Understanding the essence of travelling
“No.” – “You’re not ready to accept different society, different culture, you observe not just – ok the McDonald’s maybe tastes the same – but yet again you’re not consuming the essence of that earth! Right? So as long as you’re not part of it, you’re not able to understand it. Right? – I think it really depends from a person to person how travelling adds to that person.”
“To me, lucky enough, as to the background that I have, and of course because of music, as well as the business that I did, I have travelled a fair amount in Europe. And luckily I have travelled to the United States and I have to China, Japan, Australia, and around my own country [Pakistan] as well. But the fun thing about my country as well is that after 60 km the culture would change completely. Food would change. Language would change potentially. The accents would change. And so on. And so on. Dialects would change. But if you just stick to the same point [mentally] there is nothing for you to be able to – you know – access the n e w world to you. You’re just becoming part of”, he pauses once more but only briefly.
“You’re actually blocking yourself of expanding yourself. So traveling really does help so you can observe different things but yet again if you only have negative things to think about when you go around and you’re always comparing to your country and to your favourite country and you say, ‘Oh, well, you know this is bullshit here because it’s so much better there and so much better there’, you’re not ready to accept the culture what is around. As we say about the 3rd world countries, third world, third world – where did the second world go anyways? That’s my question to the world anyways? – I think that it’s really important that the people not just travel for the sake of traveling but they go adept a certain culture wherever they go. They become part of it. Then we can learn something. Then we can learn about ourselves.”
“To me – travelling by the mass has become some sort of consuming like, consuming places, but never really being there.” – “Yah. I know many people who like – literally – have travelled around the world. And yet again when they speak, they’re the same idiots they were before they were traveling. So to me that makes no difference.”
The new, exciting adventure, hosting a festival stage
“Let’s move on to another sort of journey. Your journey into the position you’re entrusted with here, the host and moderator of and for the main stage. To me this is again switching the position.”
“I always enjoy challenges. Because if there is no challenge to me, there is no excitement for me. I never tend to do something as a repetitive form. It becomes too boring. Not just boring but it makes me become dull. So, I am ready to take on you know different adventures, something that I have never done before. Because that’s the other thing. I think if every day we have the chance to do something we’re afraid of doing we should try to do that. Because there is a reason why we are afraid to do something. And that means that you really want to do it but something is holding you back. For instance if you want to go to a bar and just order a beer you would just go and order a beer. Or let’s say in a single man’s world if you see a beautiful girl and you want to go an ask her out but you’re afraid of the rejection, you’re afraid of: ‘Oh, I don’t know what she’s gonna say, what she’s gonna do, I don’t know.’ And if that fear comes to you it means you really wanna do it! But you’re not willing to do it. So why not do it?”
But due to that fear it made me more competitive with myself
“It was the same thing about me hosting the festival. ‘Cause I’ve never done that before. I was like ‘Hell, yeah, I want to do it! How would I do it? – I don’t know yet.’ But I am willing to learn from the others and go for it and do it. Same with The Circle album. Changes that I wanted. Never done them before. I was afraid not knowing how it would sound like. I was afraid of not knowing where the sound would take, would I achieve good things or bad things? But due to that fear it made me more competitive with myself. So I forced myself to be able to do that. And same it with the acoustic sets. I always tent to not repeat it and always bring one or two new songs in the set which I have never learned before. So just on the 50th birthday of a friend of mine when they hired me to do acoustic set, 90 % of the songs were which I learned in two or three days before!”
As a vocalist you tend to have this venture with you every single moment
“I have always wondered, look: a guitarist has a neat collection of guitars. And each is sort of baby. Some are favourites. Some are not what the guitarist hoped it would be. So you have a relation with the instrument.” – “Correct.”
“But how is this as vocalist? You a r e the instrument. The instrument is within yourself, within your body. Is there any similar relationship? Can you compare this at all?”
“Oh yes. Every single day is a new, right. Because some days you have a speak tone of a certain frequency, next day you have a certain frequency. And every day is an exciting day for me that I always think about: ‘Oh am I able to do this today? Or not this today? Or this or that or not?’- I think as a vocalist you tend to have this venture with you every single moment. Hour to hour! ‘Cause at the end of the day we were never made as a …. Vocal chords were just made to make sounds not of the speech that we do each day like as we speak a language. As we have different tonalities, have different emphasize on certain words. We go higher, we go lower to emphasize on something.” He is speaking here just as he says. “So as a vocalist you tend to start to observing these things. And once you observe these things, it becomes like a game for you. You always wanna win this game. And for a vocalist is always that if you’re able to do this today? Am I able to do this the next day as well? And am I able to do this the next day as well?“
“Because the guitar is potentially gonna sound the same when you the string in a certain fashion. You can replicate it – every day and every night of a tour. But then again for a vocalist, every day is different.”
