By Rohail Khan

Corduroy is one of the best kept secrets in the Pakistani music scene. They’ve been in the Islamabad underground circuit for about two years now and have managed to gather quite a following by performing at Civil Junction on a regular basis. This five man band consists of Moby on vocals, Sarmad (aka Satch Halen) on lead guitars, Mazhar on rhythm guitars, Ahmed on bass and Ameel on drums.

Derrick Marr, the Content Editor at Great White Noise, explains that Corduroy "is every bit as good a rock band as any you are going to hear on any radio station, all they need is that one break, and if they stick around I know it will come their way!" My sentiments exactly.

Moby comes across as a man very confident in his band’s abilities and, quite frankly, after listening to some of their songs I can see where all this confidence comes from. Here’s what I and the band’s front man talked about...

Moby

Moby, when was Corduroy formed?
I guess the roots of the band lie in my meeting Sarmad through a mutual friend around 2 years ago. He had just picked up the guitar then, but his inclination towards the instrument was obvious and we hit it off immediately in terms of compositional wavelength. We had different influences to be sure; I was a Gen X kid raised on a diet of the 90’s Seattle scene (Pearl Jam, Seven Mary Three, Screaming Trees, Stone Temple Pilots et al), whereas Sarmad had gotten into Van Halen in 6th grade and idolized the dude. On paper, this would have been the perfect recipe for disaster but we always had a shared vision of how a good song should sound like, so 2 years down the line here we are; releasing a CD that is as diverse as the colors of the rainbow ha, ha!

How long have you guys been playing music? What are your influences?
I’ve been playing in bands here and abroad for a while, usually garage ones that could have never gone anywhere, but I’m very excited about this one. For the first time in my life, I have a musical partner (in Sarmad) who realizes melodies the same way as I do; which is very gratifying.

As far as influences go, suffice to say that we’re known locally as ‘Van Vedder’. We’ve
been labeled everything from Satch (Joe Satriani) playing with Creed, DMB fronted by Vedder to Scott Weiland fronting Van Halen. Sigh... Individually our influences run the gamut of the whole musical spectrum. I’m more into 70’s rock, Sarmad into Dream Theater and the whole virtuoso ilk (Satch, Vai, Johnson, Morse etc); Mazhar listens to melodic doom and heavy metal like Children of Bodom and Iced Earth, whereas Ameel and Ahmed tend to gravitate towards U2 and the Goo Goo Dolls. But the important thing is that we all agree on the definition of a good song.

How is the rock/music scene in Islamabad?
Pretentious to say the least. We keep hearing of bands that are supposedly playing 15 gigs a month and selling out places but we’ve never heard of them! Tsk, tsk. Its time they came out of their asses and smelled the flowers. The only advice I have for people like that is that they should either put up or shut up. If you’ve got the goods, bring ‘em out and let people judge you accordingly. And if it’s a fight you’re looking for, bring on! We’re always ready to prove a point...

The only note-worthy bands in Islamabad playing our genre or thereabouts are Surge, SheryR, and Shaani and his band Electro March. We love playing with them, cause they’re into it for the love of music like us rather than any ulterior motives. The rest of them can go eat muck.

The biggest reason why the twin cities scene is so under-developed is because of the lack of patrons and enthusiasts with moolah. Thanks to Civil Junction and Arshad Bhai’s endeavors to promote art for art’s sake however, things will hopefully change for the better as far as the local underground is concerned.

Corduroy has made a quite a fan following by performing regularly at Civil Junction. How did that come about and how often do you guys perform?
Yea, we’re the biggest home-grown live draw in the city, and I’m sick of pretending otherwise. We can play at most big halls locally and sell out. Recently we were picked as the only band to play the DAWN LIFESTYLES EXPO at the Convention Center, so yea, word gets around. Rocked the place filled with the Billo- awam no less!

The Civil Junction thing was something we did out of our own initiative, because there really wasn’t any incentive, financial or otherwise involved. We knew that for the markets we were targeting, we had to be a more than passable act live and as the people who’ve seen us in action will testify, we’re getting there. Corduroy played for 6 months straight every Saturday from March through September, and that’s helped us a lot as far as intra-band chemistry is concerned. We’re very grateful that CJ allowed us to be the house band and cultivate our core audience, but the fact of the matter remains that we’re the only reason that place is now doing so well.

Are all of you full time musicians or do you do it as something on the side? What are your "day jobs"?
You wish! No, the major reason why we’ve been a bit slow in hitting our straps is the damn day jobs (which I proudly admit to loathing!). Jesus, we should’ve started this is college!

Anyways, we’re all from IT (as in Punjabi for ‘brick’) and curse ourselves everyday for choosing something this yawn-inducing. Ahmed though, is a doctor-in-waiting.

Moby, why did you choose to sing in English in a market where even Urdu rock music barely gets noticed?
Our take on the matter is that that people who bother to listen to Urdu rock are the ones that listen to English rock music anyways. So basically, its just one market erroneously segmented. The people who listen to E.P, Aaroh, Mizraab, Mekaal Hassan are those trying to find hometown heroes playing similar styles to their western idols.

More than that, Pakistan is not our market and we know it. As far as we’re concerned, we’re taking this time to hone our skills and test-market our product.

We are in talks with some indie labels abroad, and as soon as we satisfy their criteria for selling enough CD’s the DIY way, and getting enough local and international underground press on our own, we get the deal. Period. After that, the sky’s the limit. The first step after an international distribution deal materializes is getting our asses out of here.

