Bhangra-Punk innovators and Britain’s most politically conscious band Asian Dub Foundation return to Dublin this month to try out some unrecorded material from their new album on an Irish audience. We caught up with guitarist Chandrasonic to chat XFactor, saying no to David Bowie and anger management.
You’ve been together for 17 years now, how have things changed?
It’s been very evolving. I suppose it goes into periods. The first three albums was one period. The fourth and fifth was another and the last album we began a new period. The first three the whole concept came into place and we made a big impact all pretty unsuspectingly. When I look back I’m amazed we got as far as we did because the band was so different and so challanging, so unusual. For a group like us to break out like we did was pretty unprecedented. It had to change after that. The original vocalist left and we got a couple of new ones. We added Cyber, the percussionist on tabla and gong which has defined the sound for this past decade. It put this bhangra punjabi element into the sound. Now we’re expanding again.
You’ve been labeled the last angry band in Britain. Do you think this is true?
If you’re being labeled anything then it’s not true. I don’t consider any labels put on us by anyone else as valid. I think we’ve got a lot of passion. I think we’re not afraid to be a bit rough soundwise. We’re not afraid to be energetic and fast and get people going. I don’t think we really make a stand about things so much anymore. The problem is whether we do or don’t people think we do. I could write a song about me feeding my goldfish and someone will think it’s some kind of anti-American rant.
What do you think about RATM’s recent Christmas number one success?
I bought it. I thought it was a nice statement against the XFactor thing. Yet people say the XFactor is killing music but that kind of trite cover version thing, created by a talent show, created by big corporations controlling the whole package, it’s been around all the time. There’s nothing new about it, it just seems a lot bigger and all-pervasive.
I heard you were involved with fundraising for a Dublin based educational initiative?
Yeah, that was our first gig in Dublin, in the Temple Bar Music Centre in 1995 to fundraise for a local education project. What a gig that was. David Bowie came to see us. He wanted us to tour with him, we turned him down.
Who says no to David Bowie?!
You support David Bowie, it’s not a great thing. Some one else we know did that support tour and when they were playing David Bowie’s band was setting up in the back. They didn’t get paid, they played when people were walking in. It’s like David Bowie says, ‘Oooh, I’ll have them,’ then he absconds from the process and allows his cronies to treat you like shit. That’s no disrepect to him though. I’m a great fan.
From doing the live soundtrack to La Haine to a punk musical to your ongoing social work, what on earth can we expect to see from ADF next?
We’re working on an album called A History of Now. It’s about a similar theme we’ve all lived through; a kind of second industrial revolution which has changed everything just in the past 10 years with things like social media and reality TV. I guess a bit of ADF futurology I suppose that hasn’t been done before.
Asian Dub Foundation play Tripod on 19th February, with tickets on sale for a handsome €22.50/27.50.
Words: Rosie Gogan-Keogh
