a few lessons, a bit later on from teachers, but I realized that it's not for me. I did at that point I was like, I'm too into just being inventive.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: And jamming in it and being creative.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: I don't know if it's right or wrong, but it sounds good.
So I just carried on that way and then that branched on to other instruments because when I started making my dad, I started making his albums and we. It all happened accidentally, man. The first time we went to a studio, I was with my dad and he had booked a tardigrata, he was going to record them, so they were going to come and he booked the studio ten pound an hour, back in the day, I remember, and it was a studio in Walsall and we were waiting and they just didn't show, there were no shows. And then the engineer goes to my dad, he goes, you sing, why don't you just make your own album? And he goes, well, we don't know how to do the music or anything. He goes, oh, your lad plays instruments, it won't be that hard, I'll help. So in a way, in a weird way more my star was John, his name was, he was a guitarist for the band Roshani. And when he told my dad, he goes, okay, so let's have a go, we'll have a bush. What's the arm? We're paying for the studio time anyway. And he kind of showed me the ropes of what things are. And in them days being a studio engineer was a very highly qualified role. There's nobody you could walk in off the street and work a studio now things are simplified. It's different scene now, but it was like the inside of a spatial, you know what I mean? Switches, buttons everywhere, everything, you don't even know to switch it on. So he, he was the one that was guiding me because he was in the Bangladesh band, he knew the elements to layer up Punjabi's song, so he knew that the doggie doll tumblr in their songs, their keyboards, bass and chords, he knew the basic structure, so he was guiding me saying, oh, put a piece in here, put this in there. And then that's when I started on the other instruments. I was like, okay, let me see what this is all about. And my first efforts were pathetic, obviously. It was first time you do something, it's like, yeah, of course, back to it now and it's cringe. But that was me learning the fundamentals of being a music producer and putting a track together.
I didn't realize at the time, and don't forget, this is in the time where there was no computers. Yeah. No doors.
We were recording on reel to reel and that was audio tape and that was a 16 channel mixer. So there was no cutting and pasting instruments. I had to play every instrument start to finish, live, real time. You make a mistake, rewind, stop again.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: How old were you then?
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Sorry, I was probably 14 and 15.
That's phenomenal, dude. I didn't know it was. I was just carrying on, like, honestly.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: No, that's so, like, phenomenal. Because at 414.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: To me, you're a musical genius.
You might not say that, but to me, like, 14 year old doing that, that's.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: And sooner or later it started chilling and I was, like, listening to myself and. Okay, I can add high, high sports because initially I was doing everything in free of tempo control, so there was no click. We were just playing it live and then playing over it, playing it live, so everything. The tempo was not fixed. Like, people are so used to bpms or what. Bpms that were. Yeah, it was all live. Like literally a band playing, but one by one by one. I was building all the instruments myself and then I was playing worked out bass notes, basic ones and chords and everything. And then we started tying it into the clique. After that, it was. For me, it was just a step after step after step. And under Dalma stuff, the sound was improving. I wasn't worried about sound quality or engineering. I didn't know the first thing about it. That's what he was there for. But my learning curve was, how do I put this with that? And don't forget, we were. We was limited as well. We only had 16 channels and we're recording on audio tape. So once your channels are full.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: You've got no more room left. You have to start grouping things and bouncing them together. There's a thing where you group them to free those channels up. Then you have to premix them because you can't do anything with that. After getting my head around what this is all about and how it works, and that was all before we went to Canada. So I think I managed to get. We used to go to school, man, come back from school, jump in the car, go straight to Walsall, do a few hours in the studio.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: It was an everyday thing, you daddy, to take you when you had something.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: An album to make. Yeah, we had to go every day for about three, four weeks at a time and weekends. And plus those studios were booked by Bhungra bands as well. So I used to see the bands coming out when we were going in. And I used to think, I wish I could make what they're making in it.
In a way. Our worlds were colliding. We were crossing paths. I used to see up rasagi. People used to see Wachengi and all them lot. And then my dad became friends with Kalik Monica from when he came from India to do the community center shows. Very small shows, no arenas or nothing.
My dad, he started. Monica used to come to our house for one particular reason. And as Amrat Ali, there's no shrub or meat in our house. He used to obviously drink. Everybody knows. The whole world knows. But when he'd done his show, he knew I had enough. He always used to tell his promoter, take me to Mulwan's house, my dad's house, because he knew that you can just chill there. It's not like some people used to offer him money, say, come to our house, come to our house. Basically, they wanted him to sing all night, kind of thing. And they just forged a relationship and they became friends. And then dad started featuring him on his Dharmak stuff. So between their shows, used to take him and three or four musicians that he brought with him to do the music. And he did albums with them as well. So Pradeep Manak actually featured on my dad's Dharma garbage. But we were kids, man. I didn't really know the importance of this guy. I was like, this is a singer from India. I had no idea. I'm sat there watching him work. Sat in his studio, about 15 years old, and I see this guy writing his.
Sorry. Writing his thingy out, songs out and making his compositions. And that's complete monarch, man. And now look at it now. I think, God, man, ever singers, what you're witnessing. If only you had an idea of what level we're looking at.
But still, in hindsight, that I was there, you know what I mean? I've seen that process. I seen him on the mic, seeing him record Dalmak songs. And I've been there. So I've got that really, as one of my early memories in music, even though I wasn't partaking in it, they were doing everything. I was witness to that. And I do think you absorb that energy. You absorb that energy and it starts making you think, oh, we could do better. I couldn't do better myself.
So, yeah, I started working things out and things started improving from there. And again, that was all the way up until early nineties.
All the way up until the nineties. And then we went to Canada and then that remix scene I mentioned. So dad gave us permission. They decided, God look or shin it. The first thing, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I did a remix album called a case for bass.
