A couple months back, 2 kids from Lahore going by the name ‘Project Berklee’ released one of the best Pakistani Metal tracks of not just this year, but simply one of the best released from our country regardless of genre, year and other limitations. This mammoth track was called ‘The Malice’ and was produced by Raza Ali (Dementia) and Ahmed Waqar (Odyssey) – and if you haven’t heard it yet you can either do mankind a favor and kill yourself or click this link here and do yourself a favor. But enough with the introduction, here’s the long-overdue interview. (Questions answered by both Asad Farooq and Umair Nadeem)

1. Hey guys, what’s up? Alright – first things first. What’s the deal with the band name?
The band name sums it up. It’s based on our aim – to get a scholarship from the Berklee College of Music at Boston, MA.

2. So how’d you two get together as a band? And do you intend on remaining a 2-piece or can we expect a permanent bassist and rhythm player to join you guys in the near future?
It started off with occasional jams which led to performing covers, then we decided to work on composing and eventually formed a proper band. Not sure about the permanent bit , but we might be having guests featuring in some of our work, like we did before.

3. Well, it’s been a while now since your jaw-dropping first single ‘The Malice’ was released and the reception has been nothing short of spectacular. Are you guys surprised or did you expect this reaction from the metal and rock fans of Pakistan?
We didn’t actually know what to expect exactly, but surprisingly we ended up attracting not only the rock/metal crowd , but also the crowd which thinks of such music as nothing but ‘noise’; it felt satisfying to see how kids and adults can also relate to our music.

4. The Malice was produced by Raza Ali and Ahmed Waqar – the two best (only too, I guess, haha) metal producers in Lahore. How was it like working with them?
It was a great experience working with both of them. They are both very talented musicians and great producers to work with. We learnt a lot from the experience and are looking forward to working with them in the future.

5. In terms of song structure, I found The Malice very interesting as it had a lot of different ideas and themes packed together with the amazing guitar solos keeping everything in check. Was it a conscious effort to make the song that way, or was it all just spontaneous creativity?
We don’t believe in a structure to music. There’s no formula that should be followed when writing a song; it limits expression. We also wanted to do something completely different than what others are doing. Nothing was spontaneous. Every part was planned, composed and arranged in the song in such a way to support the other parts; like drifting the song into extremes, and giving it an adventurous feel and changing moods of the song.

6. Moving towards the local scene, which bands from our own metal scene would you reccomend to a foreign buay?
We would want to recommend those bands which can tell about the diversity of metal we have here in Pakistan. These would include bands like Odyssey, Takatak, Foreskin, and Dementia to name a few. There are many others out there, but I am in no mood to write a whole list right now.

7. What do you think is the thing our scene needs the most to bring it up to par with the Indian scene?
We need dedication, freedom to do whatever the hell we want, and electricity.

8. Instrumental metal isn’t a genre that many people listen to, or would consider their favorite genre – even among already marginalized metal listeners. What drives you towards making this type of music and what challenges are there in the songwriting phase as compared to vocal-based rock/metal music?
In a country like Pakistan, you would hardly find a decent range of anything to do with instrumental music. The majority of this country listens to mainstream Bollywood bhangra mainly for the fact that half-naked babes are dancing in their movies and are making men horny every time they sing. The majority of mainstream composers in Pakistan don’t have a burning passion to excel musically; all they want is money in their pockets. The mainstream music industry in Pakistan is like the general stock market. ‘Musicians’ invest money in to making their songs sound great by ripping off from Western artists and using state-of-the-art Hafeez Center software to enhance their primitive tunes and voices to sell to the ears of a common 5th century caveman and earn profit. We, as Project Berklee, have a burning ambition to achieve the highest level of knowledge and skills possible in our principal instrument and to master the art of writing great Music. We write instrumentals because we don’t care about whether people will listen to it or not and we feel that they are one of the strongest ways we can express ourselves. Writing instrumentals and writing vocal-based music is a completely different process overall. It will get into too much detail to explain, especially since there are many different types of instrumentals and vocal-based songs.

9. XBox 360 or PS3?
Alienware.

10. Last question – did you actually play the solos on The Malice or did an Octopoid from the Xarnovzi System play em, Umair?
Yes, I played them.

Check out Project Berklee’s Facebook page!