The Bally Sagoo blitzkrieg

The Bally Sagoo blitzkrieg

Bally is a tall, funny man who believes that the distance between heaven and hell depends on what someone is doing. On his first visit to Bangladesh, he reveals with a smirk that, he is into music because his doctor forbade him to be involved in anything else. Writes Faizul Khan Tanim
photo by Andrew Biraj

Rated one of UK's top ten British musicians and also one of the pioneering artistes to have brought re-mix music in South Asia, Bally Sagoo was a brilliant blitz last week. Performing at the City's Regency Hotel arranged by JPR Events, he played popular songs like Gur Nalon Ishq, Aaja Nachle, couple of his new tracks from the upcoming film Sajna Ve Sajna and more. Reportedly, Bally was the show rocker for the night.

Prior to the show, he sat with the New Age and related an amazing tale of his life surrounded by music.

New Age (NA): How did it all start? How did you get in to music?

Bally: When I actually started music it was 1974 and I was ten. Growing old I began experimenting a lot with Punjabi songs and Bollywood music and worked with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to produce the album, Magic Touch in 1992. In 1994, I came up with the new concept of revitalising classic Bollywood film songs. In the album 'Bollywood Flashback' a single, Chura Liya became the Indian song to be played heavily in the international radio and, eventually, it reached massive heights. I also made Tu Tak Tu Tak with Malkit Singh and produced an album Aby Baby for Amitabh Bachhan in 1996. No looking back since then.

NA: Did you prefer re-mixing music more than composing your own materials?

Bally: Don't you compose when you are re-mixing? I actually composed lots of music compiled in almost 45 albums from when I started music. However, people in South Asia did not get the opportunity to find all my albums and since my remixes were reaching massive heights, probably my originals became less dominant.

NA: Your next mission or the upcoming album.

Bally: Well, I acted and produced the soundtrack for the movie Sajna Ve Sajna, a British-Indian film in English about this British-Indian family living in the UK and I will portray the character of one such family member who does music. The movie is to be released in August this year.

NA: What type of songs do you listen to?

Bally: I listen to almost all sorts of music, RnB, hip-hop, club and nearly no rock music.

NA: How did you pick your songs for fusing?

Bally: I took reference from people and most importantly, listened to plenty of music myself. I wanted to listen to as much variety of music and new vocals as possible and from there I chose.

NA: How are you different from contemporary musicians working around you?

Bally: I travel a lot and continuously try to find what people want to listen and then I work on it.

NA: Which singers, composers and directors do you like best?

Bally: (Giggles) I have worked with so many of them and everyone was great. But if it needs to be said, I think I admire A R Rahman, Late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Lata Ji, Gurdas Maan, Sonu Nigam, Alka Yagnik…the list would continue forever (with a smile).

NA: What is your musical inspiration? And what inspires you in life?

Bally: (Replies with a smile) I think it's this world. Simple things inspire me, for example, meeting new people, listening to new local music and even giving this interview. Most of the time, original music inspires me a lot. I would much prefer listening to a bard or an unknown musician from the street playing a unique instrument. And if I like the music, I do ask them to come to my studio for a take.

NA: How would you define your genre?

Bally: It's an urban cocktail of Desi beats. It's the fusion of east meeting west. I love to make a vast amount of sound from various parts of the world and try to be diverse….in a good way of course.

NA: Does your music carry any messages?

Bally: (With a huge smile) Of course it does. My music can touch my fans, make them happy, cry and best of all…it makes them dance groovy. And musically, I always try putting in a lot of acoustic bass line in my music. (Remember how my song Kinna Sohna started with heavy bass line? - Interestingly, here he actually folded his mouth and made a perfectly thumping noise of a bass guitar and played the bass line from the song).

NA: If you weren’t a human being and instead a music instrument, what would you be and why?

Bally: (Hahahhah interesting question!) I think I would be a bass guitar as the sound generated by that instrument is right on everyone's face. It’s like 'you hear it and you fear it'.

NA: What do you think is the distance between heaven and hell?

Bally: (Replied with a smirk) That depends on what you are doing…depends on the right time.

NA: What's your purpose of doing music?

Bally: (Smilingly) I think my doctor said that, I couldn't do anything else than making music.

The Bally Sagoo event was hosted exclusively at the Regency Hotel, Dhaka, Bangladesh by JPR Events who previously brought famous international stars like Raghav, Jay Sean, Bombay Rockers, KK, Bombay Vikings, Yana Gupta, Yukta Mukhee, Shaan and many more. Bally expressed great interest to collaborate with artistes from Bangladesh and knowing that he has a huge popularity here, he does not want this to be his only visit.

*This article was first published on Daily New Age July 06 - http://www.newagebd.com/2007/jul/06/jul06/xtra_also1.html