This is where the magic happens, Zohaib's dorm-room desk with his DIY studio
Zohaib Bilal is my good friend and an aspiring musician. Actually “aspiring” would be a wrong adjective, because considering his Spotify account and him making connections with Elena Tonra from Daughter, he is pretty much already a musician (follow him on Spotify!). Although he confesses that he has come to love the attention when he is on stage, he is one of the humblest people I’ve met in Clark. An exemplary Clarkie, he is heavily engaged in challenging and changing Clark’s music scene and I wish him all the best for that pursuit. Read on to find out more about his musical psyche.
Sonam Dechen Gurung: Welcome to my series, it’s called Documenting Love.
[Zohaib Bilal laughs]
SDG: Don’t laugh! First, introduce yourself for us.
ZB: Hi, I’m Zohaib from Rawalpindi, Pakistan. I’m a Political Science/History double major. I play music and umm…argue with Rashif. That’s my life, what else?
SDG: Which class are you in right now?
ZB: Which classes?
SDG: No, no, no. Which year?
ZB: Sophomore. Class of 2019.
SDG: Since this interview series is about, you know, passion and love. What is your hobby/passion/love or whatever you want to call it?
ZB: [exhales] Wow. Music, definitely. It’s always been two things, either music or politics. And history with that, but yeah... Mostly it’s music. I feel like whenever I’m doing something, I always go back to music. No matter what I’m doing. Even when I’m angry with music, I go back to music.
SDG: Why would you be angry with music?
ZB: I was angry the day before yesterday. Technically right now, I am on hiatus from music. Really. I’m not performing, I’m not uploading any stuff for a while.
SDG: Why?
ZB: Cause Rashif pissed me off. Rashif convinced me - off the record! I don’t actually care, it’s fine - Rashif convinced me, and bought evidence, very solid evidence, that I only play music to impress girls.
[Both laugh]
ZB: That’s the number one pet peeve I have about musicians. Him and his friend told me that I’m this artsy, South Asian guy who seduces girls with music.
SDG: Ok, I’m gonna name this series “Zohaib the Pied Piper.”
ZB: Sure, that’d be funny.
SDG: How did your interest in music start? How did you get into it? If you can remember.
ZB: So, there are a lot of different answers. Earliest music memories are my father and my cousin. They used to play Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, and Bryan Adams. I used to hear a lot of that around the house and I fell in love with Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, especially. Bruce Springsteen is still one of my favorite musicians of all time. And yea, from thereon I was literally in one of the biggest malls in my city and I saw a guitar store. For some reason I never thought you could buy a guitar, I don’t know. It never crossed my mind that guitars were something you could buy. I was kid, I didn’t even realize, and then my parents bought me one and that’s when it started.
SDG: That’s nice. So, what do you play?
ZB: The guitar, piano, ukulele, not really but yea, bass, that’s really about it. The thing is play by ear so I can’t read or write music really. I understand theory basically, but usually if you give me an instrument I’ll learn how to play by listening to it. That’s how I learned to play guitar.
SDG: So you learned to play it by yourself?
ZB: I had a teacher, but he didn’t really teach me. Most of the stuff I know, I learnt it by ear.
SDG: What does it mean to you? To play music, and sing and everything?
ZB: What does it mean to me? I don’t know. That’s a difficult question. I just like to do it. I mean that’s the thing, music is possibly the only thing that I relate to. I get too obsessed with songs. Really, I probably put more thoughts into the lyrics than the people who wrote them themselves cause I really overanalyze stuff. And I tend deal with every issue in life through music which is very unhealthy, but I do it anyways. I don’t know it’s a relatability more, as clichéd as it sounds.
SDG: Why do you think it’s unhealthy?
ZB: It’s unhealthy because... ok, Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin is one of the best bands of all times. All of their songs are about sex. But if you listen to their songs and you interpret them in a different way, it can be about so many other, different things. But they admit themselves that all their songs are about sex. The unhealthy part about this is that you’re getting more out of these songs than you should be and you’re taking them as truth almost like a religion. You’re taking this text as…permanence, when you don’t actually think it through. That, I think. is unhealthy. My favorite musicians, Elliott Smith, Bon Iver, you hear all of them and they have really sad lyrics. But they themselves don’t advocate what their lyrics say so yea.
SDG: So what you’re saying is their songs…I don’t get it. Can you elaborate?
ZB: The artist has one intention, sometimes they are just writing hypothetically, right? But someone who is listening to it might relate to it in such a way that they think that that’s the only solution to a problem. You know what I mean? And uh…cause like these people are like gods to us, they end up being gods to us cause they write one word or sentence that you can relate to so much that you think that they’re the only people who understand what you are going through. Whether it’s a serious situation or something funny, you know. But um, I do that a lot. I tend to take their lyrics and make it like my life model. I do that with all my favorite authors too and I don’t think that’s very healthy because most of the times all those authors, their lives didn’t really end well or they didn’t have really good lives so yea…
SDG: You do perform around in college, right? You do record music and perform around?