And basically it had some hindi sambajabi remixes on. But there was a Marik song which I heard, and I had already had it in my head. I want to do that song. And basically, my idea of remixing wasn't really remixing. It was producing brand new music and layering the old song on top. So I was not realizing it on time. I was actually producing a whole new soundscape for an old song and just dropping in the vocals. And we did that. That came out and it had a huge response. And then the guy did a little video, said, does he hold up? And I were in it. And then when I saw Jim Killer's revenge, I was like. I had that light bulb moment. I was like, I got to do the Marduk version to this. Because obviously we already had a connection, personal connection with Khalid Marek. So I made this album called Mighty Monarch. And that was all about the album. Yeah, it was all glee manic remixes. And I gave it a twist. Now, okay, we're still not having computers in our production at this point in time. This is 1994. So make remixing a punjabi folk song, which is being played out of lair was one of the hardest things you could do because the tempo kept changing, altering, because don't forget. So when the piece comes, they king bang, bang, bang. And then the verse comes and they're slowing the tempo down a bit. And then they're building up and then they're slowing it down. Now we have to time electronic beats over the top of this. And this is without any sort of computer help whatsoever.
So you really needed to have, like, a scientific brain to work this out. Decode it, deconstruct it in your head. I. My method was to do the remixes. I was building the song on a keyboard.
On the keyboard sequence, on board sequence. So 16 track sequencer. There was a keyboard called the chord x three. That was my first ever proper keyboard. And I made the whole song from memory onto there. With piece. My pieces left enough gaps for the vocals. Just memorizing where each verse is and how much I need to do. And then I would take that music only off the keyboard, put it onto a multitrack. And we were using multitrack with the metal tapes because we were hiring.
We didn't have budgets, man. We was like, cheap and cheerful. So we're using cassette. And I'd put all that music I made there and then I would add Marnic to it and then I would play my doggy and my double out and whatever on top. And again, timing, that was one of the worst things to do.
That's why there wasn't many people doing it, because it was not. It's not child's play. Like, we can do it now a lot easier. But when we. When I made that one, I think Marty Marnick was. It just blew up in North America. And again, I'm sat out there thinking, nobody in the UK has heard this.
But it did blow up to a level where the guy that released it, he was over the moon. He literally set his record label from that release because they were selling tens of thousands of units. He told me himself, I'm sure I bought that unit. Yeah. A lot of people.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: I remember that album.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: I just put a video on my instagram where Jazzy B is talking about it because he came to my studio and he's talking about that cassette, Marty Marnick. And I told him I had a chat with Jazzy and I showed him another cassette, which was Philippe Monarch Live, a live show. And I took a lot of the stuff on Marty Marnik I took from a absolutely live show of Gullit Marnick. So I wasn't just remixing album tracks. I added, and I don't know, but I don't think this has been done ever again.
I remixed Philippe Marek's stage show songs.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: So I took what he sang on stage in Canada and I added my music on top of that music. So that was completely raw and untimed and, you know, just the rawest mind.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Of pioneering, I think now, the only person who's done that recently, but obviously you got doors and stuff now. His frenzy with the Surjit Bindrakiya's live set, have you heard it or.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: No, I've not heard it.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: It's that song mundiri nishani ra kisambu.
He's taken that live version of that.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: And remixed it.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: So.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: But this, again, you've got doors now.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: So this was doing. We were doing this in light four without computer.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Even a computer to do this with. Exactly.
I. It's quite ridiculous, the levels I had to go to. I had to write out the tempo of the song from the start of the song to the finish. And then I had to go take by take by take and make notes of where the changes in tempo are and by how much. And then I do a live drop of the song and change it manually by hand with the fader. Gosh.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Do you have to sort of. Did you have to put a click on and work out the BPM?
[00:32:15] Speaker B: There was no BPM to these songs. There was no structure BPM. It was changing a lot.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: But you had to work each section. You had to work out some sort.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: I had to work out. It could be in the middle of a verse, it could be halfway through a piece. But as the tempo would slide one way and the other way, I had to compensate and I had to do that live. So I had to write it down and pen to paper. This changes, this changes, this change. There's a good 2025 changes in the song of tempo because they're playing live and they're not tied to a click, so they're doing what they want to do. And I had to bring that into my structure, and to do that, I had to keep. It was just crazy. But the thing is, you don't know any other way. That's all I need. I was like, if it's going to get done, it's going to get done like this. And like I said, it was unheard of to do live remixing back then because of the absence of computers. And I do think if you took computers away now, there won't be hardly any music left because we.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: I'm going to use that clip for social media.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: I mean, that's kind of factual, isn't it?
[00:33:30] Speaker A: Yeah, of course it is.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Yeah. From where we were to where we are, if, if you take them out, everybody would be lost or we ain't got no samples.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: I think you'll probably have a. Maybe a hand, maybe five producers in the Bangladesh industry who could do it and they're old school. Yeah, I'm on about, like, you know, camp frantic and Suki. That's probably it.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: I'm not, look, I'm not advocating that. Oh, we're better because we did this, we're better. I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is it was a hustle making music and it wasn't everybody's thing. Nobody could just jump on and do it. You would have to have, and I want to connect the dots here for you. What I did with that tempo goes back to what I was doing with Fatih Ali Khan and getting that rhythm in my brain. Now, if that rhythm wasn't there, I wouldn't have been able to do the remixes and work out the tempo slides and switches and changes. It's the grounding that you get from playing an instrument that enables you to go and say, right, okay. And then again, it also, there was stuff on that tape. There was a live shield on there that's never been recorded, not in the way he sang it. And then I had played chords as I had to work out chord changes and stuff.
