Fuzon makes a patriotic comeback

Pakistani rock band Fuzon believes patriotic songs are needed in the current crises.

KARACHI:

Not bringing videos for the last three years, rock band Fuzon has now made a comeback into the mainstream music scene with “Junoon” — a patriotic song released around the time when people have all the reasons to be unpatriotic amidst social and political unrest.

“Our new video is for those unnoticed Pakistanis who are really honest, hardworking and optimistic about the future of this country and for all the hopeful people all around the globe” Shallum Xavier, the guitarist of Fuzon, told The Express Tribune.

In the past few years, the trend of releasing patriotic songs has gone down and the musicians have been focusing more on satirical lyrics and videos. “Maybe the artist is not patriotic anymore, but my point is that things were never any better and things like social unrest and strikes were a permanent feature of our childhoods. To make yet another song on the worsening situation would be an overdose for the audience, so why not do a hopeful melody?” said Xavier.

However, it’s a big question whether patriotic songs and videos would be as effective as they used to be in the times of state-run television channel, because now a Pakistani viewer has a lot more options of home entertainment. “If the audience receives such a song properly, then it is still a very effective medium of educating the people,” said the artist.

On a sarcastic note, Xavier added: “In times when the news channels are doing ‘more’ than a good job of covering brutal and needless intricate details, I think a song not talking about explosions and killings and just focusing on the passion to work hard can be really relieving.”

Though the band has not made many television appea-rances in recent years, it has been touring around the world for onstage performances.

“We have been out of scene since the release of ‘Soona Soona’ in 2008. We have been performing gigs worldwide at places including India, Bangladesh and Dubai. Our performance at the Pakistani embassy in Rome was a great experience,” Xavier told The Express Tribune.

Though the band is currently working on its third album, the members have plans to release another album — featuring renditions of regional tracks — prior to their third release.

“We are repackaging one of the most epic albums in the Fuzon style and that will include great songs by legends like Mehdi Hassan Khan, Ghulam Ali and Tufail Niazi, to name a few, and this album might come out by the end of this year,” said Xavier.

In the video of “Junoon”, one can see former band Aaroh’s two musicians performing with Fuzon’s trio. Khalid Khan, the bass player, and Jason Anthony, the drummer, joined Fuzon after Aaroh disbanded. “They are permanent members of Fuzon now. We don’t function without Jason and Khalid. Whether it’s a personal or group project, both of them are part of the band’s line-up. However, song-writing is done by the three original band-members only,” said Xavier.

With the first video of “Junoon” already released, the band plans to bring a second detailed version of the same song very soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2011.