Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25233
BAND MEMBERS ALI AZMAT, 31, LEAD VOCALS. ALI WAS BORN AND RAISED IN PAKISTAN. HE ATTENDED UNIVERSITY IN AUSTRALIA, WHERE HE MET SALMAN WHO WAS THERE DOING A DOCUMENTARY. ALI TOOK UP MUSIC SHORTLY AFTER UNIVERSITY, REAL- IZING HE WAS GIFTED WITH AN ABILITY TO SING. SALMAN AHMAD, 37, LEAD GUITARIST, BAND LEADER AND COMPOSER. SALMAN WAS BORN IN LAHORE, PAKISTAN AND ATTENDED HIGH SCHOOL IN NEW YORK BEFORE RETURNING TO PAKISTAN TO BECOME A DOCTOR. As SOON AS HE FIN- ISHED MEDICAL SCHOOL, HE TOOK UP MUSIC. Now HE IS THE MOTIVATION BEHIND THE MUSIC AND THE BANDS OTHER SOCIAL CAUSES. SALMAN IS THE CURRENT UNITED NATIONS GOODWILL AMBASSADOR FOR PAKISTAN IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HIVIAIDS. BRIAN O'CONNOR, 38, BASS GUITARIST. AN IRISH-AMERICAN BORN IN QUEENS, NY, BRIAN MET SALMAN IN HIGH SCHOOL. BRIAN BECAME A MUSIC TEACHER AND LIVED IN BUFFALO FOR TEN YEARS BEFORE SALMAN AND HIS NEWLY-FORMED BAND JUNOON LURED HIM TO PAKISTAN. HE HAS LIVED IN KARACHI FOR THE LAST NINE YEARS. L /Isent less than one percent of our country. And that one percent is being shown on J CNN as being the real Pakistan. £.. & I SALMAN: They were staged by the Afghani Taliban sympathiz.ers, and they repre- I (Have you ever found justification in the Qu'ran for suicide? Or for killing inno- \".I J;: cent people? SALMAN: Suicide in the Qu'ran is called haram. Haram means prohibited. Under no .? circumstance can any Muslim willful ly give his life. When Islam was first beginning • .-' as a religion, when the Prophet Muhammad, received his revelation, Islam was at its most vulnerable. And even then, the Prophet categorically stated to his people that never will you kill men, women and children, priests, nuns, rabbis. How have the events of 9/11 and the current war in Afghanistan affected your band and music? SALMAN: It made me more aware of my role and responsibility as an artist. I have had the privilege of going to school in the West, also I am a Pakistani and I am a Muslim. There's role for me to play. I'm not saying Junoon is going to change the world, but at least it will make people think. Good art should provoke thought and challenge dogma. What's the message you're trying to convey through your music? SALMAN: Seek beauty and truth wherever you are-and be tolerant of beliefs, whatev- er the belief may be. That's what's beautiful about life-its diversity. And there is a unity in that diversity. Our music represents that. We have Christians and Muslims in the band. We have songs inspired from Islamic Sufi poetry. We borrow from Western rock idioms-Hendrix, Santana, U2, Led Zeppelin. We celebrate and we pick influences from all around the world. We don't divide, we unite. How does the spiritual chemistry of the band work with a born-again Christian bass player, a Shiite Muslim lead singer and a Sunni Muslim lead guitarist and song-writer? SALMAN: We are deeply inspired by Islamic Sufi poetry, the best known Sufi poet is Jalaluddin Rumi. He along with the other Sufi mystics celebrated their love for God with their intent love for humanity, which was manifested in verse, song and whirling dance. They saw no divisions in humanity and that is the spiritual harmony which embraces our band. Do you feel a desire to reach out to the West right now? ALI: There's always reason to spread a message of peace. To spread awareness of how hate can blind us all, and why we need to stay sane and focused and positive and not lose our directions in life. Not just as an individual, I'm talking about the human race, the world at large. Right now, we want to create awareness among the people of this world more than anything else. BRIAN: I think our role in this right off the bat is that we have to portray an accurate picture of a part of the world America knows very little about. That's the first thing because through misunderstanding comes a lot of aggression-it has manifested itself in this terrible exchange. Through understanding of each other, that's how we're going to tackle this. It's been said that Junoon represents the silent voice of the country. What does this mean? ALI: The majority of the people, by and large, educated middle-class people, are scared of that minority of religious fanatic groups, because they resort to violence and people do not want violence in their lives. Historically, Pakistan was basically owned by feudal landlords, so there is a certain feudal mentality in Pakistan where you say "yes sir" to everything. It's like, you live on their lands and when they stand up for election you have to give them vote otherwise they kick you off their lands. People are scared to say anything against the establishment, but that has changed a little in the last 10 to 12 years when we actually came out and said, "You guys work for us and we want accountability for what you've done for the last 54 years." Nobody had ever done that! It shook up the whole system, and worked for us in a way: A Pakistani band that talks about all this stuff, and we're all of a sudden in the limelight. It was about time somebody started this kind of revolution where people can look around and say, "We don't have to be fearful of anybody. We can take them on." We, as three individuals, have shown that to our countrymen. Your music was officially banned from the Pakistani radio waves and TV chan- nels from 1997 to 1999 by the previous Pakistani government, after your song "Accountability." What did you do during that time when you were banned? SALMAN: Secret gigs. People would sell tickets to someone's house and we'd playa gig. We went outside of the country. We were in the USA in 1998. Islamic Sufis believe that if somebody closes one door, God will open another door for you. And when they shut that door, another door wil l open. That's how it works. ALI: That's totally worked for us. When t he government banned us, we came up with Azadi (1997). They took our songs off the air. Nine months later EMI releases the album in India and it starts blaring from every satel lite channel in that region: forty channels playing "Sayonee" four times a day, eight times a day. So we were back on in big way, which even the government couldn't even stop. So they said, "You went to India. There's case against you for treason, for belittling the Pakistani ideology." If being banned in Pakistan opened the door to India, do you think this current conflict is opening doors for you in the West? SALMAN: When you're searching for the truth, no one can stand in your way. If they stand in your way, some other way will come. In the secular world, people don't understand that because they don't see spirituality as having any real basis. Through our own experience, we have found whenever somebody tries to muzzle us, some other door opens up. We think its God. We don't know what the secular world might think, but we think its God. 44 What do you think of Osama bin Laden? SALMAN: He, like any other desperate man, is capitalizing on the frustrations of millions. I could name a million charismatic psychopaths like Hitler, Charlie Manson, Timothy McVeigh. You find them in every corner of the world, every century. There will always be these deeply intelligent, calculating people who will find ways of dividing humanity. He's a criminal. He's got blood on his hands and as a Muslim I cannot support that. -:What were your reactions to the pro-bin Laden riots in Pakistan?