But that tape, it was a bit defining for me because, because one, I really wanted to be the first one to do Marley remixed album. And I think I was. I don't think there was one before that. There was plenty afterwards. And two, I learned a lot about not, you know, this was not dialogue music. So I could use hip hop stuff. I could use it. I recorded samples off the tv, man, of cartoons and stuff because we didn't have. So we didn't have, forget Internet, you know, we didn't have Internet. We didn't even have records. We didn't have anything. So I had to borrow CDs of people look through the hip hop CDs and say, oh, there's a little thing there. I could use this. There's no way of removing vocals or anything. You have to listen to the whole thing, a to z and look for parts and then take them out and use them in your music. That's the grounding that has carried me forward into, you know, when you, when you discover computers and Midi and what that can do, it just becomes our way. This is.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: How did you just, just out curiosity, just me, I'm not, I'm not a producer. I just do bit of production on the door. How did you like, sort of, you know, had a computer then hip hop samples and stuff. How did you transpose them that, like.
[00:36:12] Speaker B: When we hide our equipment, I hide a Kurzweil K 2000 sampler. It's a sampler keyboard.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Onboard memory on there. So I would load the song into the clip into the keyboard and then I'd use the keys to up, down, transpose it and use that onboard and then record it back out there into what I wanted it to be.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Sorry, just for the listeners, just to explain what. I'm just going to explain what transpose, because not everyone will know that term. So basically transpose is changing, changing a pitch from.
So say you got pitch c, you wanted to move it to a d. And so. That's right. I'm always in it, more or less in a summary, in a basic way. So that's what transposes guys. So if you listening and you're wondering what that is.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So each sample, one by one, had to be done manually and then taken back off the sample to free up the memory and then stored on a cassette to say, right, I need this. In that song, you had to literally have a map in your head on what song is and get those samples ready. Prehab. And it was like, to be fair, I don't think I could do it now. What we did. Yeah.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: Because, like, you turn your computer on, you've got logic on or Cubase, and you look at it. The keys there. Tempo's there.
[00:37:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:33] Speaker A: Even works out. Even if the tempo changes, it'll work out. The tempo has changed.
[00:37:37] Speaker B: Yeah. You can do anything you want now.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: If the keys change or work out.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: The keys change or.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Yeah, and you can. You can change the whole thing.
[00:37:43] Speaker B: It's just there's no screen. What I'm talking about. There was no screen to look at. You're doing it by ear. You're just pressing play and you're hearing your music and you're like, okay, this is that. This needs that. So you're. You're visualizing your music before it became, you know, door related, before it was all digitized. So I had to do the opposite transition, as in get used to squiggly lines on screens and stuff. Yeah. And it took me a bit used to like, what is this new world here?
But did have a break. So when we came back from Canada about 95, I think our scene was on fire then in the UK, jazzy be everybody, you know, natural records were firing PMC, everybody was killing it. And I still had that desire to come into this market, and I still wasn't allowed to.
We had to forget about the fact that we've done these big remix albums, but I did come here and realize that they made it to these shores. So basically, people had brought them over and duplicated copies of it, and it was selling on south or Broadway and Soho Road. And people started working it out because we used to. I weren't putting my name on them, but I was shouting out my mates, my friends from Derby. So people were like, oh, yeah, we know, you know, somebody here has done this.
But it didn't change the fact that dad went back to the gondola circuit and I was still sort of unable to penetrate the UK border I've seen in any meaningful way. I wasn't allowed to do non dark stuff still when we came back. So I think in 2004, that's when word is born came out. That's when Truscool.
I know, my sook. We know of each other. We used to see each other a lot around derby. There's a little bit of an age gap. But yeah, I remember him coming to miles and playing the double arm stuff as well. And that's when he dropped word is born. And for me, exactly. Game changing album. I was like, damn, he's just come up with something fresh and it sounds so good. And he kept saying to me, he goes, look, man, you've got all this talent. What are you doing with it? Why don't you do? I goes, I can't, man. And someone does not let me do it or whatnot. He goes, gotta get into it. He'll be all right. He'll chill out. Don't worry. Just do it. And then he started.
He kept dropping his albums and he started pulling me into the scene again and showing me his setup. Used to go around his house. I was there when Joel Bullion was recorded.
So he was like. He knew what he was doing. He was giving me a taste for it, so I'd want it even more.
Yeah. And then in the end we came on board as Chaos productions was born in 2009 and in the house, the remix album, that was the first thing that we did. We co produced with me, my brother then, because my younger brother, he was too young in Canada to be involved.
But he was about ten, I think, when I was doing the mighty Monica stuff. But by the time we came back and we settled here, he knew Suki as well. He was friends with him. So we did case of bass as a.
Sorry, not case of bass. We did Chaos productions as a unit, two brothers. And.
Yeah, in the house was the first 1st Chaos productions. That was when people thought we started. But as you can tell now, I had this whole history before that. Yeah, that's phenomenal. Phenomenal.
[00:41:29] Speaker A: Can I just ask you one question before we move on? Have you got. Just. Just for my own thing, I'd love to. Have you got your dad's dynamic albums?
[00:41:36] Speaker B: The ones.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: The Brisbane ones you did?
[00:41:38] Speaker B: I've got copies of some of the songs. Yeah, yeah.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: I'd love to listen to them if you can.
Are they available digitally or.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: No, they're not on Spotify, itunes or anything. Someone were released by EMI. Released one of his first ones, Iqdali Baby Nanak. That. I had nothing to do with that music. I was too young.
The DC's boys were on there, Raju and Pala, the guitarist, bass and lead. And my chacha at mose anger. That was when he was in the band DC's. And then there was various musicians from different bands involved in the production of that album. And it came out on EMI and in them days. It was actually a big look because there was sales. There was a lot of sales of even dharma stuff. And it actually hit the top ten. Emi's weekly top ten.
And that wasn't uncommon when came up with as much as we had the shop then that smashed it.
[00:42:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that was everywhere. That was.
[00:42:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So it wasn't a case of this is Dalma getting an assault. It was just, if it's good, it's good. And. Yeah. So he had one with oriental star agencies. A few of the record labels.
I think the ones I made, they were sold like at the Godole, only really. Okay.