But his voice remained
“A guitarist can put aside the instrument. You can’t do this with your vocal chords. Your voice will always be with you and if it is not you’ll be broken down because you’re ill and ripped of your tool to express yourself. You still can communicate but differently.” – Yeah, your expressions change. You are potentially not able to be as expressive as you are with the voice.“
“As you are both: is it difficult that you cannot really pause from being a vocalist as you remain in constant use of your voice on and off stage?” – “I think there was a time in 2010, – I believe 2010, 2011 or 2012 that I did not really play guitar much. But the voice remained. Yeah. The voice has always been there, with me. Although I do not do the octaves higher a song and so on. But I would still hum it. I would still create new melodies. Or speak in a certain fashion. Because speech is a melody. Everything is pitch-paced. I mean, I can talk to you right now in a very monotonic way and that would be sounding very different and so on and so on. It’s that, right?”
He actually suddenly spoke in that very boring monotonous way, which sounds really funny. We are sitting in the epicentre of the festival management, so we are surrounded by hasty activities, vivid conversations and people running in and out. The contrast to Asim’s intermezzo of unmelodic speaking couldn’t be any harder. It seems hardly anyone takes notice of us or minds our doing, save for one. Each time the swarm of busy bees around us would get too loud, the cool queen of back office, Tanja, would magically turn down – with few gestures – the chit-chat without slowing down the ongoing activities. We are perfectly looked after!
Asim goes on: “It is singing to me!” – “Of course it is.” – “So it’s very nice way of controlling my voice to be able to speak nicely and to be gentle with the voice as well. Or be harsher with the voice when needed and so on.”
Going ‘Robotronically’
“So voice has always been there but the guitar I’d be able to put aside and go like ‘ah, enough for me, when it becomes too repetitive. At one point, I do remember that certain guitar stuff that I’ve been doing obviously with Wintersun and so on. At one point it became such ‘robotronically’ same stuff again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, that I used to zone out sometimes. I literally zoned out because I was mechanically there, physically there but mentally I zoned out. And that was like ‘Ey, wait! What the hell, where is the joy?’”
“Ok, I thought to a certain point that is necessary to achieve that with the guitar to be able to really focus singing at the same time.”– “If you’re doing it at the same time. Yeah.“
“I understand if you are touring on and on and on and on even if you would have different set lists, you still will have limited set of songs, a repertoire that you can play and will be performed. So there is limited variety, naturally.” – “Right. Not that I am saying anything wrong about the Wintersun songs!”
“No. No, that’s not the point. It is no question of the band but the repetitive situation that can appear with any band or orchestra. Any time.” – “That is precisely the reason why I love this acoustic stuff. Because every time I play the same song, I tend to always play it differently. Because I have that freedom to be able to express myself according with the environment. So if I play the same song in a bar, I would be playing it completely differently than I do it on the venue.” He points with his finger to the ground to ensure he means here and now. “And even when I played yesterday I improvised the living shit out of me. Like there was no exact form that I would replicate it and like ‘this is what I want’.”
Yesterday I improvised the living shit out of me
I nod and feel invited to explore the topic a little more. “There is something that I have been missing a lot in the past years and this is improvising and reinterpreting one’s songs and most of all: what you see is what you get on stage.” – “Absolutely.”
“This is the main rock and metal spirit I grew up with but nowadays there is backing tracks and repeating album versions all over.” – “Yes.”
“Each [show] night was different. And it was always 100 % live.” We get interrupted as a member of the security crew enters the office holding her eyes. It looks serious and Asim automatically offers help. Apparently in the haste of a moment she had taken her self-defence spray and got it the full load into her own eyes. “Friendly fire” the crew member giving us the summary of the incident. They are well-prepared and ease the situation quickly by flushing the eyes with a soothing liquid.
So Asim replies now to my question: “I totally get you. Like back in the days, every song was different. Even you pick up Led Zepplin same versions would be different. Deep Purple, DIO, every time it’s a different feeling.”
