Once a rockstar, always a rockstar. The season finale for this year’s Pepsi Battle of the Bands (BOTB) featured performances by the show’s celebrity judges, and it set the stage for Fawad Khan to showcase his musical mettle.
Amidst zigzagging laser lights and intense electronica, Fawad came on stage and started off with a chant, slowly building up to a reverberating youth anthem. With ‘Uth Jaag’, the once EP front man-turned-actor reminded the world of his musical prowess. It may have lain dormant for some time but it was, ostensibly, still very much there.
And now that he has unleashed it on stage, was this an indication that Fawad may be venturing into new musical directions? “Yes, I may be,” he concedes when I pose the thought out loud to him. “This could be the direction that I would want to take should I pursue music in the future.”
Will he be delving more towards music in the future though? Fawad doesn’t confirm. The actor and singer has always been careful with his words, not fond of making big declarations and analytical to the core. And as we sit down to talk about his latest song, I prepare myself for plenty of in-depth observations and wise words, derived from his experiences as a star who continues to have a huge fan following in Pakistan, India and even round the world…
With a well-appreciated new youth anthem in the season finale of Pepsi Battle of the Bands behind him, the singer-turned-actor-turned-singer analyses his past successes and failures but remains cryptic about his future.
“I have always loved the era of electronic music. Depeche Mode remains one of my favorite bands,” Fawad continues. “Even in the EP days, I would toy with all these concepts but I didn’t have the tools back then to implement them. Last year, though, I began reorganizing my studio and I invested into a range of esoteric electronic equipment. And now, when I had to execute this song, I chose to bring together all these sounds, hoping to create music that was ambient, that resonated with the route that I would like to explore.”
It is a route that, based on the rave reviews on the internet, is being appreciated by fans. ‘Uth Jaag’ is driven by sheer, powerful energy and this can be attributed to the amalgamation of the diverse electronic music driving it forward. Credit, however, also goes to Fawad’s strong vocals and the lyrics. Longtime music aficionados are comparing the song to those from his EP days — the days when TV dramas and, later, Bollywood, were yet to lure Fawad into hero territory, and he was the lead singer of a hard rock band that belted out loud, rhythmic, head-banging music. Younger listeners are simply appreciating the unique alternative sound, so completely different from the commercially safe, soft filmi songs that local musicians often put forward.
Did Fawad deliberately want to create a song that was reminiscent of his work with EP? “I just think that people may feel that the song is similar to EP’s songs because roughly 45 seconds of it were composed nearly a decade ago. The hook-line ‘Uth Jaag Naujawan’ was already there. I just took it out of this buried pile of unused compositions and began working on it. Most musicians will tell you that when they write, there is a beauty to writing a song’s lyrics first, and then composing the music to it. Here, Xulfi [his former band mate from EP and producer on the song] and I were writing most of the lyrics later, which is trickier.
“It was while I was recording one of the BOTB episodes that I figured out the theme that I wanted to follow with the song. It was going to be a conversation between man and time. Xulfi and I just took it from there and built up the song. We wanted it to be intense; man tells time that you have ruined me [Mujhe torr kar ghutnon pe giraya] and then time talks back, that I also taught you how to get up after falling [Tujhe gir kar uthna bhi sikhaya].
“There’s also a lot of chanting in the song. I think crowd chants can really be powerful, and had there been time I would have involved crowds of children chanting the chorus.”
Did he also come up with the concept of the laser lights that shot through the stage, adding to the song’s techno, edgy impact? “It was something that I wanted to do, yes. Naturally, I just wanted to make the song as dramatic as possible. The final song is very much a collaborative effort with the laser lights programmed by Hamza Awan and Sultan Raja.”
“A lot of people may not have liked ‘Khel Deewanon Ka’ but even that was part of a learning curve for me.”
His words ring true particularly when one looks at his acting career. Fawad’s acting trysts have been few and far between simply because he is reportedly very picky about the scripts he signs on to. It is common knowledge that a large number of recent dramas and films that proceeded to become huge hits — and miserable flops — were initially offered to Fawad. They trickled down to other actors later.
Why, though, does he not refer to Maula Jatt — as well as to his other projects — via his social media platforms? Fawad is extremely reticent on social media, usually sticking to the principle of letting his work ‘speak for itself’. “I don’t feel that it is really necessary, although sometimes I do put up links. I’m — fortunately or unfortunately — not very fond of the internet. I would revert back to a flip-phone if I could,” he quips.
BOTB has also kept Fawad Khan in the spotlight, while he ponders over the right project to do and the directions in which he wants to steer his career. It has kept his fans sated while they wait for him to take over cinematic screens again.
But one song on the BOTB stage — fabulous as it may be — is not enough. Fawad needs to do so much more. One would want to see him do so much more.
