5 Minutes with XXI [Interview]

We sat down with the band XXI (21) who recently performed a session for Ufone Uth Records 2.0 and talked about their work, experience with Ufone Uth Records and possible future endeavors.

1. How did XXI (21) begin? How do you define your sound?

A) Yahya is from Islamabad whereas Moheet and Taimoor are from Karachi. We had no clue about each other before LUMS. There was an open house at our university where Taimoor and Yahya performed a couple of covers, after that Yahya met Moheet through a friend and the idea of starting a band generated, then one lead to another and here we are after two years in Ufone Uth Records. Our sound is all about the energy and connecting to the people through melodies and simplicity. We wouldn’t contain ourselves in one particular genre but our music is essentially rock starting off with a mainstream touch.

2. What influences your music?

A) All three of us have been influenced by diverse artists from the past and present. Yahya, the vocalist is very much into the melodic mainstream stuff like The Beatles, U2, Noori and Junoon. Taimoor with very much contemporary taste in his listening’s and playing such as Steven Wilson, Nickelback, Linkin Park, Faraz Anwar, The Beatles and U2. Moheet on the other hand has a completely diverse listening with the works of Jimmy page in Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, KISS, Jack White, Mark Tremonti and Salman Ahmad in his playing.

3. How did you all find Ufone Uth Records? How was your work experience with them?

A) We saw the promo on facebook; Ufone Uth Records looking for new artists to send in their demos, and we sent in our demos and here we are being interviewed by you guys! 🙂 . The best experience of our lives, its amazing how your work takes to your dreams, it is definitely a dream that we are living right now, Moheet for example in the video for Taaray in Ufone Uth Records is holding AAMIR ZAKI‘S guitar the one that he made himself, we all remember covering him on our early days cover gigs and now being with the likes of Gumby holding AAMIR ZAKI’s guitar, an amazing experience. The studio work was tedious but it was just so amazing that Gumby being an icon for all of us was able to create that space of comfort where we could freely express our ideas with the expectations of being understood very clearly, it made learn so much. Definitely the best place for young musicians like us to learn and open up our minds in terms of studio works.

4. Have you been contacted by any big name other than Ufone Uth Record?

A) No not yet but definitely in the near future. Insha’Allah, because the stars “TAARE” are definitely aligned for us. Full of energy and character 🙂

5. Any new upcoming projects?

A) We will shortly be releasing our next single with a video. we can assure you of one thing, that sort of stuff has not been done in the past. It is a mixture of riff oriented rock pop and a U2 sort of ambience with a touch of electronic music. One of the best lyrical works we have done so far. The song is called “Scottish”. P.S It’s in Urdu no worries 😀

– Photos Courtesy: Kohi Marri