Of the vocalist’s responsibility
As I impression how the attitude what people expect from a concert has changed from experiencing a unique performance to consuming replicating the recording, Asim utters his consent several times. In contrast lately a back-to-the-roots trend has slowly been growing.
“And this is why I love your acoustic sets. There is a surprise. And there is you, your guitar. Done.” A loudly singing crew member passing us by on his way to the loo distracts us by providing a perfect live music moment, by the way. The back office magician tries to stop the singing for which there is no need.
After this short break Asim explains: “Yeah, I think it’s coming back. It depends at least music-wise or band-wise if the band doing the exactly same thing, I think it’s the vocalist’s responsibility as well to bring something new to the things. It is exactly the reason why at least in Damnation Plan although we tend to do things not exactly on point and it belongs a lot to the arrangements we do live for instance. Tend to bring a live element to it. Like “Ashes” is one of our songs, of which the live version is completely different towards the end. And I wanted it that way. So I could bring my heritage as well to the whole song which was never the idea. It just happened by mistake at the rehearsal and then Jarkko [Lunnas, drummer] said like: ‘Oh, we’re gonna keep this.’ And me like: ‘Yeah, why not.’ So we kept on doing it every time it’s a different – you know – feel to it.”
Improvisation does not exclude perfection
While experience has withered to consuming in front of the stage, improvisation and reinterpretation were outrun by backing tracks and technical perfection on stage. Again Asim expresses his consent as I speak. Just as we are about daydream ourselves back to the days of vinyl bootleg albums he wakes to illustrate the details of both angles:
“This is one of the reasons why I am – obviously as you may remember, I am a huge fan of DIO, particularly Rainbow was in my opinion his performances of all time. Of course, the first three albums by DIO itself, I think, were amazing as well. But I think when we say he was at the peak of his vocal range and vocal – like the softness, the touch, everything about it, I think the Rainbow, like the early Rainbow albums I’d say, of course, the live stuff that he did. And they used to jam and to build up and build up and everything was so unique on its own. And there are so many live versions of this song and ‘Oh I love that live version and I love that live version and I love that live version.’ And sometimes you would like the original version like it was on the record, but I love the live version so much that I get back to it all the time. – Nowadays it’s only like replicating like something you already did in the studio. Or course, I do understand and I do appreciate, like Chris Adler who had been one of my greatest heroes, when it comes to drumming – the ex Lamb Of God drummer, ah, one of the founding members of Lamb Of God – he said as well: ‘if you can’t play something exactly the way that you you’ve played it on the record, there is no point of you playing anymore.’ Or something along this line, he said.”
The machines we have become
“Of course.” – “And I do understand that.” “Absolutely.” – “That’s a fair point. But at the same time if you just gonna replicate everything like a machine, …”
“…. you’re becoming a machine.” – “You’re not human anymore. You’re just achieving like every time the same thing. Like it becomes and exercise. It doesn’t become like something that you are not doing it as a creative zone or a creative part of it. You’re just becoming an athlete. So, I don’t want to be an athlete on the stage. I want express my feelings in a certain fashion according to what I feel at that moment. That’s exactly the reason why all my acoustic songs – even though I am doing covers – I tent to make them completely different according to how I am feeling. Because otherwise it’s too mechanical. There is no point. That’s what our society has become. We have become or we’re becoming machines. Most of us at least.”
“And then the machines we are building have become too perfect!” – “Correct. I mean, we – after all – are machines. We have a certain very beautiful system but very complex. One of the most complex systems on this planet at least.”
“… and haven’t yet really learned to understand it. What a philosophical final of our conversation. Thank you very much, Asim!” – “Thank you so much!”
Well, this was an intensive conversation. And it reveals some very interesting insights. For one and in general: if you come up with an unexpected topic it takes the other one some time to word his or her thoughts. The second is, anything in a musician’s life has a reference to his or her music.
As final song I chose Damnation Plan’s live video of DIO’s “Don’t talk to strangers”. Asim and I kept speaking of this song for quite some time after the recording ended. We spoke also of irony and cynicism in lyrics. Too sad some people never learned the concept of irony. So, please: go out and talk to strangers! Learn from them!
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All photos taken by Muumi-Katja on Tuska 2017, Wintersun tours 2018, the Dark River Festival 2021 and 2022.