Bhangraw.com

Bhangraw.com Interviews Swami

At long last the exclusive interview with Swami.

It was an eye opening experience as they shed light on a variety of topics.

It’s splendid to know that the band strives for the highest standard possible. Mediocrity wont cut it for them, and neither is maintaining the status quo as far as their production and work is concerned. Conformism, is not a word in the Swami dictionary, they are, and will always strive to evolve to be the progressive trendsetters.

They opened up my eyes, by explaining the true meaning of mainstream. I can see clearly now, how a band, or any individual should view their fan base to achieve longevity in the business.

Swami wants you to understand and appreciate their music sooner, and I think with their touring schedule and releases, and just their energy in general, people should grasp their concept a lot sooner.

I was really interested in hearing their musical influences, and as expected I got an eclectic response. Knowing what an artist is influenced by can help a listener relate to songs, as well as knowing what makes them get the creative juices flowing.

Speaking of creative juices, the “Electro Jugni/She’s Mine” single is set for digital release in approximately three weeks. The video is currently in post production.

Also, I’m quite happy by the fact that you guys are some of the first people to know that DJ Swami aka Diamond did a remix of Tigerstyle’s “Balle! Shava!” It will be one of the tracks on the upcoming Tigerstyle album.

Finally, I want to thank S-Endz, Swami and Luc Vergier of Cigale Entertainment for their genuine outstanding attitude and cooperation during the process.

Enjoy the full interview after the jump.

What genre do you guys consider your music to be?

Diamond – Swami is always an evolving idea of what music should be for somebody who is Indian, but has lived in the UK their whole life. So I would describe it now as, international popular music plus I suppose if you broke it down, it could be described as pop electronic Bhangra.

Who have your major influences in Bhangra or otherwise been?

Diamond – I listen to a lot of old, very old Punjabi records. I’ve grown up hearing that sound, whether it was people like old Kuldeep Manak stuff, I grew up listening to a lot of that, and people like Hans Raj and Sardool Sikander, and all these kind of people. But also a lot of just Indian music in general, Bollywood stuff from the 70’s, Laxmikant Pyarelal, RD Burman, those kind of sounds, just music which has great melody and energy really.

S-Endz – It’s really across the borders you know? People, when they ask me this are always quite surprised because I listen to everything from like Nine Inch Nails one day, to Joni Mitchell the next, with a bit of DMX in between. I like to be inspired by lots of different things, and I don’t like it to be too obvious to people.

Sups – I got told off in India for saying Michael Jackson, but I can’t lie, when I was younger he was my biggest influence.

Diamond – Stop saying that! Pick something obscure!

Sups – But, at the moment these days, the people that get me are actually a lot of singers from India. I’ve been listening to Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s album “Charkha.” Anybody that wants to know about good percussion production and good vocals needs to checkout that album. If they don’t they’re missing out on something amazing.

Diamond – What if they’re not interested?

Sups – Then they don’t need to listen! That, and really completely off the market is KT Tunstall. She actually really inspires me as a singer as well, cause she’s gruff and quite sensitive at the same time. So I’m quite into that kind of thing. Very opposite, but it’s influencing me at the moment.

Liana – Well again at the moment, I’m listening to a lot of India Arie, she’s just got the most amazing kind of soulful voice, so I’m really loving her stuff at the moment. In the past, Alicia Keys, I just think she’s got an absolutely lovely voice. Anybody who really makes me feel their music really, and makes me believe what they’re singing about. I love in particular female vocalists obviously being one myself…

Sups – Are you?

Liana – Well I think so. I’m sure. So I’d probably say at the moment, anybody who’s like really good in their own music inspires me that way.

Bobby P – Major influence would be at the moment Sunil Kalyan, Tabla Player/Percussionist, fantastic in the UK at the moment.

His album released last week

Bobby P – Yeh that’s right, that’s right. I also play with him in other bands as well, so I get a huge influence from him at the moment. Otherwise prior to that, probably Sivamani from India. I listen to for probably about a good part of seven, eight years to people like Zakir Hussain and his Father Ustad Ji as well who passed away. Those are the people on a very classical, very disciplined level. Bringing more of what we listen to in these days, obviously you’ve got the rhythm from the most famous, the renowned people like Timbaland, and bits like that. Obviously, working with Diamond as well, you get a lot of influence even from him; you don’t realize that it does rub off on you. So, that all into one, and a bit of me, is me.

