From band to disband
This is something every one of us can relate to. Through out our educational career, in school, colleges and even in universities, we often come across people dreaming of becoming singers, forming bands, and fantasizing themselves to be rock stars on stage. And many a times they pick up guitars and devote their whole lives in pursuit of their dreams. In fact quite a few make it to the top. Others live on their dreams. But band formation is not really a rocket science.
A bunch of young lads with similar music aspirations getting together and jamming probably at anyone’s basement. But like in every case, hardwork and luck matters a lot. After having spent some time with “underground” label they finally come off the ground. From the track record, this is the most crucial stage of band sustenance. Because at times this sudden abrupt rise above the ground makes it too difficult for the band members to handle as a unit and sooner or later they break up.
Over the period of time, as the pop culture evolved in Pakistan, in late 80’s, we have seen some giant music bands in the likes of Vital Signs, Junoon, Awaaz, Strings, Fuzon, Noori, Jal, Ep and the list goes on. They have literally gone on to become world wide phenomenons. But sadly they all met the same fate; In the recent past, our bands are breaking away like any thing. It has led us to believe that perhaps “bands are made to be broken”
The first and foremost reason that leads up to the band getting disbanded is the abrupt popularity which the band gets. Surely they deserve it. But it just totally changes their orientations and the way they see the things. Once the band shoots off, its members develop their own interest and aims. Their simplistic approach diminishes and more factors come into play. Personal egos become higher than the band and certainly the riffs become visible.
The non professional attitude also proves to be a big reason as every band member starts to take the band as his own personal property which eventually results in infightings. When a band is getting on success, every member wants to enter his own friends or family into the band mainly to manage up things. But actually they just want to take the control of the unit. In past, we have seen some ugly examples of people fighting for appointing their own brothers as the band managers eventually falling apart.
Another technical aspect of band dynamics is that mostly the bands that make it to the higher level, are the brainchild of guitarist or some other musician behind the scene composing the music or writing lyrics for the band, certainly not the vocalist. But as they get fame and move their way up on to the media, the vocalist is always treated as the front man. Most of the time this doesn’t go well with the band harmony and the other band members start feeling de-graded. The vocalist starts to think that it’s merely because of his sheer vocals that the band is making it big. But in true sense that is not the real case. It’s the whole unit and its essence which is behind the success but sadly not appreciated.
In recent times, law and order situation in our country is also not that good. This has resulted in a heavy shortfall of live concerts. These days bands avoid doing concerts for the obvious security reasons. Also it’s been quite a long time since any of the major band came up with a full length album. This entire current situation has made music industry look more un-sustainable. At the end of the day, the musicians also have to earn their bread and butter through their profession. And when it becomes difficult, they look out for other opportunities. The recent trend is the musician and singers going for the acting gamble which has really become a success story in recent past. This too eventually ends up with the band getting disband as we have seen in the recent breakup of EP and even Call getting almost dysfunctional.
The “Indian factor” has also played its role in planting intrigues among the band members. After a huge single is delivered by a band, the producers from across the border single handedly pick the singer of the band for the playback. But sadly the remaining whole unit is totally ignored by them. As we have seen with Fuzon whose split occurred just after Shafqat Amanat Ali went alone and sang Mitwa, despite knowing the fact that the success which has come to him was the result of the whole band.
What the band members fail to understand is that their success is only due to their working up as a unit. It’s pretty common to observe that after the break up, neither the singer nor the remaining band, even after hiring a new vocalist, can match their earlier success. Of course exceptions can be there. But they simples lose their trade mark flavor of music. Whatever the reasons might be, but at the end of the day it’s the music that suffers. And the music listeners who are deprived of some quality music.