ZB: Yea, I do my own original music. For the longest time I was playing rhythm guitar in metal bands in Pakistan. I used to be a metal-head, still am a little bit. But I wasn’t very good so yea, and I never had confidence in my own voice or my writing ability and one day I just started paying randomly and my friends were like, “Hey you’re good. You should do it.” And I was, “Ok, I enjoy this.” Everyday it’s always been a battle between, “This is a shit thing,” but someone tells you it’s a good thing, so you upload it. I upload my own music, and whenever I get a chance to go to an open mic or get invited to play, I always do that.
SDG: How are your parents, when it comes to music? Are they supportive?
ZB: Wow, wow, my parents I think they love and they hate it. They always say they love my voice and they love all of that and that I do it but I think they would much rather want that I didn’t do it. They financially support me, they bought me my first guitar and ever since have bought me every single thing I’ve needed for my music. But at the same time they umm… would much rather I be like a computer science major who concentrates just on work and be successful. Cause music takes a chunk of my time. They are generally supportive.
SDG: How does being involved in music help you through college? Does it or does it not?
ZB: I mean, I pretty much say this all the time. Me at college is basically an excuse for me to work on my music. I love what I study, I really love political science/history. But if I didn’t have more privilege in my life, then I’d definitely not be in college. I’d definitely be trying to make it in the music scene. But um, that’s not realistic so that’s why I’m at a college. College is more a distraction from my music scene when it’s the other way around really. It also helps though, cause college is like a social experiment, experience kind of thing. It’s definitely changed my sound and my writing a lot every day. Every other week I write something completely different and it’s usually down to how my week goes in the college. If I were just at my home, writing this stuff would be very different, and I sometimes feel not even as good.
Zohaib thinking hard, maybe on his next song?
SDG: How “different?” More immature?
ZB: Oh definitely. When I was writing at home, it was a much quieter, slower, very acoustic, not even a hint of electric guitar. Now my stuff is getting a little more upbeat but also a little bit more experimental cause you’re here with other musicians and you learn from that. Also, you meet people with different taste in music, and then that also helps. When I write at home, I’m alone so it’s very minimalistic. When I’m here, everyone is always walking in and out of my room, or in my suite. When I’m writing, they’re always walking around so that kinda creates into how I write my songs. Plus, general life at college is weird.
SDG: And um, what do you think about Clark? In terms of music scene, or just in general.
ZB: Clark has a crappy music scene. There’s no question about it. There’s one band really, Three Piece Meal, and there are couple of other bands that are good. If I could do it all over, and once again if I didn’t have to worry about money and stuff like that, then I would go somewhere else for sure with a more established music scene. But um, we are trying to change that. Me and the Music Society (CUMS), and Asir, Ben, Shawn, I’m going to name all of them, Zan, Max and Sarp. I hope I didn’t leave out anybody, and Justin. If I were applying to college and I would look at Clark and be, “Hey, my parents aren’t letting me pursue music, so I want to go to a college where I can do both.” You know what I mean? Where I can be in a competitive scene and also get a good education. So that’s what we are trying to turn Clark into. And I told you, Worcester is going to be like New York City in ten years. I guarantee, New York in the 70’s is what Worcester is going to be in a while.
SDG: [laughs] I hope that works out but I’m not going to say anything about that. Ummm, ok next question. Which genres or music period do you like the most?
ZB: One though? First thing that comes to my mind, Bruce Springsteen is number one influence. I listen to a lot of Bon Jovi too but he didn’t really play into my writing. He is just someone I like to listen to more, umm... I love indie music, especially indie folk music, very big fan of that stuff. Minimalistic stuff, like acoustic and really dry music like Bon Iver, one of my favorite musicians, Elliott Smith. I love Woody Guthrie, he is an old folk musician in the 50s in New York City, he’s the guy who inspired Bob Dylan. I love the Mumford and Sons, I know people don’t like them. Marcus Mumford is an amazing songwriter. The Antlers is one of my favorite bands of all time, they wrote my favorite album called Hospice. Umm, what else? Something I’m missing out for sure. Oh Daughter. I love Daughter. Like that sound is what I really want to go for. Much more how my voice can adjust to the sound. I like bands like Vampire Weekend, upbeat bands, Arctic Monkeys, but my voice doesn’t suit that. So it kinda depends. Right now I’m listening to this band called Flatsound. Ok, I could go on for hours about music taste but I’m going to stop now.
SDG: What about music periods?
ZB: There are a few. Austin, Texas in the 90s. Um, New York in the 70s and the punk scene because I’m a very big punk fan. And uh, also New York in the 50s cause they had like this folk scene coming up like Joan Baez, Bob Dylan. And uh, I’m gonna pick one more. Chicago when Blues was getting up there and uh Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy. Oh New Orleans’ Jazz scene when Preservation Hall was a thing, so yea.
SDG: So umm, let me get this straight. You play instruments, you sing, and you write your songs. If you pick one, which would you pick?
ZB: I definitely wouldn’t want to just sing. I think that’s really boring, cause I’d rather just do karaoke.
SDG: [laughs] But come on, what about singers? Just singers.
ZB: I don’t wanna be like Beyonce, you know what I mean.
SDG: No, no. Not just Beyonce.
