Madlen & Anke's Interview

I got this interview from my friend Madlen (Johnster) from the "ADF-chat". She and Anke got to interview Dr Das for their college radio when they played in Berlin on 2.May. Since the interview was taped, she's spent hours typing it up for me which I really really appreciate. So massive thanks and respect to you Johnster for the interview.

Interview with Dr Das Berlin, May 2 2000

The Setting:
After a two-hour drive from Leipzig to Berlin, innumerable traffic jams (even though it was Tuesday), many wrong turns but with recharged batteries for the tape-recorder, we arrive at the Columbia Fritz in Berlin. Torsten from Contour welcomes us only to say that ADF are still soundchecking. Well, okay, then, we want them to sound great later that night, so we let them get on with it. Not that we have a choice, really. We go downstairs to get some food and have a look at the backstage area. As the weather is still fine we decide to wait outside where we practice our interview techniques. So we wait for about an hour until Dave Lawrence, their tour manager, comes up to us. He tells us to give him five minutes to find someone and returns - with Dr Das. We go to the catering room again but people keep coming in so Dr Das suggests the tourbus where the interview is about to commence. There is first some talk about St Pauli Football Team. Obviously, all of ADF are big fans of them although they are actually not doing too well. (I am sure ADF are glad to hear that they finally scored in a match and are still in the second division.) Dr Das tells us that one their tour busses broke down two days earlier and they had to hire equipment and fly to Germany. Anyway, we have to start the proper interview and here it goes!

Madlen & Anke: First of all, can you tell us about your musical background?

Dr Das: Everyone in the band has previously been in different bands or soud systems. I played in kind of experimental jazz, reggae, bhangra and Hindi bands and sort of dub kind of sound systems. Chandrasonic’s been in kind of post-punk bands, sort of techno experimental stuff. Deeder has been in jungle sound systems. Pandit G and Sun-J both were Djs, doing all kinds from dub to garage to techno etc. And then, of course, everybody’s always had the Indian music in their home lives. And then as well, I got taught by my aunt in sort of Indian or Bengali folk music, learning basic Indian scales and stuff like that. And that has eventually filtered into my approach towards bass and also a lot of our programming. I also studied tabla drums for two years and that has affected how we program drum machines and sequencers. The whole thing about cycles and the scales that I learned is coming to what I play on bass. And then Chandrasonic as well was very affected by his father’s collection of Indian classical music. He has applied those ideas to his approach to playing guitar. But you might not recognise it straightaway because there’s distortion. But all those influences are there definitely.

M&A: You started off as a sound system and then developed into a band. How did you develop your performance skills?

DD: Well, the sound system can have slightly different definitions or means different things to people. For us, at the beginning, it was just myself, Pandit G and Deeder. Pandit G on decks, I was doing the technology in those days and Deeder doing the rap, the chatting. And I was also doing percussion and stuff like that. So we started of in ‘93 out of a workshop situation at Community Music and Chandrasonic joined in ‘94. Then Sun-J joined the following year in ‘95 to take over the technology and to manipulate all of that live. The only way to develop those skills is to just go out and perform, alright? What really helped us initially was playing a lot in France to audiences which were far more enthusiastic than the ones that we met in Britain. Britain’s a bit spoiled for choice!

M&A: Why do you think you had your first success in France?

DD: Well, there’s various reasons. One was that ‘95/’96 was the height of Britpop, alright? And we were in any sense opposite to what Britpop was doing - the colour of our skins, the name of the band, the fact that we were talking about issues, the instruments we used, the fact that we make use of technology. So it’s a forward looking thing and Britpop was very backwards, looking back to the sixties. So in every sense, we were different. A lot of people didn’t want to know, or they didn’t know how to take this sound. We didn’t mean to create any kind of different sound. We were just making music. Working at Community Music, we were in an environment that was open to people experimenting . To experiment was normal as opposed to trying to reproduce what was the typical pop sound or whatever. We weren’t even trying to be a band. We were just making music.

M&A: When you finally became successful in Britain, did the press try to label you in any way?

DD: Oh yeah, yeah. All kinds of names. Well, you had all this stuff about the so-called Asian Underground. So, basically, they tried to put us in there. I mean, undoubtedly, at this time a lot of Asian bands were emerging who had previously not been given access to the media or even to record deals or anything like that. We went through the same process. And what we say to the media who use this term "Asian Underground" is that the only thing those Asian musicians or bands had in common was that they had collectively been denied this access to the media or to being allowed to play in certain venues or given a record deal. Really, we are all doing quite different music. What ADF does is different to what Cornershop does is different to Fun^da^mental, different to Talvin Singh. But we have a lot in common, musically, but it is also quite different. If we applied the same kind of thinking of Asian - the term Asian Underground - to England and said oh well Oasis and Prodigy and all, they are the English Underground. You know that Prodigy is completely different to Oasis. If we said they are all the same they would take offence. So we take offence as well. There is a lot of diversity!

