Strings are Back

No it's not called Dhoop. The next Strings album is tantalizingly called Koi Aanay Wala Hai. It's an apt name for the most anticipated album of the year.

Strings, as one music aficionado put it recently now fall into the category of "classic". This Strings fan is well into his 50s. With their melody, lyrics by Anwar Maqsood and a signature style that they have never veered from, Strings have become a listening habit in Pakistan. And they've penetrated so deep into our consciousness that they're not going anywhere.

If Ali Azmat is about radical experimentation and newcomer Atif is all about hype, Strings are all about consistency and a mellow attitude that they have made uniquely their own. They are not about 'Garaj Baras' and are definitely not scratching their heads and wondering 'Hum Kis Gali Jaa Rahe Hain'? Faisal Kapadia and Bilal Maqsood are self assured, co-pilots of the enterprise that is the Strings and they're cruising along hitting all the right notes and that too all over the sub-continent!


Faisal Kapadia and Bilal Maqsood have long been the most chilled out guys in the music industry. They occupy their own world. Both are happily married to the women they fell in love with years ago and have children; Bilal, three and Faisal, two. And they have never been into making statements. They don't take up political causes. They will do a 'Beirut' but they won't tom-tom the fact all over the place. They do what they do and they do it well, but they do it very quietly, so at the end of it, all you hear is the music.

Faisal and Bilal are voyeurs. They observe the milieu and resolutely figure out a way of doing their thing their way. Sitting with them in Bilal's gorgeous home within the Maqsood family compound in Defence Karachi, the vibe is easy to pick up on. There is a sense of calm to both of them. They share an easy energy, as mellow as the music they make. They are both excited about their new album, which is being mastered at Yashraj Studios in India, in the heart of Bollywood itself and yet the sound is distinctly Strings.

'Koi Aanay Wala Hai', the song starts off from where the excellent 'Aakhri Alvida' left off. This album sees a reinvention of the Strings. There are breaks between rhythm and melodic bridges that reach to a crescendo and then goes around for another spin. It's a definite departure from Duur and Dhaani. The music is more rocking, the sound is definitely edgier, but it doesn't sound like a whole new band. Faisal and Bilal know the Strings signature well and they stick to it.

"I look at us as a brand like Nike," says Bilal. "Strings are a brand and there is a philosophy behind it. We know what we have to do."

Like what?
Faisal easily takes over from Bilal and launches into the story of the shooting of the 'Aakhri Alvida' video. "We were shooting on the sets of the film and you remember the scene with guns on display?" he asks unassumingly. Who would forget the 'Aakhri Alvida' video? It was a breakthrough lesson in how Pakistani musicians can use Bollywood for their own advantage.

"Well originally Sanjay Gupta, the director, wanted us to play with the guns, load them and stuff," continues Faisal in that husky baritone. "I was very excited by the idea, but Bilal stopped me saying, 'Do we really want to send out the message to our fans that the Strings are into guns?' I thought about it and decided he was right. Guns are not what Strings are about at all."

Bilal smiles. There is an easy awareness between them. And music producer Rohail Hyatt who has known them for ages says that they are very easy. Part of their charm he attributes to the "nice boys next door syndrome, which is how they are." Yet he sees them as two separate entities. "They are very different people," he tells Instep. "Which is why when you ask me about them as a unit, I can't answer because I look at them as two very different individuals." According to Rohail, Bilal is the creative mind, while Faisal has the capacity to be very real and the skill to deliver. And the success of the Strings, Rohail attributes to their difference. "They compliment each other very well."

He echoes how Faisal and Bilal describe their relationship. "When one is slipping, the other brings him back on track."

Faisal and Bilal are their own professional comfort zone. And it doesn't come easy. Yet here are two guys who dreamt a dream together and formed Strings way back in the day and came out with the albums Strings in 1990 and Strings 2 in 1992. 'Sar Kiye Ye Pahar' from their second album became to Strings then what 'Aadat' was for Jal and Atif Aslam at the turn of this century. However, Pakistan wasn't then what it is now and being a musician seemed to be a fool's dream. Faisal and Bilal were respectively in love with the women who would be their wives and they finished their education and worked, got married, had children and became 'normal' people. But the call of music was too strong and they came back with Duur and the rest, as they say, is history.

New media is capable of catapulting stars to the stratosphere. The plethora of music channels in Pakistan, the launch of new newspapers and magazines and the emergence of awards shows have ensured that the music industry is more prolific than ever before and the Strings love it.

"We loved it when Instep Today was launched," says Faisal recounting how excited they were that entertainment news was being covered daily in Pakistan. "That is the way it is in India."

India is a barometer for both of them. It is the land the Strings went to and found fame tenfold the size in Pakistan. They are regulars on the Indian concert circuit and having made inroads into Bollywood, they regularly perform with Bollywood stars. And we at Instep found it rather infuriating when they did a string of concerts with Saif Ali Khan and the Indian band Parikrama and didn't keep us updated at all. Readers would have been so interested in that.

"Look," smiles Faisal. "When we first went to India and performed with Bollywood stars for the first time, we told you about it. It was exciting for us, but now we keep on going there and we keep on performing with them. We can't call up newspapers and say, now we're performing with Saif, and next week Akshay Kumar will be singing with us or that John Abraham is coming in our video. It's become regular now."
Both Faisal and Bilal strongly believe that too much hype can kill and artists. "When you keep reading about someone everyday, see them in interviews on every channel and see there videos all over the place, it kills it. You don't like it when anyone is shoved down your throat," they both agree.

There it is again, the subtlety that has become a trademark of the Strings. It's in their music, it's in the way they talk and it's in the way the way they view the scene and how they choose to play their game. From videos to concerts to music and interviews, it's done with a dignity and grace that's hard to find in the rat race that the burgeoning music scene in Pakistan has become.

And nowhere does this remarkable trait of theirs shine through as clearly as when they give interviews to Indian papers. The quotes attributed to the Strings are fantastic like one they gave to The Hindu in October 2007. "While listening to film music, you visualise the particular actor in the song. In independent albums though, the listener pictures himself in the situation. The listener relates to the singer even more," they were quoted as saying. Or the one that they gave to Rediff when they first went to India where they advised any band who couldn't make it big in India to come to Pakistan which has more of a band culture. They tell it like it is and take a stand for what they believe in. They have ta