Written by: Nayha Jehangir Khan
Posted on: April 08, 2020 | 
| 中文
Kashmir the Band
As Winners of Pepsi Battle of the Bands, Kashmir has captured the hearts of Pakistani audiences since 2017. Pepsi had been slowly teasing the release of Kashmir’s album by gradually releasing songs and music videos that gained a steady traction online. Their debut album Khwaab is out now, and it is a soulful and joyful celebration of their friendship as a band.
Band members include Bilal Ali on Vocals, Usman Siddiqui on Bass, Ali Raza on Keys, Zair Zaki on Rhythm Guitar, Vais Khan on Lead Guitar and Shane J. Anthoney on Drums. Youlin Magazine had the chance to talk to Kashmir about their musical journey:
Kashmir: We were planning on going on a national tour, performing in 5 major cities, but unfortunately that isn’t possible due to the current situation. A week before we were planning to hit the road for the tour, we had to postpone everything indefinitely. As disappointing as this was, we all understood the importance of self-isolating. As soon as we had our last concert everything became very serious, and we started staying at home. We did one live session, and decided it's really dangerous. We needed to take responsibility and stay at home. Things are going well online, but we are disappointed at losing the chance to go on tour to promote the album.
Khwaab Album Artwork
Kashmir: Our history is quite unusual because before Kashmir became a band, it was just a group of friends. We go back a really long way, Usman and Ali are childhood buddies from grade 1. We all live in the same vicinity, and have known of each other for years. We formed Kashmir because we were all friends, and have been performing since 2012. Shane is the newest member of the band.
(L to R) Shane Anthoney, Bilal Ali and Vais Khan
Kashmir: It does have intense emotions and moments of nostalgia. Bilal writes all of our songs. As far as the music composition process goes, Bilal will write a lyric or a basic structure for a melody and then we all get together. It’s a collective effort, once we get together, we sit and discuss the meaning behind the song and lyrics. Once we have that laid out, we get into the studio and jam it out. We see where the mood of the song takes us and play off the emotions of the lyrics.
We try to have fun with the process, in the creation of the song Bhago, it doesn’t necessarily sound, sad even though it was written with deep emotions. This process is organic and fluid. But we do have a lot of arguments when composing, as each member of the group has different musical influences. In the end, we always unanimously choose what works best for the lyrics and song. It feels really good that as a band we can be open to each other’s creativity and overcome conflicting opinions. Each of us contributes the best we can to each song. Only when the entire band feels good about the song composition is when we decide to go ahead with the release.
Kashmir: Shane thinks he’s the most extroverted out of the band members, and you are right to observe that we are reserved, and keep to ourselves. This is not a facade or constructed persona, that’s just the way we are. We have had a very tight-knit circle of friends even before entering the music industry. While we did interact with other people, we weren’t part of a larger social scene.
Khwaab Album Illustration
On stage it's quite different, as we learned how to perform live. When we participated in Pepsi Battle of the Bands, we were maybe not as open as others, due to reasons like extreme stage fright. But having fun on stage is an important part of the performance. Interacting with the audience, feeding off their energy and they ours. You can't always be extroverted on stage, our song Pari has its own mood. We believe that when we enjoy performing, our audiences enjoy being there with us.
Kashmir: As individual band members, we all have our personal favourites. While we love all our songs, each one of us has their own individual preferences. Performing Khwaab live feels amazing, as the audience goes through an emotional roller coaster during the song, and it always ends on a memorable note.
Promo for Kashmir's Single Khwaab
Kashmir: As you know we are still under contract with Pepsi, and have worked with multiple musicians over the years. We have also worked with multiple producers. We believe that whoever will be great for Kashmir’s music, or perhaps considers us to be a good match for their song, we would love to collaborate with them.
We collaborated with Bayaan, and often jam with their lead singer Abdulla Qureshi. Tamasha was in the audience for one of our performances, and we spontaneously called them up on stage to join us!
They played their song for us and it was insane. We joined in, and then we performed the next song together. The music industry in Pakistan is small, and right now everyone wants to promote music. It’s great to see the community coming together to support each other, which will certainly help the industry to flourish in the future.
Kashmir: Very early on in our journey we were told to take ourselves seriously as musicians, by someone very close to the band. His name is Umer Anwer, and he directed our latest music video for Dhoop. He told us, “You guys are a rock band, and you need to understand the impact of your music. You need to believe in yourselves and take yourself seriously.”
(L to R) Vais Khan, Usman Siddiqui, Shane Anthoney and Zair Zaki
That’s what we did from then on, and kept practicing our songs. We would head into our studio every day, trying to take things to the next level. We want to work on ourselves and keep evolving as a band. Getting better, and making music is the most important thing to us.
Those interested can listen to their new album on all musical streaming services, and follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Photo credits to Rearts
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