bani haykal

He pretty much started off with Wes Montgomery by his side. I recalled him saying many wonderful stuffs about jazz music and the things he loves about space. This was what i had managed to scoop out from him. Amphibian : I remembered you telling me about Wes Montgomery. How is Wes similar to Bjork? Haykal : They're my biggest influences. They had inspired me to play and listen to music. When i started out it wasn't a Backstreet Boys thing or another Blink 182 band. I guess it's because i was brought up in an environment where "the real deal" for music is. So it was pretty much George Benson and Miles Davis then. The closes i got to Pop music was Michael Jackson. And yes he is one of my idols. -laughs. Amphibian : So Bjork wasn't something you heard in your early stages in life? Haykal : Yup...i've only gotten to fall in love with her music since last year. And i've been a fan since. Amphibian : What about bass? How did Wes or Bjork influenced you to play that thing? Haykal : Bass came later then that. Earlier then Bjork, much earlier. Credit goes to my uncle Rahman who very much opened my eyes to the bass. He was playing a Jaco song called The Chicken and he was having his fingers all over the fret board with his fingers playing it. I just thought that it was a nice instrument to play and i picked it up. Amphibian : So bla bla bla yada yada yada the band came about. So what were you into at that period? Haykal : Blues. -laughs. Yes laugh at me if you'd want to but it was straight blues, 1-4-5 and the beat goes the same on and on and on. I'm pretty sure the guys hated me for that. -laughs. Amphibian : I see you love to laugh. So what's your perspective on human insanity? Haykal : I don't see the link here but i guess that sometimes insanity has got a part to play in being a genius. Go watch K-PAX and you'll know what i mean. Amphibian : Interesting. That aside you're pretty much a loner. Writing music and everything has always been a personal moment to yourself. What's with that mentality? Haykal : Oh well i love to think of it as that when you write a song it's best that you don't sit near songs being played. Because to me a song means a lot of things in it. It's something you love because you created it. Of course i'm being pretty much contradicting myself here because there are songs i wrote which i really hated. When i write a song, i like to do it when nothing is near me. Let there be space. Don't listen to songs by other people for days and days and just sit and write a song. Because when you are near songs when you write a song, you'll be influenced to write it that way. So i prefer to keep myself a safe distance from the things around me. Amphibian : So you don't like fish? Haykal : I love Long John Silvers if that answers it. -laughs Amphibian : So moving on. There's the bla bla bla and the yada yada yada and then Band Alert and Asian Beat. Tell me more about those encounters. Haykal : Band Alert was not a serious thing. Never has been. We just wanted to join for the fun of it. You know, get the experience for performing on stage running and stuff like that. Yup and i guess Tic-Tac brought us a long way in that year. We were very happy. I'm even more thrilled that Faizal and Raizan won the best guitar awards. So in Asian Beat -takes a deep breath- we decided to give it a try again and see how far we could go again. So i guess this time we got lucky and managed to grab the 1st prize thingy and also the drum award and the two guitar awards thing too. Pardon i didn't say the Best Drummer and Best Guitarist...ahh..there i've said it. Anyway that was the best thing that happened on in my life i guess. Amphibian : Before you move on, there was a K.L incident. what happened there? Haykal : Oh that. Well perhaps those over at K.L would have seen what happened but this is the actual story. I was really mad you know and the only thing i could have done was blow my top there and then. Anyway, we flew from Singapore to KL with our Hardcases! in hand. So we got to Malaysia, feeling so darn happy to be there. On the day of the sound check, some bands wasn't happy with us not using 'Yamaha' equipments. The matter was brought up and we were told to use the Yamaha stuffs there. Since my two cousins were using Ibanez and i was using my Fender bass, we weren't allowed to use them. Can you imagine that? All the way from Singapore and we're not allowed to use what we brought? We weren't even told of this and yet we got the blame and we had to change on the very last instance. So i told them that i wasn't happy and that i insisted on using our own stuffs. But they didn't agree to that so finally, our "manager" from Yamaha Singapore decided to come to a  middleground  with the people in K.L. So they said, grab a Yamaha sticker and have it pasted over the brands we were using. Now can you believe that? Wow! That was outrageous. So there i was dissing off our "manager" and telling him that if they didn't like what i had to say, by all means, send us back. I used some harsh words in front of people and the matter was brought up and they were going to send us back. I was more then happy. But then my cousin took the liberty of using the Yamaha stuffs there so after much persuasion, i carried on with the plan. Which is to paste a sticker over my Fender. But guess what, things just had to screw up again. Sound wasn't good said the engineer so i had to switch to the Yamaha "bass" that was there. I was really pissed off. But what could i do? Back off and let my band carry on? Nah...i didn't think so. So, Yamaha "bass" it was. Amphibian : So you've got lots of hate towards Yamaha? Haykal : It's a personal thing, i shan't spit it out here Amphibian : So aside from being in the quartet, what else are you up to? Haykal : I've been working on several songs. currently there's this Playful Minds thing racing across my head. It's where all my little albums i keep to myself are. Currently they are, Short Songs, Short Songs 2. Upcoming ones are Nice Things and Short Songs Sung (S3). It's really a fun thing to keep the mind thinking of. Amphibian : I see....so what do you see yourself doing in the future? Haykal : -laughs. I have planned on a major trip. I shall not say what or how but i'm sure it's gonna be a big thing! A BANG! I've planned it with my friends and they've agreed to join me. Amphibian : Anything else to say? A line or two? Haykal : Nothing much. For those who loves music...support the scene here too ayy! we need those support to get the band moving and motivated to work sometimes. And to those who love Long John Silvers, I'll see you down at the pub then matey! the report from amphibian.