This evening we have the great pleasure to interview three members of the internationally known British band Asian Dub Foundation Sound System. Here with us we have one of the founders of the group from back in 1993, John Ashok Pandit (aka Pandit G), together with Akhtar Ahmed and a young addition to the group, Sonny Green.
URLOPOP – On the internet we have found a lot of information about the group, we would like to know if it is all true or not.
PANDIT G – None of it is true!
AKHTAR – Sometimes the things on the internet are true and sometimes not!
URLOPOP – For sure if you have the possibility of meeting someone in person, you can avoid misunderstandings and get the information first hand. Can you tell us something about the origins of the band.
AKHTAR – I was about to say this! If you go on the internet you will find that many websites say that we are from Pakistan, but actually nobody in the group is from Pakistan!! We all have a connection with India and Bangladesh, in history both Pakistan, India and Bangladesh were the same country, and the British ruled for two hundred years…In the band there are Punjabis, Gujaratis, Bangladeshi, and we are not only Asians, now we have Sonny Green who’s Irish. Then there is Ghetto Priest, he’s got a Caribbean background. A lot of the times people would say that we are all from Pakistan.
PANDIT G – And the reason for this is that the first time we came to Europe, in France and Belgium 1995 some journalist said that we were from Pakistan. And that got copied, that’s the problem with internet, some guy’s opinion becomes fact.
AKHTAR – Sometimes, when we go somewhere to have a gig, people want to do a research on the band, and they learn from the internet that we are all from Pakistan!
URLOPOP – So, how did it get started? When and how was the group formed?
AKHTAR – It started in 1993, with Pandit G himself and another person called Dr. Das and Deeder. John did and still does a lot of activist work, helping young people that are arrested by the police, I’m sure that John can tell you more about that than me..after that what happened John? Steve joined the band “Chandrasonic”..
PANDIT G – Yes, so at the beginning it was a workshop, teaching Asian youth about music, and just developed into a band. There was no plan, we just carried on and slowly we developed an educational project, I was working at school teaching music technology, and one of the guys that was going to this school was him (pointing to Akhtar)!
AKHTAR – Yes, I actually met him in ’96 at my first workshop lesson, Dr. Das and Chandrasonic were my teachers. It was a natural transition after that. In 1999 I went on my first tour with Asian Dub Foundation as a DJ I came with my records. We went on tour for the album “Community Music”. I played when the doors opened and during changeovers, and after the show if there was enough time I would dj again. That was a great opportunity for me to gain experience. And as I was doing that I used to come on to do one song and then that became two songs with Asian Dub. So in 2000 I do not know what happened with Deeder, he kind of departed from the band, that gave the opportunity for myself and a few other guys to step in for Deeder and continue with the band. We came out from that educational project of Asian Dub Foundation,
URLOPOP – You have come from so many different backgrounds, India, Bangladesh, Irish, how do you get along together?
AKHTAR – Yes, but all of us where born in the UK, even though our roots come from different places
URLOPOP – Do your different origins have an influence on your music?
AKHTAR – Of course it does. We grew up listening to our parents music collection, as you know, when you are a kid you don’t go out and buy music albums, you listen the music your parents are listening to. Bollywood movies for example have a lot of music in them, everyone in the band has had a different music influence, that kind of shows in the music we do.
PANDIT G – And then most of us where in London or in the south-east, so there is always music or things happening there. In my days it was punk, then reggae, British reggae, jungle..
When we set up in 1993, jungle drum & bass was popular, and had a lot of influence on a lot of people. Now it’s dub step, we have been through all music genres, all musical movements and they have all inspired us.
URLOPOP – We know that you, Mr. Pandit G was awarded with the Member of the Order of the British Empire, but you refused it, could you tell us why?
PANDIT G – There are many people that have a MBE, it’s a state honour, for some work they have done. Most of the time it goes to heads of multinational corporations, arms dealers, drug dealers, lots of people that give donations to the political parties and bribe pharmaceutical industries
URLOPOP – Do you think that your decision not to accept this honour has damaged or vice versa has increased the fame of ADF?
