The second coming of Mirage

Band front man Saad Hayat talks about mash-up video, upcoming studio albums

LAHORE:

Unlike its namesake, Mirage the band has stood the test of time for 13 years now. Rehan Nazim, Hasan Mahmud, and Saad Hayat formed the band in 2003 with Bradley D’Souza joining their ranks in 2013. Now in 2016, the band has just released what they claim is “Pakistan’s first mash-up video”.

In their typical style they’ve mixed 3 popular songs, Maroon 5’s Moves like Jagger, Get Lucky by Daft Punk and Bollywood track Bang Bang. According to a press release, the band members stumbled upon the idea of covering something upbeat, different and fun and this is how the mash-up came about.





The quartet has been playing covers at gigs in Karachi and is known for their live acts. When asked which of their covers did best, Hayat shares, “We did one of Matlabi Dil with a Latin beat. It always does well [at concerts] because the people can’t tell what’s coming up. Another crowd-pleaser is our rock version of A R Rehman’s Humma Humma. People also love hearing Junoon or U2, depending on the crowd.” Saad thinks Mirage’s covers did well because “between 2003 and 2008 the underground scene in Karachi had people only playing hardcore rock music”. He adds, “Whereas we would play Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and U2 which others avoid because their music is more technical. That’s probably what got us the attention.”

Mirage’s first two singles, Arzoo and Kyun Mujhse, came after five years of playing cover songs. Zara Suniye Tou was released in 2013. That was when Hayat, the band’s lyricist and composer, went on a four-year sabbatical to the London School of Audio Engineering to study audio production. When he came back in 2013, the band’s sound changed completely, thanks to his newly-acquired skill set. “I would go right into the sound I imagined, whether I wanted to mix, create or change.”  This paved the way for Hayat to open his own recording studio in 2013, called Chota Setup, Bara Sound.



Now that they had their own studio at their disposal, creating music became much easier. “It’s a big deal for people to make music full-time for a living. No matter how much I earn, I still get to hear the same question, ‘What else do you do (besides making music)?’.”

Hayat says “luckily the band’s music isn’t our bread and butter” because in Pakistan one cannot make money solely from studio albums or live gigs.



For 2016, Mirage has the video of Pyar Hua lined up and two more singles Pagli and Bhoolay that are part of their upcoming album.

At a time when musicians have resorted to releasing singles alone, Mirage is still willing to take the plunge. “We’re doing an album because the trend is no more. It’s a statement that we’ve been around for 13 years and are here to stay.” More so, a third album is also in the works. Hayat says, “We are becoming more of a funk rock band like Maroon 5.”

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2016.

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