M&A: But how would you describe your music if you had to choose a term, if that’s possible at all?

DD: Chandrasonic recently went to India for the very first time and a cousin listened to Asian Dub Foundation for the first time and he goes "Oh yes, this music is jing bang"! So we said, well, that’s what we do! We said, yeah, that’s right, that’s right!

M&A: Do you sell records in India?

DD: I think they have just been released but I think only on cassette. They Haven’t really taken it up there. And we had a few people that are aware. We had a few interview but that’s about it really.

M&A: You already talked about Community Music...

DD: Yeah, Community Music Limited is, broadly speaking, a music teaching organisation in London that has been around since the early eighties. It is trying to make music accessable to as broad a sprectrum of the community as possible. It runs both short courses and workshop kind of things right through to year-long courses for different people. So they might do outreachwork that goes to community centres, or housing estates, or into schools. Or it might do courses based at the centre in music technology and more conventional stuff like saxophone or guitars or whatever. But it’s usuallypretty group-based work and it’s just trying to make music generally accessable to people to instil a kind of collective approach to music making as opposed to individual guitar or bass or whatever tuition. People can still do those courses and also go and get individual skills in other places to complement. I got involved with Community Music in 1990. I actually went to do a course on how to teach. After that I became a tutor and then over the next few years I became one of the main tutors there. So I was doing all the things that I described, I worked in all those areas. But then I concentrated more on music technology and then Chandrasonic came along cos I asked him to join ADF. He came along there and he found that this is something that he wanted to do as well, so he did the same course and he became a tutor as well. So for the first two years of ADF’s existence we were still teaching. What we were learning from being teachers we were still feeding that into ADF. A lot of the music that young people wanted to do, especially what was called jungle before it was called drum’n’bass, really affected us and Deeder also as a young person brought all those sounds into our music.

M&A: Do you still work there sometimes?

DD: No, because it’s not possible. We had to make a decision around ‘96 to go all the way with ADF. And because it also wasn’t fair on any students. Say, you are running a course and then the main tutor is away for three or four weeks because you are doing a tour. So we had to make a decision to go and to be self-sufficient.

M&A: But you set up your own organisation ADFED...

DD:Yeah, we wanted to do that because we could no longer teach and we always thought it was good to continue the process. A lot of people come to ADFED via ADF, through having seen ADF. We get to speak to people or they somehow get our number or website address. And they say we want to learn music technology or we want to make music. ADFED was set up in 1998. We got funding from the London Arts Board which is a funding body which gets its money from the government. We redirected those funds to establish ADF Education and now it runs independently. It’s actually run by Catalisa who is also on the album. She sings on one of the tracks ... ADFED just runs workshops. Unlike Community Music which is a big organisation covering many areas ADFED is far more specific. It’s very much based on ADF’s musical experience. It’s about making music with technology and using technology which is fairly accessable in terms of learning and cost because we think that you can make good music from stuff without having to spend tens of thousands of pounds on a big studio. All the philosophy is about making use of what you have got rather than that preventing you from creating music. To turn it around and think "Well, what can I do with this? What can I do with this one little drum machine? And my pair of congas over there? What interesting sounds can I make?" It is to try and make people think that way. So it’s not even about people trying to think "oh, let’s try and be like ADF. We need one guitar, one bass, one decks and things". That’s not the point either. So if someone is out there and sees ADF and they have a violin, a drum machine and a vocalist, we say "Yeah, that is fine. That’s your sound. You start from there!" It’s about encouraging people to make music and to go and perform live, and also to talk,to use concious lyrics, you know, talk about their experience. And already we had one band emerging from ADFED called Invasian. They are five guys - four Bengali guys and a Phillippino guy - from East London. They are all rappers but they are involved in the programming as well. Also, they have a DJ Aktarvata who is also an apprentice with ADF Education. In fact, he cme out and DJed with ADF on the last bit of touring that we did and he is a great MC as well. Invasian already supported Primal Scream recently at Brixton Acadamy. We haven’t even played Brixton Acadamy! It’s brilliant! It’s like the next generation is set up!

M&A: Do you like the new Primal Scream album?

DD: Yeah, I think it’s brilliant. I think it’s fantastic! I liked the last one as well. I didn’t know much about the Primals before that.

M&A: Bobby Gillespie is one of your biggest supporters...