[00:42:56] Speaker A: I'm more interested in those because, like, the way you described the album. I just want to hear, wow, this is how it was. Because you've described the whole process bit by bit. I'd love to actually hear it and say, wow.
[00:43:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I can send you those. But yeah, that was that again with the before computer time just working melody. And I managed to get my training doing that in melodies as well, in logs and how to keep the peace in the rag and even go out around and come back in on the same. I listened to what bands were doing in the eighties and a lot of bands were doing this. They would stop song in Sarri and the lyrics come in and it's embedded and it was all deliberate. So it's about flavor changing. And I did again because of lack of formal training. I didn't really know what was going on. But I did know that keys on odd key that shouldn't be there. But they've put it there on purpose. Accidentals adding something to the song.
[00:43:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: So I managed to work that out. And then obviously you. You know, you start watching top Ruggies and Douglies and even listening to music as well. You know, a lot. They were very technical a lot. Very good. If you wanted to learn music, you listen to a lab, you could pick up a lot of things. Because they're the early band, a lab. They were superior.
[00:44:20] Speaker A: It's a shame that whole musicalness has gone from Bhangra right now.
[00:44:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: Do you know what I mean? The melodies and stuff like that.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: Was a special, special thing, man. Having violins in a dancing bhangra track. It was like with Hira Damis from Hira. The pieces are played on a violin. And you would never think to use a violin now in a bhangra song, especially a tempo one. But I think they did it because creativity was on a high. And plus they. They weren't folk back then. Early eighties was not folk. Pajama music. It was fusion music.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: Hazard was one of the pioneers for that. Yeah. Album, kabaddi, using saxophones, clarinets, all sorts.
[00:45:07] Speaker A: All of it was up and up until probably the late nineties, a lot of it was dominant.
[00:45:13] Speaker B: I would say 90 to 93. I'll say. When jazzy came, as he came on the scene, jazzy be. I do think he brought a wave of folk.
[00:45:21] Speaker A: Yeah, he did bring that fault. But then you had, like, sort of. It was dying out, but you had a sahota. It was a decade and stuff like that.
[00:45:30] Speaker B: Dobby Dance Nation, their first album, Gita Paul, very electronic and be very electronic and ish, very late. But that music server green, the stuff they made, it was engineered so well and they were doing that on stage as well. I used to go to the odd Pokemon again. I wasn't allowed. Used to sneak out and go to a couple. Mom used to just stand on the balcony staring at the instruments, looking. Looking at the musicians, thinking, damn, how did they do that? And they were sounding exactly the same from tape to stage, but you knew it was live because the stage, they would add certain things in there, like do songs that are not on the tape and cover versions, but they were shockingly good.
And I just think that. Yeah, we have lost something. We definitely have.
[00:46:22] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I don't know. The Ruby's told you about the Bangladesh Museum things she's doing, so she's. She's. She's collating all this information and all the bands and stuff. So she's doing, like, a website. This is off the off topic, a website where it's got, like, an index of every. Every UK popular artist. I'll show you afterwards. It's not live yet. She's building that massive index, like, every single Pongara artist in the UK, the ones we know of at the moment. Obviously, there's gonna be more added and stuff, even, like, one hit the people, so we're just adding them all in there. And she's working hard at that. So. Yeah, I think you find that interesting.
[00:47:01] Speaker B: That's good for preservation, man. People should. Absolutely.
[00:47:04] Speaker A: It's called the UK Pogna Museum, so she's doing that. And she's interviewed quite a lot of really good artists, to be fair. Yeah. So, comment on. But there's only, like. It's only here doing that with two other people, so.
[00:47:20] Speaker B: Right.
[00:47:21] Speaker A: There's only so much you can do, like, so much time.
[00:47:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah, yeah. But back to. Sorry, back to you music. So. And just a quick question. So you were saying that you learned about the rags and melodies?
[00:47:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:35] Speaker A: Was that with your dad? You learned that, that part?
[00:47:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the keys and stuff. I was listening to everything on stage, absorbing it. But when I had to go in the studio and play pieces, music pieces, that's when I realized that there's only certain notes you can use. So I was doing it all blind, basically. I was like, okay, this. This song has got a family of notes to it, attached to it. Anything outside there sounds wrong. Yeah. So I was playing it by ear and then working out. Okay, so this is my six, seven notes I can use. And then working out again. This comes back to layer, guardian, making pieces. It's still rhythmic. Every piece was repeated. Like punjabi music generally is. You play a piece, you play it twice.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:20] Speaker B: And I started working out the differences between that one and the other one and so on, so forth, and the tempo and the relationship, how I would have to catch it and I would have to give for my dad to come back in. So I was working it all out, sort of under the hood kind of thing, whilst making these. These albums. Um, so for me, that was. Yeah, that was the arguing, really. I was looking at it, thinking, this piece don't sound right. What have I done wrong? Okay, that. That note shouldn't have been there. And just replaying it and correcting it myself.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: To be fair, that's an art in itself, because I've seen. I've seen production where, like, no names mentioned or anything like that. I'm not to sort of, you know, embarrass anyone like that. What I mean is, I've seen producers production done where, you know, that the guy's just played something in order.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what I mean?
[00:49:16] Speaker A: And it sounds really amateur. Sort of amateur, if that makes sense, because the guys always put a beat on and he's got chords on, but the chords don't go with the vocal.
[00:49:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's another thing as well. When you're playing lead pieces, there's an expression to it.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: Little flicks and stuff that you do that add character to that music piece. And this is like, advanced levels.
I. I kind of learned that again, listening and watching and being like, okay. Because when I was listening to DC's, they had a different game. They were using, like, pitch bend, like Sahota's work.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:49:54] Speaker B: Like this. I'm so. This sounds way different to what everybody else is doing. And then again, like I mentioned, the violin, Deepakis music. I was listening to his and thinking, oh, what sound is this? Then? How's he got this? What's he layered that? Then you listen to start listening to the layers. Okay, there's that, but that's not on its own. It's played with that. So that's get a collective sound. Then I discovered layering, and that was a game changer in itself, because then you could stack different keyboard sounds up and make a brand new sound that is yours. It's not. Not being used before because you just put strings with a piano with this and that, and you've come up with something totally different and discovering that for yourself. It's painful and it's painstaking. It takes time, but if your brain is wired up in that way, you will get there.
