ASIAN AGAINST THE MACHINE

Asian Dub Foundation are back with an excellent new single, 'Real Great Britain', and album 'Community Music', an eagerly awaited follow-up to 1998's 'Rafi's Revenge'. Ludicrously funky bass player Aniruddha, aka Dr Das, was happy to explain the title, how you can change the world incrementally and why ADF are the real deal. Appropriately this interview took place at the headquarters of Community Music, the South London-based organisation offering serious training for young hopefuls, where Dr Das and guitarist Chandrasonic worked as tutors before the band took off.

Interview: STEVE JELBERT

Music365: Why the title for the album?
Dr Das: "We've always mentioned Community Music - how the ADF started out of a workshop. Their philosophy has always informed ADF and how we work collectively. It seemed natural for us to big it up again. It's also a reflection of how you get many different types of people at an ADF gig, both in terms of their cultural or ethnic background, but also the music that they’re into. You see junglists, people into dub - I'm not trying to stereotype people by their appearance - indie kids, ravers, punks, even metallers. I’ve seen people in Motorhead T-shirts."

Tell us about AdFed - Asian Dub Foundation Education.
"At first me and Chandra were still tutors, but there came a point that the band's workload was too much and we had to make a decision to leave. So in 1998 we secured funding from the London Arts Board which enabled us to set up a proper structure, get tutors on board - some of them we taught ourselves - and now AdFed is running as an independent project. It's encouraging people to write conscious lyrics, and get them out to perform - it's almost sound system education."

You've publicised the case of Satpal Ram (jailed for murder after defending himself from a alleged racist attack). Is your aim to never have to play 'Free Satpal Ram' again?
"No one's ever put it that way round before, but we've got to kinda say, yeah. You've got to work towards not having to take part in any struggle. In fact, one track on the album, 'Committed To Life', features the words of Assata Shakur, who's a former Black Panther activist and a teacher, and what she’s saying is that she struggles, but she struggles reluctantly because oppression and the American authorities have forced her into that situation. She would much rather have been a carpenter, or a gardener or something useful, but people look to her."

You can't let one injustice go though, or you let them all go through.
"Exactly. With the Satpal song people have said, 'Do you really think a pop song is going to get someone out of prison?' And of course it isn't, but that's not the point. That piece of music is another form of communication. When other media won't deal with the issue, we wrote it to get it into the national consciousness. It's not a unique situation, but he is something of a focus, and in that respect it's been successful. Without that there wouldn't have been an article by Irvine Welsh in The Independent On Sunday, and Satpal speaking on his own behalf for the first time - he didn't even do that at his trial or subsequent appeals - in The Observer. We're involved because this is something that could have happened to us."

Do you find it's a strain being seen as just a 'political band'?
"Everyone on a stage expresses themselves. We use that opportunity - we’re literally on a platform and can express ourselves in that way. Anyone who says that's not the domain of pop music - well, I think they’re extremely wrong. Pop as we know it has only existed for half a century, but music as a form of commentary has been around for hundreds of years - criticising kings and governments. We're in that same tradition, we just happen to be using samplers."

Plus your music, quite simply, rocks.
"That's extremely important, because you wouldn't be sitting here talking to us if our music was crap. Our sound is the point of entry. It might take a few listening to get the lyrics, but the politics is in the sonics. The elements of the sound represent the different communities where we live in London- the Indian sound, the jungle, the punk, the acid-y sounds. Notions of 'purity' are totally anathema to us - there’s no culture or so-called 'race' on this planet that's 'pure' and our music tries to draw attention to that. Even if we do an instrumental of 'Free Satpal Ram', every sound is screaming it. It's not just the lyrics. That’s why we feel Primal Scream's album is so important. They’ve captured the mood of dissatisfaction and disappointment with this government from which we expected so much, and they’ve done it with the sound."

It doesn't sound like you’re going to make a mellow record any time soon.
"We'd love to be in a situation like that, but we just feel compelled to comment on what’s going on. Records like Miles Davis' 'Black Magus' and Sly Stone's 'There’s A Riot Going On' - they all made a comment though sound. Music reflects its time. The whole Britpop thing reflected 20 years of Thatcherism. The Acid thing - the E Generation, the Me generation, no collective vibe, everyone out for themselves. I dunno, 'collective individualism'."

Can an audience be politicised?
"Yeah, I think people can be alerted to things. We try that within a four-minute song, then follow it up with stalls and links and details. We try to emphasis the practical side, things you can do something about. People say 'I’m going to change the world' but find they can’t achieve it because it’s way too big a target then they give up. It’s a lifelong process. Some of these things we're going to still be fighting in 40 years' time."

What next for ADF as a band?
"We don’t have a gameplan as such. 'Rafi's Revenge' was particularly dense and fierce. This album’s different. Anyone hearing the last album will have just got the 'Indo-jungle-punk' thing, but this time we’ve got the horns in there, we've got big strings - we just wanted to express all the sounds we've always been into. It might attract people who find the last one a bit too intense."

Asian Dub Foundation release their single 'Real Great Britain' March 6 and their album 'Community Music' on March 20. They embark on a tour of Enland and Europe starting Saturday, March 18 at London King's Cross Scala.