‘If you can’t play, for me you don’t exist’: Asad Ahmed

Popular guitarist feels that the absence of a business model for music sales is frustrating.

KARACHI:

After nearly two and a half decades of his musical career, Asad Ahmed is still around — a claim not many can make. While many of his peers have either drifted into obscurity or ran out of flame, this self-proclaimed “old school” guitarist is showing no signs of winding down. He’s just wrapped up his parts for Coke Studio season six and is flying off to US to be part of Ali Zafar’s live line-up when The Express Tribune catches up with him at a music store in Karachi, which he often visits.

Soon after he’s polished his plate of biryani for lunch, Ahmed lights a cigarette and explains why he is part of the “original brat pack”. And that is not the only dated reference in this short but animated conversation with the man, who has played with the biggest names of pop music post-Ziaul Haq. He also shares why he’s lucky to have grown up without the Internet.



However, like others who discovered a newfound freedom of expression from the oppressive military regime, Ahmed is a mass of contradictions. He speaks about breaking musical barriers and then tells you what he really prefers is a “Les Paul going through a Marshall tube-head with not too much in between.” He is open to new ideas — as a musician of his varied portfolio must be — and yet draws out a long list of “instant-fix-it-crappy-[insert name of instrument]”.

“Music is all about evolution, moving forward and breaking certain limitations that were set and which have now expanded — the boundaries are far larger than they were before,” he says about the use of technology in recording and performing music. “But using effects as a crutch to sound better is unacceptable. If you can’t play, for me you don’t exist.”

Sporting a Lynyrd Skynyrd tee, Ahmed insists the artistes he’s gravitated towards most in Coke Studio are qawwals, Abida Parveen, Abu Muhammad and Farid Ayaz, and Rizwan Muazzam. It is perhaps this acceptance to different kinds of music that has allowed Ahmed to stick to his own roots of a rock guitar player without losing the plot. Even when playing with so many types of folk and contemporary artistes, Ahmed is distinctly himself.

Faith helps too. Because Ahmed has been working with producer Rohail Hyatt since his Vital Signs days, he feels they can bounce ideas off each other. Not everything he plays in the studio ends up on record, but that doesn’t bother him. “You’re safe in his [Rohail’s] hands. He pretty much delivers every time. If I was the producer of the show, I wouldn’t be able to do half the stuff he does,” he says, when asked if not being in complete control is frustrating.

But what does frustrate him is the state of, or rather lack of, the record industry in Pakistan. Ahmed says he has about two albums worth of solo material ready to be released and is also working on another record of rock n roll numbers in English, which he claims will have some “pretty big names” from the US. However, he refuses to give it up for free in the absence of any business model for music sales. “I’m going to fight for this till the day I die. I don’t want to give my music to people who will take it for granted; so that they can download it, listen to it a couple of times and forget about it. I don’t want to waste all that creativity. If I take a stance and 20 other people don’t, it’s their loss.”

Not releasing does not, fortunately, mean not playing. Ahmed says he still plays the guitar pretty much every day and it has never felt like just a tool to make a living. “That’s like winning a lottery and complaining about the taxes. Some people are doctors, engineers; this is who I am. I’m fortunate enough to do what I like to and get paid for it. It’s really gratifying. The day it becomes a chore, I’ll quit.”

We asked Ahmed the five questions that really matter. Here’s how he fared: 

1)             When was the time you changed the strings on your guitars yourself?

I think about eight years ago. Maybe more, 12 years ago, 10… 

2)             Metal or punk?

Metal. 

3)             Bieber or One Direction?

Oh my God! None! 

4)             What would you play to impress someone with your guitar?

I’d probably play a simple blues dig. I think that would pretty much sum up what I’m all about. 

5)             What are you listening to these days?

A whole bunch of stuff! Daft Punk, Jamiroquai, Winery Dogs are the three major bands I’m into right now.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2013.

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