The two songs, Leeway and Your Song, where and when were they recorded? Who were the producers/engineers? Who are the composers?
Both songs were recorded at our own set-up, Shock Studios, during Ramadan and produced / engineered by Sarmad. We both love the 70’s Steepenwolf via Cream via Grand Funk Railroad sound, and tried to bring that ambience to our recordings. The mp3 downloads are not the final CD mixes so we’re up to tweaking them a bit more in terms of post-production.

As far as the compositions themselves go, the songs are Moby/Sarmad.

How many songs will be on the album? Are they all in English?
Pretty much yea. There are 14-songs on the CD, and the only exception is ‘Aas’(or urdu for ‘longing’). We were forced into including this as the local FM had aired it too many times for us to skip it. I’d like to thank Shazaib Atif for this, he’s been a big help. Our basic problem with it was that it’s not us but then as Sarmad usually remarks, what is us? The CD ranges from Staind-esque ballads to Megadeth-style thrash to shoegazer pop. Sheesh!

Your upcoming album is titled "The Morning After..." what is theme behind the album name and the songs in general?
Well... the songs are basically an insight into different states of mind, the lyrics being the rants of a borderline personality who swings between spitting venom at the state of world affairs to lamenting betrayal by a loved one and later taking it out on the furniture. Throw in a spanner marked ‘paranoia’ in the works and you have the "The morning after..." Uncertainty personified; Deep and fathomless.

Moby

When are you planning to release the album?
Considering the fact that Sarmad does a solo at night and thinks its crap in the morning, despite all of us bashing our heads on the wall trying to convince him otherwise; I’d say a while. Jokes aside though, probably another month because mixing is a pain the ass and we’re unfortunately very anal about stuff like this. In the meantime, we plan to release 2 more singles exclusively through Bandbaja, so if you like the stuff, keep watching these spaces. We also plan to give away a few CD’s of our album once its out to Bandbaja for its readership, so that should be a blast.

You have decided to release the album on your own without the aid of a record label. How will you manage it all?
Just like any other business would distribute its product. We’ve selected local retail chains (Illusions, Offbeat etc) after filtering them through our coverage and target audience criteria, so we can expand out of Islamabad when need be, and once the specifics of a partner incentive payout with all the percentages is worked out, it really is no big deal. You keep a tracking system through counter-signed invoice receipts since we’ll be the ones controlling the production of the CD’s. These guys are only too willing to get dough for a more efficient utilization of shelf-space and we get reach. Win-win situation. But yes, it will all take place on legal tender and we’re also planning to get our stuff copyrighted in the US Congress, which scary as it may seem, is actually a relatively straight-forward process through intermediary firms. More details next month....

The plus point about singing in English is that you can market yourself outside of Pakistan, is that something Corduroy is considering?
Yep. That’s our goal. As painfully explained before, Pakistan really isn’t our market. And much as my future brother-in-law would like me to believe, its not the most talented band that is likely to succeed; it’s the one that perseveres the most, and we’re all ready for the hard slog. Like Edison said, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. If the earlier had been the case, Blink-182 would have been forever shining shoes for 5c in Melrose.

The smart thing we did was that we initially exposed our stuff only to musicians abroad who could give us a better analysis on where we stood, and allowed us to use their comments to improve ourselves in a more linear manner. The opinions of the Toms, Dicks and Harry’s inhabiting most internet forums nowadays I can do without. The amount of musical talent on the net is mind-boggling. Just go to Ampcast, Soundclick or any IRC guitar channel for that matter, and try out some of the top guys there. It’s a humbling experience I swear. There are guys out there, totally unknown, who can run rings around Faraz and Mekaal at will!

And I don’t buy the argument that we can’t do it because no other Pakistani band has; there’s always got to be a first. No one thought a Pakistani pop band would make it big in India but Junoon did. So there! We’ve always been up against the odds anyway, so this little one does not dampen our enthusiasm.

Moby you’ve written for Instep, but we haven’t seen a new piece written in a while. Did you stop writing?
Music journalism in Pakistan is essentially a very ‘I save your ass, you save mine’ kind of entity. Playing it safe all the time is not my idea of self-expression.

I salute those who keep on trudging along those lines, all the power to them, but me myself, I’m very tongue-in-cheek and need a platform that encourages people to form their own opinions instead of relying on state-sponsored chicken-feed. Bandbaja is one that comes immediately to mind.

Is it true that everyone in Islamabad goes to sleep at 10pm?
Other than thieves, politicians and that blasted Walls-wala; yes.

Any videos in the pipeline to promote the album?
As soon as we feel we’ve exhausted the potential of further CD sales through gigging locally, yes. Right now, we don’t have the dough and it does not make much business sense. Releasing a video for the sake of releasing it is not very smart, and only shows how big a loaded dumbass you are. Hence the clogged airwaves of Indus Music. Nice to meet you Imik and Malkoo hee haw!

What’s in your CD player these days?
Audioslave and STP’s ‘Thank You’. ‘Sour Girl’ is my fave right now because it reminds me of my soul mate, Hina, which is a definite high! Guess that has to do with the gorgeous chorus, hmm...

What do you think about the music scene right now? Has rock n roll come to Pakistan yet?
I think what most other rational and sane people do, that it’s a good thing. Now if only they’d have a filtering criterion to eject Sehar and Jawad Bashir out.

Famous last words?
Welcome back NFP! We missed ya buggaboo!

Album
Your Song
Leeway
Aas
Goddamned
Dystemper
Blue Chip
Ground Zero
End
Wide Awake
You're Everywhere
Prologue