PANDIT G – Well, first of all it was an individual honour, because I was involved in community music when it came, I was involved in lots of campaigns, so it was not just about ADF. But the point was that at that time it was just six months before Britain went to a illegal war in Iraq. And so for a lot of time they awarded honours to people who were critical about these things. But also I was very keen at that time about funding, money should go into training young people, particulary in the field we are interested in: the arts and music. Unfortunately, that kind of funding is very difficult. We would like to see much more opportunities for so many talented youths, you can see all over, everywhere, you never get an opportunity. Non only training in music technology, in becoming a dj, but actually providing the environment where people can perform live and get that experience. For example Sonic Wings is a musician a player for many years and he comes out with us, and comes to different parts of the world, and performs with audiences and this is really important. Unfortunately the music industry in general, does not do like that, they don’t develop people, you see it on the X-factor, while it should be from ourselves, musicians that develop new musicians. Because if you have some big money making machine behind you, you are the flavour of the month for a while and then they get rid of you, instead it should be about developing new artists, the reggae sound systems do that. In Punjabi music that is done as well. In Bollywood people are built up, are given an opportunity, and now for dj’s it’s very difficult, now there is more technology, everybody is a dj, but no one has the experience to go out and play to an audience. For example tonight we do not know the audience, the band has played here in Udine years ago, but to give the people the confidence... Can you hear (drums of the band on stage ”Les Tambours de Topolò”) this sounds amazing!
AKHTAR – Sounds like fireworks!
PANDIT G – And this is what we like to see!
URLOPOP – In your long career with ADF did it happen that for some reason you refused to play?
PANDIT G – No, not really, I think we have been always very careful in sponsorship, who’s involved, what kind of event it is. Last November we did a little tour in Belgium and part of Italy, we were in Sardinia and Milan, working with youth community groups, playing for them and it was brilliant. We met loads of people, refugees, people that use these centres.
URLOPOP – In which country you were greeted in the best way?
AKHTAR – This is a very difficult question!
PANDIT G – We love being here in Italy!
AKHTAR – We have been treated nice in so many countries
PANDIT G – We have been lucky, we have always been greeted well, from Japan to Brazil
AKHTAR – To be honest, everywhere you go there are nice people and not so nice people, we had some incidents in different places, but this doesn’t mean that we make a judgement on the whole country. Everywhere we have been, we have met nice people, genuine people.
Sometimes we have met bad people, but it is worthless to talk about it, just wasting our energy for nothing.
PANDIT G – But you can imagine, we have a Bengali, Indian , Irish and a Rastafarian, so when we came across the border they stopped us and went on asking us questions one by one. Because the people was not expecting such a assorted group. All different places!
We once had a show in Croatia, back in ’99 or something, and when we came across the mountains to Italy with our coach after the gig, it was about 4 in the morning. The Italian customs guy, who was about 21 years old, stops us, comes in and looks at us and gets all of us out the bus in a row and checks us, asking who we were, what do you have with you, are you smuggling drugs? What are you doing.. and we were all standing there at 4 in the morning with cars passing by of Italians that were at the concert and were coming back waving to us and cheering us on.. and then they got the dogs on the bus, and were tearing the bus up. But they didn’t find anything, we were clean!
URLOPOP – Do you ever have gigs in India?
AKHTAR – Yes, in 2010 we did a tour in India, for the first time. We did Bombay, Delhi, Pune, Chennai, it was amazing, but it was quite difficult to go to that part of the world. We are a big band, there is a lot of people in the team, to get the whole team out there for one show is quite difficult, so you have to organize a tour with multiple dates.
Maybe after the release of the new album in July we will do a tour there again.
PANDIT G – Very rapidly in the past five-ten years in India the reggae scene, EDM, house music, drum & bass, there is a lot of music coming out. Electronic music and dj in India has become really big scene!
AKHTAR – Now thanks to the internet people have access to all sorts of music, while in the past people had to rely only on CDs only. Now that they have access to different types of music there are really creative, different styles of music coming out from India. Electronic music, because they try to get away from the Bollywood, and they come out like independent producers.
URLOPOP – What are your future projects?
AKHTAR – The new album is about to be released and we are promoting the album for the whole summer, we have a lot of festivals coming up, in Romania, Czech republic, France, Spain so right now we will be touring and doing some videos.
Then we have some collaborations for the new album from M1 Dead Preaz on one of the tracks, we got remixes by different people.
PANDIT G – We do the sound system, but the rest of the band we are also doing a live soundtrack for a film called THX 1138 it’s an old film by George Lucas, the director of Star Wars. The album “More signal more noise” is out in July. I have a project on YouTube where people can watch films called Udita, it’s about the factory workers in Bangladesh about the collapse of a factory two years ago. So we are working on two sides, tearsinthefabric.com and Udita, we are using these films to go to NGO, trade unions to support women, garment workers in Bangladesh who haven’t been compensated.
URLOPOP – Do you have other dates here in Italy?
AKHTAR – Certainly we have already a date, you can check it on our website.
URLOPOP – One last question to Sonny Green who is here with us. You are the youngest of the group, how do you get along with the rest of the group. How old are you by the way?
SONNY – I’m twenty. I love the band, I learned a lot, I feel happy I’m having a good time
PANDIT G – Of course you are saying only good things because you are in front of us! Ha Ha Ha!
SONNY – Come on! It’s an honour to tour with them, you know their legacy is amazing!
2015