And I think I've been gifted with that from day dot. I do feel you come, but I'm saying this based on I'm seeing ten year old kids smash it up, voice of Punjab, and, you know, these indian shows, indian idol. I'm like, oh, they're barely ten years old, man, and they're smashing the vocals out on point crazy. You have to be born with something to do that. They haven't been on the planet long enough to learn what it takes to do those things they're doing. So I do think that you are born with some kind of gift in some kind of area. It could be anything. It could be painting or whatever it is. And I feel like if you can discover that and sort of sharpen your skills, that's probably, you know, when you say hobby turned job, you don't work a day in your life if you're. If your job is your hobby. And I think for you to discover yourself in that way, that's a blessing, man.
[00:51:40] Speaker A: So that was my next question, actually, was, so in your opinion, nature versus nature, which would. You said it's mainly nature, isn't it?
[00:51:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I do think so. I mean, a bit of both would be good as well. But if you like, I use this now because I'm managing an artist now. So I've gone into a different scene altogether. And one thing I've noticed is the differences in singers, mainly, is their stage presence. And what each presence, for me is, how they own that stage when they climb on it, how they can get people's attention. People look up to them. As, you know, this is something big, something special. I do think that, in my experience, I don't think anybody's been taught that. I don't think you can teach that.
[00:52:26] Speaker A: What, stage presence, you mean?
[00:52:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Having that walking on stage and just like giving off this energy that, yeah, I'm the artist center of attention here. We are like, it's not just a case of confidence. People are confident. But I do feel there's something extra going on when it comes to music artists on stage, and it's somewhat extremely engaging and some extremely talented in the studio. But when they set foot on a stage, they cannot hold that attention.
There's so many angles. I just. Even now I'm learning, man. I'm discovering this, that in this game now, a lot of people are hitting me up saying, oh, buddy, want to do a song? Or this? What that? And I'm looking at, I'm thinking, do you have the character and the mannerisms to be a singer? It's not just the vocals anymore.
Time where banging vocals were enough.
There was a time in the punjabi scene because it's become a visual game, because the world is very clued on. Now, social media, I do think that it's become more about the complete package and entertainer, so to speak. And I don't think the stage is a huge part of that, which is something I was thinking before had nothing to do with us. What's it got to do with me? But now I'm thinking it has. Because that's how you scope out a person's potential as now, it's not for me to say you're going to make it or you're not. Who am I to say that have the worst song in the world and it might blow up. I think we've seen it happen before.
[00:54:03] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:54:04] Speaker B: So it's not that, but I think who you want to work with. Do you want to work with the best singer or do you want to work with the person with the most potential to be a hit singer? And sometimes those are not the same.
Absolutely.
[00:54:18] Speaker A: Yeah. 100% agree with that.
[00:54:21] Speaker B: I think it's important to recognize that because I'm a huge fan of the Salims and the Siddhulskandars and savages of this world, but in a popularity contest, Shaw, AP, Dylan, Siddhul, Mus and all these.
[00:54:35] Speaker A: And the other thing is what I'm saying.
[00:54:38] Speaker B: The Kalakari in terms of singing, that's my first love as well. I love proper singers who can do amazing things with their vocals. But, you know, it's a business now.
[00:54:52] Speaker A: No, you're so right. And the other angle I was about to say to that is a lot of these singers, they might be the best singers in the world, but they've got no social media experience. So without social media these days, you're dead already.
[00:55:08] Speaker B: It's true.
People, especially in this country, you know that there's been millions and millions of discussions about what happened to the UK. Why is it so now? Da da da. Who knows? In reality, I just know that, you know, things changed in singing and I don't think a lot of people caught on to that early enough.
What you just mentioned, there was a huge one. If you don't have online presence. And not just that, that doesn't mean just post your dinner every day.
[00:55:40] Speaker A: No, something musical in it, like engaging the audience.
[00:55:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Be active. Be engaging in a positive way. I just feel like that's a tough battle to win without the social media on your side.
And again, this is something you can learn just by watching other people. You don't have to fall in the same hole. You can see what's going on around you and absorb that. But again, it's not for everybody. How hard is it for people like us from our generation to whip out your phone and take selfies and take pictures?
There was a time I just could not bring myself. I was dying for a picture with an artist and I would not bring myself to ask him for a fuck because I thought, oh, no, no, I'm going to look like an idiot. You know what I mean? And that's second nature, because what? Because the job demands it. If you want to be relevant, if you want to be part of the industry, if you want to be noticed, if you don't have that content on your phone ready to post, then you're going to be. You're going to be struggling, man. It is.
[00:56:47] Speaker A: And the other thing you've got to, like, not only post, I think as you're saying, you've got to be yourself as well, so you can't pretend to be someone else.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
So stay relevant to yourself. Music's. It's a lot harder now, I feel, than it used to be.
[00:57:02] Speaker A: It's harder, but it's what I think. It's been made more accessible because you've got, you know, you can put your music out, but there's so much more.
[00:57:11] Speaker B: I spin that back to you because it's more accessible, more people are doing it more. Makes it harder. Exactly. Yeah. And again, there's so many skill sets involved in being an artist. You have to be a little bit of an extrovert or you have to pretend to be. I'm not an extrovert, I'm an introvert. I don't really like the light shining on me. But I know now I have to stand on the stage beside my artist and do a performance. I do what I need to do. And my eight year old experience on going to the Gordo in front of a crowd of people have helped me to change from that environment to this environment. Help me now. You can put me in front of 100,000 people, I'll be fine. But don't put me in the center of the stage. That's not my place. I'll be on the side all day long. That's what I mean. There's still. The intro is still there, but I've managed to climb and progress on that to a certain level where I can have even have this conversation where there was a point where this was a no no for me. But I've progressed because I've learned a lot and absorbed the right energies from the right people.