ZB: Ok, name a singer who doesn’t write their own music.
SDG: Julian Casablancas doesn’t really play an instrument.
ZB: He writes the lyrics though. He writes all the lyrics.
SDG: That’s true, that’s true.
ZB: See all the singers, I have a massive respect for them. But the person who really wrote them (the songs), actually experience what they are writing. Or at least thought about what they are writing so I respect that much more. Honestly, I used to hate being on stage, now I kinda really like it, I really enjoy it. Especially when people start singing along.
SDG: You enjoy the attention?
[both laugh]
ZB: That’s what Rashif said. Honestly, I’ll be selfish. The attention is really nice, when people are singing the same lyrics as you, it feels nice. But I think writing. That’s the fun part.
SDG: What have you been writing about? If I can ask.
ZB: No, sure. It’s hard to narrow it down. These days a lot of concept stuff, like concept albums. I basically just wanna write like Bon Iver, the Antlers and all of those people. They write concept albums, also Neutral Milk Hotel, they also write great concept albums. I do take influences from my life, this last song War, that I just put on Spotify, it’s not very good but it’s there, it’s a song about political situation about my country. Even though I don’t really write political songs, that song just flew out because I was home and I wrote the song. It’s kind of a division of both. Catherine is a song about real-life experience that I didn’t have but my friend, her sister committed suicide, and I don’t even know her that well but it was just a concept that I used to write a song. It’s mostly that I take hypothetical or real life scenarios. Honestly these days it’s how much I can break someone’s heart. Really, I just wanna write the saddest songs that I can ever write. One of the most upbeat songs with the saddest lyrics.
SDG: Do you want to take whatever you achieve musically back to Pakistan?
ZB: Wow, Pakistan. That’s the thing, I don’t think Pakistan enjoys my kind of music. There is this indie scene in Karachi that’s really big, I mean not really big, but it’s really good. If I could pick anyone to produce my album, it would probably be this guy called Ali Sohail from Karachi. I’m picking him over James Ford because he is basically making music out of his dorm room or apartment or house, with the equipment he bought which is ten times more expensive because of the taxes. He’s not making any money, he’s just making cause he really loves to do it. And that really shows in the music, umm unfortunately Pakistan isn’t ready for my type of music. I went back this summer and I did a few open mics and yes, I got a good reception but I could tell people weren’t like you know, they didn’t understand it. And it’s fine, I will probably go back and play, it’s not gonna make me stop. But Pakistan isn’t interested in my type of music.
SDG: Do you want to write music in Urdu?
ZB: I’m really bad in Urdu, my entire family makes fun of my Urdu. I would like to but may be if I improve my Urdu. I do wanna write an album that’s western and eastern combined. I really want to do that but it’s harder to find that link between the instruments. Pakistan’s got a really great music scene it’s just that…a big chunk of my facebook fans, are from Pakistan. But I know they are like a minority (in terms of music), there are very few people, but very committed.
SDG: Which eastern instruments do you like?
ZB: Oh, I love the sitar. I love the sitar, such a beautiful instrument that’s been misinterpreted. There’s this song called Saari Ratt, they play this sitar solo and behind it they’re playing bass solo at the same time. They are the two instruments that I would never imagine combined for a solo, but it works so well, it’s probably one of the best solos I’ve heard in a while. I really like the tabla too.
SDG: I love tabla. I want to learn it.
ZB: My problem is I don’t have rhythm. So I’m not very good at percussion instruments. I’m trying to learn how to play the drums though.
SDG: So what do you think it takes to be a successful, and not in terms of money, be a successful musician?
ZB: [thinks] Ok, that’s an interesting question. I do think money and Facebook likes are measures of success because people even my favorite musicians, the Beatles, Hendrix, Led Zepellin, all of them have massive fans, right? They weren’t exactly underground bands. So I do think public opinion has a lot to do with it. But at the same time another musician Townes van Zandt, a country, blues musician, from Texas, he pretty much died broke. He didn’t have much money at all. But he wrote arguably, in my opinion, the best songs. He wrote way ahead of his times. What’s the best measure? I don’t know, how well the songs you can write. You can be a good singer, you can play the guitar really well but if you can’t bring out the same emotion through the song then it’s not worth it right? Yea, it’s about how well you can write a song and how well you can touch people.
SDG: To end this interview I have a rapid fire, but before that do you want to say anything?
ZB: Go listen to Hospice by the Antlers and come say hi to me. Come to Music Society meetings and listen to my music on Spotify and follow me cause I can’t control my account until I have followers.
SDG: Ok. Rapid fire. Favorite band.
ZB: The Antlers.
SDG: Favorite artist.
ZB: Elliott Smith, oh wait Bon Iver.
SDG: Favorite Album?
ZB: Hospice by The Antlers
SDG: Favorite guitarist?
ZB: Jimi Hendrix or Buddy Guy
SDG: Favorite artist from Pakistan?
ZB: Ali Sohail
SDG: Favorite artist in Clark?
ZB: Asir Arif!
SDG: Thank you!
ZB: Thank you Sonam, I don’t even know what I said.