Briefly describe the process of making a song

Diamond –When the first album was made, the “Desi Nu Skool Beatz” album, the whole thinking behind it was to go into the studio and to do something, which had never been done before. At the time I was doing Bhangra stuff with other people and I just wanted to do something, which was not Asian Underground, and not Bhangra, but kind of took things from both. From there, making that first album, the whole concept of Swami and evolving the sound and changing the process of how we think about making records started. When we went in to make DesiRock, that was another phase where we became more Electronic with it and more experimental with using rock sounds as well as Hip Hop. Right up to now, Equalize which has become a lot more pop, it got to the point where we thought if we’re gonna be making songs, we gotta look for wider influences. There’s no point making an album that has loads of desi influences if you only live inside the desi cultural community. So as well as going to Punjab and working with a bunch of fresh singers and people over there, I was working with people in South Africa, people in France, people in New York, in the Bronx, people in Australia as well as what we do in London. We’re trying to bring it all together with a new angle to Bhangra music, which other people as far as we were concerned weren’t doing.

S-Endz – It’s interesting to me the people that tell us that they have been influenced by different Swami albums. Because the So Who Am I? Album that we did in India was very Rock, I get a lot of people that are into Rock and Bhangra and they say they have been highly influenced by that, and a lot of Rappers say they have been inspired a lot by DesiRock, because that was very Hip Hop oriented, and just all kinds of people. Like the other day, I heard Simon Nandra on the radio and he said that he listens to “Mehbooba” everyday and you know it’s cool that every album that we do we try and do…

Diamond – Did he say that?

S-Endz – Yeah he said that. He said it on Ameet’s show on Asian Network…and so every album we do, we try and do something a bit different. We don’t wanna repeat anything ever.

Diamond – I get a lot of upcoming Producers, British Asian, and you know American, Canadian Producers that say to me “you know you’re inspiring, your work is so diverse,” and stuff like that. It’s nice to get recognition when people who are trying to make their own sound as well, and they know because they’re trying it themselves how tough it is to go in the studio, sit there and make something which is totally new and unique, but honest to your culture as well. So, it’s a good feeling that what we’re doing is inspiring people, not only to hear and feel something different, but to make music that’s different, and for people to see our culture in a progressive way, and not in a static way.

S-Endz – Yeah, I mean there is too many people out there that you can listen to an album that they put out this year, and put on an album they put out five years ago, and it sounds exactly the same, you know? We never see any point in doing that. Where’s the progression in doing that?

Diamond – The whole point of Swami is that it evolves, and none of our albums sound like the last one. That’s a big risk really, because you either lose some crowds, and gain other crowds, or you kind of try and educate people along the way, in a nice way, not in a forceful way, and we have to do that for the sake of our own musical creativity, cause that’s what keeps the buzz for us. Hearing something, you know living life on the edge and making music that’s risky is important. If people say to us they really like what we’re doing, that’s great, if they don’t like what we’re doing, that is also fine, but if they say that we’re mediocre, or just average, then that really hurts us.

What has been your biggest challenge as a band?

Diamond – The challenge of our band is to always try and keep the harmony of everybody and the musical focus on the progression together and as a single mindedness. Because the difficult thing for us, compared to a lot of other artists, we don’t have any role models, or bands who are similar to us, to try and think oh we can follow their kind of sound, and their path that they’re taking, we don’t have that because were trying to do something that’s totally new, so for all of us, we’re trying to make it up as we go along, but in an honest and sincere way. That’s the toughest challenge.

S-Endz – The problem with that can be that, when you do new things and blaze trails, sometimes people don’t get it until years later you know? When DesiRock first came out, it confused the hell out of people for about six months, then everyone just loved it after that, and it’s like why did it take you that long to get it? By that time we had done something else.

Do you guys see yourselves going mainstream?

Diamond – I think as far as we’re concerned, mainstream is a kind of weird word. Mainstream to who? Where is the mainstream? In the West? In the East? In the North? South?

S-Endz – It’s relative

Diamond – As far as we’re concerned if you go to India and you see Akshay Kumar dancing to DesiRock on TV, that’s mainstream in India. I think we need to kind of identify with the fact that trying to aspire to a western white audience as a concept of being mainstream, we need to stop thinking about that. To actually please large numbers of people across the world, whether it’s in Africa, whether it’s in Asia, whether it’s in Japan, whether it’s in America, as long as you’re successful, and you’re getting to do shows all over the world, like we have been doing this year – we’ve already been to Canada twice now, we’ve just toured India, we’ve been over in Germany twice this year. That’s mainstream to us.

S-Endz – We’d rather appeal to a wide range of people, than any one particular market that might be influential in one country or another you know? There’s more longevity in that.