[00:58:25] Speaker A: To be fair, this has been conversation being like a masterclass for me.
Honestly, I learned so much from you raw. So thank you. I was going to say just before, before we carry on, how much time have you got? Because I don't want to keep you too long because I can talk. I can talk for hours because I'm.
[00:58:42] Speaker B: So interested to be too boring. But yeah, 1015 minutes more is fine.
[00:58:46] Speaker A: Yeah, jaltiga. So we carry on from. Okay, I'm not going to keep. So we carry on from when you did your production part, when you did in the house.
[00:58:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So what was the experience doing that? And, and was, were you already sort of at that point, I'm assuming you're really accomplished now in your.
[00:59:07] Speaker B: I was in a new, new scene altogether. I was really accomplished at doing what I was doing, which is make dark albums. It is total different fish now. I did do remix albums before and this is a remix album, but what was alien to me is, like I said, these screens and these squiggly lines and what the hell's this? I don't know. I. I had to get my head around. How do you use Midi? How do you use this? So I had to go on another learning curve like that. This is what people use to make music now. I had a bit of an absence before in the house. I was just off working and just away from music.
But now it's called me back in my friend true school literally pulled me back in kicking and screaming, in a sense. He goes, just do it, man. He goes, you need to be involved. He goes, there's not enough of us derby people. He was really big on getting Derby heads involved and so in the house was basically a throwback on those remixes we were doing in Canada to say, let's do the stuff with remixes. Let's see how we can approach this. And that album was supposed to be a really quick thing. It was supposed to be like, we're gonna do it in a few weeks, get it out the way, and then work on other stuff is because you know what happens, your mindset changes straight away because, you know, people are gonna say, oh, it's only a remix because it's not original vocals. They don't understand the difference. They think, oh, that's easier to make than something else, but isn't so it to speak from a producer's perspective. Because if we're not singing an original track, we're not singing the remix. We're still putting the same work in because, like I mentioned, our remixes are not of take song one and song two and mix them together. We're producing things in there. We're creating sounds and creating beats that belong and that bang with this. And it's just as hard as making the original track. You could just replace all those vocals on. In the house with. With a. With a vocalist and you got a brand new album straight away.
[01:01:14] Speaker A: So if you think about it, it's. I think it's even harder because you. You can't have any. You got to sort of break away from the original as well. So you gotta keep that in mind as well, otherwise it's gonna sound too much like the original.
[01:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah. The whole.
[01:01:29] Speaker A: What you're doing.
[01:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Present it in a different light and engaging to. We were trying to take seventies folk and keep it relevant, I think keep people hearing those words. Gurdas, surinder, Shindar.
I do think for us it was like, it's not even my generation, believe it or not, some of mine, mostly my dad's, but it was like, this stuff is too precious to lose. And we were having these thoughts in 2009, and I believe that it's at least now with Jim Keela's movie coming out, we're still talking about these singers, which is great, which is what we wanted from day one. Don't forget these guys, because what will happen was slowly the color would die over time. People don't realize the brilliance of these people that did it, that did what they did. Without the tools that we have. They didn't have auto tune, they didn't have retakes, they didn't have Kalib Manik told my dad the story about JT Rorty, the song. It was done in one room with one mic in the middle of the room and four, five saji in one take. That's Jeetirur that we still listen to. That's how it was recorded. It was one microphone.
Imagine that. Now I really can't even dream about doing that. And one take. So the song was done in, what, five minutes? It's shocking. But that's, again, for me, is preservation in the house was just trying to shine a light on those guys, that these guys are the forefathers. They're the reason we exist. We still do. That's why we don't strive. We don't stray too far away from folk music, because it is the foundation. There's an argument for people saying, oh, you've got to progress. You've got to go with the times. But I always say, well, who's. Who's. Who's the guy that's dictating what the times are? Yeah, why can't we dictate our own times? I want to do this, so I'll do it. You do what you want. Let's do what you want. You know, we're lucky enough that we've still got people wanting to hear what we're doing.
[01:03:35] Speaker A: That's exactly. If there's an audience, then, yeah.
[01:03:38] Speaker B: If we started doing, like, non desi music, because you can see there's a notable absence. I think you'll agree that our sarge in songs are dying away. You're not hearing Dolgi and doors and.
[01:03:51] Speaker A: Well, they've actually gone.
They've actually gone. The kind of scenes killed it.
[01:03:58] Speaker B: There's no original instruments left.
[01:04:00] Speaker A: Even in India. India, kind of the odd Bangladesh song comes out.
[01:04:04] Speaker B: But, yeah, they're still called punjabi songs, but Punjabi. Just words like, yeah, music left.
[01:04:11] Speaker A: Oh, not at all.
[01:04:12] Speaker B: And to be honest, I feel like we would carry on doing what we're doing just for that reason alone.
[01:04:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:19] Speaker B: Now there's a new generation to try and inspire so that we still have those instruments exist, because at some point they won't exist. That will cease to exist. There won't be no need for a dorky or AOO or whatever, because padawi music is just being diluted beyond recognition.
Music not all about the vocab.
It's something for us to think about. We're the people that think about things like this. It's like, yeah, trends and what trends. Trends, by definition are temporary things.
We have to keep looking after that stuff.
[01:05:00] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[01:05:01] Speaker B: We have to. The best way we can do those, by producing more of it.
[01:05:04] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's phenomenal. So I just want to take you to the last section. So what's it been like as a. As a manager and a mentor? Because I know you've been managing in the mentoring dish.
[01:05:18] Speaker B: That was a whole different ballgame.