DD: He has helped us quite a bit. In 1976 (he really said that but I am sure he meant 1996. Where would Deeder be anyway? - MJ) , they were all coming to ADF gigs. I didn’t know anything about them really. I maybe heard of Primal Scream but I didn’t know their music or anything. They were fans and they could see that we weren’t getting a deal in England. They were saying the music business is racist. It was the height of Britpop and they said if we were four white boys with guitars, we would easily have got a deal. But because we are who we are and we sound like what we do, no-one is prepared to sign us up. And we did get that deal the following year and they offered us a support tour and they were using every oppurtunity in the press to talk about ADF. Then people started to listen. Of course, in the continent it was different. In France, and even in Germany, people already knew us. Maybe not on a big scale but we had already done stuff there.

M&A: Yeah, we saw you in Leipzig in 1998 and in February on the RATM support tour.

DD:Oh God, where was that? Here in Berlin?

M&A: Yes, it’s a funny story actually, because you weren’t advertised as their support. When we went in you had already started and we thought "Hey, cool, sounds like ADF!" and then you played "Buzzin’" and we went "Oh my God! It is ADF!!!!" But most people ignored you!

DD:(upset and angry) They did! That was the worst gig of the tour. We were very drained after that gig. We was really angry. We know that generally we weren’t advertised on that tour. But still, we give out a lot of energy and on that particular gig we had the least return of energy. We couldn’t quite understand. We don’t mind... (thinking)... we enjoy playing to different people, to people who aren’t ADF fans. There’s no point in just playing to the people who are into you all the time. Otherwise you are not going to reach anyboby else. You’re not gonna change anybody’s mind or anything. But we thought that there would be a little bit more of a response and it was quite frustrating.

M&A: How did you get in touch with RATM?

DD: They got in touch with us. (laughing) We don’t usually go looking for support tours! I really don’t know how familiar they are with our music but they were familiar enough to ask us to play. We’ve only done a few support tours. Previous to that was Beastie Boys in the US and in Vienna which was strange but good.

M&A: Let’s talk about "Community Music" - the album? How did you put it together?

DD: Well, everyone writes the lyrics and everyone writes the music. We always have loads of ideas floating around. Whether it’s lyrics, whether it’s themes or whether it’s sounds or melodies. What happens is that someone happens to be working in the room on a computer and then someone else walks in and thinks "oh, I got a sound that will go with that". And you go and find a disc and try that one out. Or I sit down and play a bassline or pull out some lyrics etc. And that’s how it works.

M&A: Your lyrics are rather complex. There are a lot of references. What for example do you mean with "The sixties charade"?

DD: It’s just a reference to Britpop. And it is also connected up to when the Prime Minister, Blair, got in he invited Oasis and Noel Gallagher to Downing Street. And there was this big thing about how Blair used to play the guitar and he said how the guitar is the instrument of the 20th century. And we said "no it’s not! (smiles) It’s the sampler!" Guitar is one of the instruments. Cool Britannia - that’s it! This whole thing was linked up to Britpop and looking back to the sixties, this Golden Age of Britain: And we say "No, it wasn’t a Golden Age. It wasn’t a good time for black people or white people. You are just falsifying history." What I was saying about Britpop trying to reproduce the music of the sixties - I personally think they completely missed the point. That’s what we all think. They all talk about Beatlesbut they are reproducing a whole genre from one chord of a Beatles song. Beatles are actually quite an experimental, innovative band, or they became so. They did a lot of experimentation in the studio but I don’t hear any Britpop band ever doing that. That’s why we also said to people that we have more in common with the Beatles than Oasis. Oasis are trying to reproduce. We are trying to create new sounds. We are trying to create new sounds. We are trying to find sounds that you’ve not heard before.

M&A: Do you get a lot of reactions to the lyrics from the fans?

DD: A lot, of course. Hello! (don’t wonder - at this point Chandrasonic risks a look in the front of the bus but goes off to have a smoke) You might get people entering the world of ADF because of the music and other people might relate to the lyrics because they have read about our sentiments, or because they have read about us in interviews or they have heard your radioshow!

M&A: Hopefully.

DD: Yeah, hopefully, yeah. Eventually you get into both things. You check out the lyrics in the lyric sheet or you check out the website and you find out the things that we are talking about. You check out the linked sites and you might engage in one of those campaigns, or not, you know. So yeah, we are getting reactions all the time. All kinds of people say "Yeah, this happened to me! This is part of my experience. I relate to what you are saying there."

M&A: Thanx for the interview!

And that was that, really. We got a station ID as well and Dr Das was cheering to hear that "Community Music" was going to be CD of the week at our station.