Keeping it real with Josh



Contrary to belief, the Josh lads turn out to be rather nice. They were in Karachi recently for the launch of their third album, Mausam, and despite a hectic schedule during their three-day stay, they agreed to a last-minute interview.

The current line-up of Josh comprises Q (Qurram Hussain) and Rup (Rupinder Magon). For this particular interview, Q is the first to turn up in a new afro hairstyle and a pair of shades that make him look uncannily like Lenny Kravitz. He laughs at the similarity, and then proceeds to relate how he once gained access to a club in Morocco pretending to be Kravitz himself. Q is originally from Karachi — he stayed in Pakistan for some 15 years before moving to Canada with his family. Compared to Rup, he seems eager to answer questions first, turning out to be quite a chatterbox.

Rup, who arrives shortly after, is quieter with a tendency to add a witty remark here and there. He is more on guard and — as I later discover — is primarily in charge of the ‘business side’ of Josh. Hailing from a somewhat religious Sikh family, Rup picked up the tabla at the age of six and later on advanced to the harmonium. He also knows how to play the piano.

The spiritual aspect to Josh’s music appears to come from Rup, whose first musical experience came when he accompanied his mother to the gurdwara (Sikh temple) where she would sing hymns supported by his tabla beats.

Teaming up with his brother, Rik, and Shazi Hussain, they formed Josh and went on to perform covers of various popular films and Punjabi songs, qawwalis and ghazals. Around that time, Q was finding his own musical voice, which in turn ended up as a contribution towards Josh’s debut album: he composed and wrote the title track Mein Hoon Tanha. The album was released sometime in 2001 and received a lukewarm response. By the time their second album, Kabhi, was released in 2004 — that brought them into international focus as a promising new band — Rik had left Josh.

Rup elaborates why: “He left during our pre-Kabhi days and decided to take on a more spiritual side to life. He didn’t want all the media attention; he just wasn’t built for that.” While previously Rik used to be around their studio a lot, Rup says he rarely ever visits now. “He actually sang on Kabhi. If you the read the credits, his name is there.”

Apparently, he is still quite an indispensable entity. “He started the band,” adds Q. “He is still the first guy we can go to to get the most honest opinion.”

The band members started Josh Entertaiment some two years ago with the idea that they would start producing artistes. Have they been successful in finding and producing an artiste so far? “Every time we get round to it, something new comes up. The idea is still there and we have done some projects that we haven’t released just yet. It’s just a company where we produce different artistes, from the music to everything, including the lyrics,” says Rup. “More importantly though, it is very difficult to find new artistes or accept new artistes who are serious.”

“We are willing to guide them if people are willing to work hard,” adds Q. “People have this misconception that it’s easy to put out a song and the rest takes care of itself.”

With Josh based in Canada, who are the people they are working with? “We’re predominantly working with desi people at the moment, but even now, we’re not sure whether the record is going to come out,” says Rup. “We can take artistes from anywhere because we meet a lot of people through our channels. But right now, Josh Entertainment is a very small thing. The reason we started it is because we’re primarily producers, not just singers.”

“The songwriting aspect allows us to do so much more with our talents, so we have that window of opportunity open,” adds Q, elaborating further upon how they make music: “We’re always making music whenever we can. An idea will generally come when I’m not sitting in the studio but driving, etc. I call myself on my home number and I leave a message about that idea. So then when I go back home, I make a piece based on that idea.”

Musicians don’t start out making a lot of money; most of them have to keep on working on their music and learn to take rejections before they finally get their big break. But even after becoming ‘successful musicians’, most of them continue with their day jobs, since a career in music does not guarantee a paycheque at the end of each month. Both Q and Rup had day jobs before Kabhi; do they plan to continue with them? “When Kabhi was popular, we were doing a lot of shows, and we expected that by the time we would be ready with our next album, we would put it up,” says Q, adding, “But what we didn’t take into account is that the business side of things can take very long. Kabhi was our first successful album, but I guess we weren’t experienced enough.”

“We are still poor musicians,” says Rup simply.

“Being successful in desi music is not the same as being successful in North American music, especially while living here. It is a big problem on its own as far as the monetary aspect is concerned. We can’t do shows as often, among other things. That being said, we are able to sustain ourselves. But we still have to think about budgets,” says Q.

“Things are very good, actually. The fact that we’ve gone through the ghareeb phase, our habits are still the same. We are still not going to go and spend exuberant amounts of money for nothing; we are still going to look for a good deal. It has a lot to do with the training we got from our parents and that we don’t believe in wasting money. There is no point in being flamboyant; there is nothing to gain from it,” says Rup reflectively. Relating this to the album, he says, “In fact our first track, Mahi Ve, speaks about that. It has a Sufi touch to it, ‘Mahi Ve Mahi Ve Arz Karan, Menu Di Asmani Fitrat De,’ which means give us those heavenly habits. The idea was to talk about a song where we could remain humble.”

Q has previously admitted to having been an ardent follower of Slash and has listed Sound Garden, Pearl Jam and the Stone Temple Pilots as some of his favourite bands. The music found in these bands (primarily rock) is not the kind of music that Josh is known for. How did that come about?

“I guess it’s because I wasn’t looking out to make a rock band,” laughs Q. Rup adds thoughtfully, “Listening to something doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to make it.” “The other thing is that then there have been so many other things that have influenced me,” says Q. “We used to have a lot of arguments in the beginning. Coming from rock, I had a different idea of not only how music should be made but how it should be promoted, etc. But then it changed after meeting Rup, who was listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and a lot of heavy eastern music like qawwalis.”

“There is a song called Ajnabi in Masuam that has predominant guitars,” adds Rup, referring to the album. “I think that’s the most guitars any song of ours has ever had.”

“What is good about going through a lot of influences is that there is evolution in music and you will see that in Masuam, from song to song,” finishes Q, bringing the conversation back to their album. The title track of the album, Mausam, is a cover of a Pakistani song. What is the story behind that? “Q always talked about this program called Fifty Fifty. So we got the DVD and there were these hilarious skits which we thought were fantastic,” answers Rub. “In between these skits, they used to play a song once in a while. One of these songs was Aaey Mausam Rangeelay Sohanay by Zubeida Khanum. I fell in love with it and I kept singing and humming it. I said we should do a remake of this song.

“In three albums we haven’t done any remakes. One day, Q called me up and said that he had made the music for it. I came over and listened to it and was wowed,” continues Rup. “We’ve actually changed the melody on it and a word or two as well. The music is all completely different.” Since Masuam is a Pakistani song, Josh is planning to shoot the video of the song in Pakistan as well.

It’s good to know, though, that the band members of Josh have a good head on their shoulders. They have come a long way since their first album, Mein Hoon Tanha, and despite whatever they might say, their music is still very commercial — their primary listeners are the masses.

A number of artistes complain that they often have to concentrate on the business aspect that distracts them from making music. Rup says, “Any successful artiste will tell you that, but you have to remember that it’s a race out there and it keeps you on your toes.”

Adds Q, “I don’t think it has affected us creatively as far as music is concerned. We don’t think about how to make a saleable album.”

Mausam seems like an album for all seasons (as the cover will also display: there are tiny icons beside every song depicting what season it belongs to). But whether it rises to the magnanimous success of Kabhi is something that is yet to be seen.

note:
— photograph 1: Josh, Q and Rup.
— photograph 2: Qurram Hussain aka Q.
— photograph 3: Rup aka Rupinder Magon

credits:
Photography by Amean J

First Published:
Images
December 3rd, 2006