Going back to the Equalize album, I understand you’ve worked with Pras before so I can see how he was on your album. When he was doing the recording, did you guys realize the vocals he was actually putting into the album was every other greatest rappers vocals?

Diamond – That’s part of Pras’ style, even if you go back to Ghetto Superstar, and the influence of that, and even the whole idea of Ready or Not and putting the Enya sample on that kind of thing. I know Pras, and those are his ideas, he likes to pull in his influences, these obvious influences of course, I’m a big Tribe Called Quest fan and we know.

S-Endz – Who doesn’t know “Kick in the door, wavin the 4-4?” or “La Di Da Di we likes to party”

Diamond – That’s Slick Rick

S-Endz – Yeah

Would you guys do an album of covers?

Diamond – We did. We were asked to do a cover once, and we did a Prince cover of “Controversy.” Of course you know if we do a song like “Challa,” it’s a cover isn’t it? Even if we put the word “number 2” after it, doesn’t matter does it? I don’t know about an entire album of it, it’s always an option.

Do you do other musical work with Producers in your genre?

Diamond – Well, I just recently remixed the single on the Tigerstyle album, well it wasn’t that recently, but a few months ago, I remixed “Balle Shava” which isn’t even out yet. I just done a song with Veronica, that I produced, and written with her for her album. It actually features Rafaqat Ali Khan on there; he’s a great Qawwali singer as well. We did a song last year for a Bollywood movie “Corporate” as well. So yeah, there’s a bunch of different stuff we do, but with different people.

Balle Shava is gonna be on the Tigerstyle album?

Diamond – Yeah, they’ve already started promoting their version of it, but people haven’t heard my remix yet.

What do you think will be the most important trend in Bhangra in 2009?

Diamond – Good question

Sups – I think things are gonna be a bit more electronic, you know the way Hip Hop is getting more electronic with you know people like Rihanna, and even Timbaland, and all the collaborations that he’s thought of. I think Bhangra has already started to move that way, and those that are tryna move forward will start doing that too. I think the live aspect is really gonna come back as well, and I think that we can partly hold our shoulders, that we are responsible for that, for bringing the live trend back. Diamond doesn’t just DJ, he plays the guitar as well on stage. So I think the whole live thing, but the electronic fusion thing. That’s gonna be one of the latest treads to come aboard.

Have you guys seen or heard anything from Singh is Kinng?

Sups – I’ve heard about it. I heard that it’s apparently gonna get Sardar Jis a lot of ladies. I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve been promising my Mum that I’ll take her to see it.

Have you seen the music video?

Sups – I’ve heard a lot about that as well, I haven’t seen it. Not a bad track though, I have to say the music on the track is ok, but the vocals are dire.

S-Endz – The Snoop one?

Sups – I don’t know if it’s the Snoop one, the actual tune Singh is King, the music in it is ok, but the lyrics I think need reworking.

Let’s talk about “She’s Mine” your next release. How did that come about? How did Liana get introduced into the group?

Diamond – I suppose it’s kind of became an extension of doing the album Equalize, and all the influences that were on it, and we wanted to basically flip one of the songs more with an international flavour. Because a lot of international markets have opened up to us now. We’ve been playing festivals in France and Germany, and I mean even when you go to India, if you go to South India, like we did to Hyderabad, and you can play something in English, just as well as you can in Punjabi, it doesn’t make any difference really. So, we kind of realised that we have such a diverse bunch of people that listen to our music, that we might as well diversify the languages even more and try things in English, and try things with a bit of Hindi as well. Because as far as we’re concerned, our music is about the energy, and as long as it’s energy driven, then we will try anything.

S-Endz – Yeah, its quite interesting how it came about actually, because you know we had the original Electro Jugni on Equalize first, and it was the Punjabi vocals and the rap. And then we had the synth part in the song, and Diamond was always saying after the album came out, that this would be really good as a vocal hook. Then Liana came in and we wrote this English female chorus for her, and then we sort of came across the idea that why don’t we just do a whole English version of the song? So myself and Diamond sat down in the studio, wrote more English verses, and the song came about, and now there’s like three versions. Then there’s the Hindi version as well.

Any final thoughts or messages for our readers?

S-Endz – Big up Bhangraw.com and everyone reading worldwide.

Diamond – Come and check us out when we’re in your neighbourhood, and if we haven’t been there yet, then contact us on Myspace, and let’s see if we can do something then

Sups – Thank You for being interested in us, and become more interested, I guarantee you’ll like it, and guarantee you’ll love the rhythm and raw energy.