She came, and again, there's time for these stories, but she came and knocked my door. In 2019, just before COVID The year before COVID It was 19, 2020, 2019. I get bombarded all of a sudden. Email comments on YouTube videos and, like, messages from friends, or there's a singer that wants to work with you. And I was like, what's this? I instantly. I'm a cautious guy. So I was like, what's this all about? Where's this come from? And then I read the email. My name's this. I'm from London. I want to do. And I was like, okay, I want to come to your studio. I thought, no, my studio's at home, man. I don't just call people to the studio. You've got to scope it out. You got to.
[01:06:07] Speaker A: Yeah, of course.
[01:06:08] Speaker B: I'm leading allah. So I said, let's meet. We met a neutral place. Born in Birmingham. And then I spoke to her, and my first question, and I'd already had to send a video of herself singing, my first question was, like, what? Somebody would ask me, where you been? Like, you're. You're clearly. You've been on this earth long enough where I've not heard of you before you drop songs. Why haven't you worked with other people? Why have I never heard of you? And again, it's the mirror, isn't it? That's what somebody would ask me because I was in the dharma scene for so long. Come out in 2009. But then there's this whole, like, where were you before?
So she had the same story. It was her parents, like, very strict, and they were keeping her. And she was allowed to go and sing in the godhola. Well, she wasn't allowed to do nothing else. So I was like, okay, the similarities here. She actually accidentally found one of my interviews. I say accidentally, the iPad she had in her hand slipped, and she's pressed a button. My interview pops up. One of the interviews that I tried to get removed, I tried to get it removed because I thought it was too long. It was a good hour and a half long. I was like, nobody's going to watch this. This is going to be embarrassing. And again, it was like this. It was telling the whole story start to finish. And she saw that interview and got in touch. So that was the reason. Well, we were sat there having this conversation, and then she goes, oh, by the way, we're both born on June 6.
What?
You know what? By this time, I started collecting with higher frequencies energies, that kind of thing. And I was like, maybe this is a sign. Who knows? So I was like, okay, let's get the studio and see what we can do. Got in the studio. My first thing was the format for people to enter this industry is they spend thousands making a song, making a video, and putting it out there, getting it on with Asia, getting it on BC Asia network to try and get a shock. Let's not do that. Let's do. What I think you should do is you sound to me like glimpses of her vibe. Let's do a tribute, and I'll film it on my phone. I'll produce it. Three, four songs, merge them together, and see what happens. We did that. And she was new. The accounts were new. She had, like, 26, 28 followers on Twitter at the time. We put that video out there. I got a call from some guy a few weeks later.
Bro, I'm calling you from California. My sister's getting married, and I want to book your artist. I thought, what? I thought it was a prank straight away, and he was like, yeah, and by the way, we close family, friends, Jazzy b, so he's gonna be there, too.
I was like, okay. I entertained it, and it took a few weeks to tune in front. In front of. All of a sudden, the tickets land in my inbox, and I've just, like, had a shock of my life, I guess. This is real. We're literally going with an artist that's never released a song, never released anything to California to perform.
Someone else is paying for everything, and we're going to meet jazzy. Be there. That's when I realized that music's changed, man. It's not all about what it used to be. You can use your shop window, which is your social media, in a positive way. A lot of people use it negatively, but you can use it for the greater good.
That tribute took us to California, and then when we came back and before, we were doing some free shows up and down the country, Milan performances and things, and I was building her catalogue of stage songs, so cover versions mostly. And I was producing them all, and I ended up with a library of about 40 songs. So if you think about it, that's good. Four albums worth of material. Yeah, definitely for stage. And we built it up. And then, lo and behold, COVID came shut us all down, everybody banned, finished. And that year of COVID 2020, we were selected for BBC Asia Network, Future Sounds 2020. De Sandu want to look out for. They were endorsing her. We couldn't do nothing with it because COVID was here. By the time the events opened up, we were like, are we going to get our shows back? Is this going to be back to business? What's going to happen? Is there going to be weddings? Those big edge? We had no idea, but as soon as it opened up, we were back on the scene. What I was doing is taking the footage of our singhikes, putting it back out there online. People were responding, booking, booking, booking. And it blew up to a point where we just couldn't keep up and we couldn't have time to go in the studio and make original songs. During COVID we made a lot of ideas. There's 1520 songs sat there with ideas and vibes. Because I didn't want her to be a typical, oh, Jody Joel or Miss Boudo or corby. No, forget all that. That's not you. You be you. You're a girl from south or west London. Represent yourself. Talk about your experience, your life. Let's be an artist for a change. Rather than what? Because, like, lyrics were a problem. Like, the lyric writers from India, they were writing girl tracks and it's like, you know, the same.
My banda's got a four tracker and as far. And I'm gonna stop him shooting, man, and I stay up all night worrying about him. Those subjects weren't working because dishes, that kind of singer. So it was like, how are you gonna deal with this one? So I just gave her a notebook and a pen one day, write a song, and I made a few beats, started vibing with them. She wrote a song, managed to write one, put it together, whatever level it was. But that was another hurdle, another obstacle conquered. We had things like this along the way. Little things, little challenges have come. How are we going to do with this? How are we going to do? She was pushing her energy to me. Her energy was very positive, like, it's going to happen. It's just. We're going to have to make it happen. You got to get on board with this. You don't understand. I'm here to pull you out of your cave as well. And this is how I was absorbing her energy. She was absorbing my energy, and we both grew. She learned the music side of things, how to stand on the mic, how to hold a mic, how to sing. And not technically, but I know pitch. So.
And I was learning how to get out there, make phone calls, talk to people, and come out of your introvert levels and start dealing with people. So it's. We've come to a stage now where she's just done a duet with Jazzy B.
Now for a UK based female to do a duet with Jazzy B. It's never happened in history. Jazzy B has done duets before, but not UK.
[01:12:52] Speaker A: Nope.
