Aik Tha Badshah

AN: “Noori’s new video Aik Tha Badshah is directed by Mandana Zaidi. We had been working on it for quite a sometime. Actually, the video was supposed to be for another song but when we put it together, we realised that the audio and video didn’t match. I decided to write a brand new song by looking at the visuals. It was a totally opposite experience and I must say a very interesting one.”

AH: “In Aik Tha Badshah, the band explores the dark themes of glory, power, debauchery, downfall and rise again — an oft recurring theme as seen through times and tales. It’s a journey of a king, his wisdom taken over by ignorance, his justice shadowed by blindness, his courage lost at the hands of fear and his restraint killed by excess.

“His journey is explored through the virtues represented by different elements: air, earth, fire and water. In this historic reference, the king sees his impending defeat and downfall when another king rises and brings back the virtues, thus making his claim to the throne, only to break the pattern and renounce the throne and walk away — a man free from the shackles of any power. A man who can be anyone with the power to speak for what is just.

Ali Noor and Ali Hamza of Noori on the band’s new video, performing live in Karachi, future tours and the new album Begum Gul Baqauli Sarfarosh

“Obviously, this is a very idealistic and unreal sort of a thing. It can only happen in music video or fairy tales … but the idea is to make people think what if we were to break this vicious cycle of power blindness. We cast a whole bunch of models from Lahore who were amazing. As far as direction is concerned, I think Mandana did a great job.”

The launch via Unplugged

AN: “We were just about to release the Aik Tha Badshah music video in Lahore and at Fahad Humayun’s place and I got thinking what if we got a chance to perform and released the music video in Karachi. Just then, Hasan Rizvi called and invited us to play on his Unplugged series and to release something new. I said bingo! That’s just what we’ve been looking for.

“It was a brilliant experience because we were all geared up to sing new songs from the upcoming album. I felt really relieved that at least these new songs we were playing still connected with people. BodyBeat does a lot of choreography and in future Noori can explore interesting collaborations where we can do a visual or mind-based representation of songs because our new songs are very story-driven or theme-oriented.”

AH: “Brilliant. These guys have done a really good job.”

Value addition

AN: “In the past, music videos had been sort of a marketing tool for the audio — so that people could watch and enjoy the song — but this was a very different experience (of the video coming before the song). This is the only video we have made which is not performance-based.

“Today, there are no music video channels so it’s not about marketing music any more. Music videos have to mean something more than just marketing tools. They are important but they are expensive and there is no tangible way of getting visibility because the people have a choice to either watch it or not. You can make a million dollar video but can’t force anybody to watch it.”

Tours in the pipeline

AN: “My immediate future plans are to release our new music album called Begum Gul Baqauli Sarfarosh. We also hope to do a bunch of concerts. One very important aspect of this album is that we want to engage our fans in a much more organised and meaningful manner. One of the best ways to do that is to do a lot more shows. We are trying to explore the possibility of exclusive concerts as opposed to corporate and other gigs. There are going to be a lot more music videos and a lot of new ideas because this album is probably the most important album of our careers.”

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, July 19th, 2015

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