[01:12:53] Speaker B: No.
And to be featured on his album, I just think there's a lot of people out there that wish they could trade places with this. So we're not just lucky. We worked so hard for it. You can see.
[01:13:06] Speaker A: You can see it, bro.
[01:13:07] Speaker B: Honestly, we have literally worked our asses to the boat, to the point. You know, you're doing a show in Scotland one day, next day you're in Romford. We're driving 8 hours, 9 hours, middle of the night, stupid hours, spending hours and hours in the studio. No, that's not right. Do it again. Vocals. Do. Do vocals three or four times over for me. Scrapping songs. That Boolean track with jazzy B, that's an eight and a half minute song. In this day and age, who does that? No. How do you keep it interesting? There's literally three songs in one. That's almost an ep worth of music in that one song. And we have to do what we have to do. So we're so focused and determined. And again, this has come from her side. She's injected this focus to me, this drive, it's going to happen. And the other night, it was Jazzy wee's launch party and we're there backstage with the guy, we're taking pictures and I'm like, I'm still in shock, you know, I've met so many artists for him, for me, with that guy, he connected us back with our roots, with our folk music. He's like the closest thing the new generation is going to get to a legend. He's been on stage for over 30 years, right?
That night he had the whole room. And you think about it, he did that 30 years ago. So for us, that is an iconic person. And for that person to have us on board, we must be doing something right. And we're doing it day in, day out. We're working on it. We don't give up, we don't stop moaning, we don't complain, we don't look at other people, we don't have secret accounts to spy on other artists, we don't do none of that. We're just focused on our craft, art. So again, so much after this entire journey, I've told you now, this is a new path, a new journey with new challenges and new things to do. So I can say, like, I've had moments where I thought I was done with music, but music was in love with me. So I'm still here for that reason. I know there's stuff to do. I personally have not put an album up as chaos productions ever.
There's stuff to do. I have to do that I have to do Nisha stuff. We have to. We've got a video shoot this Saturday, so that's off the back of Jazzy's Hoogia. We're done. What are we doing next? What we're doing next. And that's the hunger and the drive you have to have and the work ethic, second to non work ethic, you have to have and you've got to deal with adversity, you've got to deal with problems, you've got to deal with negative energy, you've got to deal with stuff all, all the time. And you come out stronger, man. And I feel like I've lived that life, so I can say that it's not stuff I've read on a quote somewhere.
I've literally been through this myself, personally. And now I feel this year, the way this year started. We did an event with young Singh dishes, first ever club show. She literally first time ever sang live with live rr all and live keyboards. And she didn't even have proper stage monitoring. So I know now that we've onto bigger things now we're onto things that for us, bigger than what we've done before, not bigger than next month. We don't really get to that. Like I said, it's not, again, that's cliche, but you're competing with yourself. It's about how can I better myself? How can I better what I did last year? So, yeah, management has taught me a lot of. It's taught me a lot about how the industry works and about how people view certain artists and certain things and about how much you have to break that door down because nothing's going to get handed to you. We have never had any favors. That jazzy track was not a favor. Jazzy B is not the type of artist to put anyone on his album.
We earned the right to be there and that is a lesson for us and for other people. You got to work on yourself to that level where you are invited because you're that good. And I think, again, there's going to be no end to this. It's an ocean. It's just never. We're going to keep going, keep, keep improving and grow stronger.
[01:17:19] Speaker A: I'm just going to finish up now. So that the whole point, this podcast is basically in the pursuit of musical excellence. I was going to ask you about that, but you summed it up right at the end. You got to work harder, harder than anyone else to get anything.
[01:17:33] Speaker B: You can be a sportsman, it's the same deal. Boxer, you can be a football player. Whatever you choose to do, you've got to look at who the best is. And you got to be like, well, I'm getting there. I'm getting beyond that.
You might not, but if you don't have the mindset, you definitely will.
Don't think like a champion.
You have to have that go on in your mind. And I've learned this. I was not this person, and I'm talking about three, four years ago. Not many years ago, only three, four years have I started manifesting things. Dish actually manifested the track. She went on live radio. They said the question was, what's your dream collaboration? She said, I want to do a club with Jazzy B. There was no track in the pipeline. There was no idea it was going to come manifested. And that's the power of what energy we put out into the world. We do it the right way. That's how powerful it can be. And I just feel like I've learned. I don't. I mean, there's lessons there for all, like I said, lessons all around us. Negative stuff teaches you a lot more than positive stuff. Absolutely.
[01:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:18:45] Speaker B: Once you're getting big, dog isn't like, you can't let that go to your head because where are you going to go from there if one day already put you on a pedestal, say, where are you going to go from that point? So I always take it with, I appreciate the fact that people enjoy what we do, but I also know that there's so much more, you know, I mean, and if I don't think like that, then slowly but surely you start melting away into that egotistical world. And I'm greater than everybody, so I don't need to try anymore. But we're not going to let that happen. And that's not how you should approach anything in life, you know, I mean, it's like there's a lot of things in music that are just the general applications of how you should be as a human being anyway and how you should strive to be the best at whatever it is. You do. Understood.
[01:19:36] Speaker A: Absolute, absolute pleasure talking to you too.
[01:19:40] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[01:19:41] Speaker A: One last thing I was to say where can people. Because this podcast is not just for Punjabis. I want it to go out to like any musician, anyone who loves music around the world. So where can people catch you?
[01:19:53] Speaker B: Yeah, we're on the social media. Mine is productions on all sites but mostly we use like Instagram, Facebook and dish sound is dish with the number six sandu. So dish six sandu and myself, girls productions and yeah, I mean, hoping for bigger and better things for everybody in the industry. Let's grow together.
[01:20:18] Speaker A: Absolutely. So guys, if you can, if you can give us a like, give us a follow, leave us a review as well if you like this session. And make sure you follow ammo cares productions on social media as well. And until next time, we'll catch up soon.
