| The following is the interview
TEE-M gave to Kenneth Hamlett, publisher,
UNSIGNED Magazine. The Largest Magazine Dedicated to Indie Music,
based out of Atlanta GA. It appeared in the Oct.'05 issue. http://www.unsignedmusicmag.com
We find out from TEE-M what EARTHIOTIC
means
RED HOT - TEE-M
Tariq Mirza, aka TEE-M, was born in Pakistan
and as a child listened to
some of the classic rock and roll artists of the day. UNSIGNED
spoke with
TEE-M about growing up in Karachi and how he made the transition
from Pakistan's culture
to the U.S.A's. We also learned his inspiration behind New Orleans.
TEE-M is having a documentary made about his life and the indie
music scene
by filmmaker Lisa Scott.
UNSIGNED's RED HOT artist for October is TEE-M. Based in California,
TEE-M
is carving out a niche as a very solid singer/songwriter. TEE-M
has been listed
as one of the hot 100 unsigned artists in Music Connection magazine
FIVE YEARS IN A ROW!
EARTHIOTIC...songsfromaoneroompalace is TEE-M's latest release
and it is filled with wonderful rock and roll gems.
TEE-M - radio personality, highly skilled
singer/songwriter and earthiotic! Tariq Mirza,
otherwise known as TEE-M is one
of California's most beloved indie artists.
He has been on the Music Connection
Top 100 Unsigned Artists list five years in a
row and audiences and critics love his eclectic
musical style. He goes from from classic rock to
songs inspired by his native Pakistan. Whatever
songs he's singing, TEE-M delivers with soul,
inspiration and heart. His latest release,
EARTHIOTIC...songsfromaoneroompalace, is full
of great classic rock inspired songs. There is
one cut that you must listen to, New Orleans,
if you've been there, you'll know why you need to hear
this song, given the recent events in the southeast.
There's also Man Without A Country, inspired by the
real life story of Merhan Karimi Nassiri - a man stuck
in Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport for more than
sixteen years! TEE-M is a wonderful person and his
songs reflect his attitude about life and humanity.
What was it like growing up in
Karachi and when did you make the move from Pakistan to the
U.S.?
Karachi is the largest city in Pakistan, with a seaport (Arabian
Sea) and an international airport, it's a very cosmopolitan
city. At an early age I was exposed to a lotta different people
and sounds from around the globe, I guess it prepared me good
to tackle a city like
Los Angeles. :)
I moved to the U.S. early-mid seventies, Grand Rapids, Michigan
was the first city I lived in,
too cold, so after my first semester I moved to Dallas, Texas,
where I became a big fan of the Dallas Cowboys, and still am
to this day.
As a child, what were some of
your favorite songs?
My earliest memories of hearing rock 'n roll was listening to
and really liking what my older brothers and cousins were playing,
things like "Rock Around the Clock," "Shake,
Rattle and Roll" by Bill Haley, "Sixteen Tons"
Tennessee Ernie Ford, Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock" and
then I started listening to The Shadows, they were an instrumental
band from England, Hank B. Marvin was their guitar player, loved
his playing and sound, songs like "Apache" that was
the first tune I learnt on the guitar and "Savage."
The Shadows were also the back-up band for Cliff Richard whose
"We Say Yeah," "Living Doll" and "The
Next Time" were some of my favorites. The Ventures, "Walk
Don't Run," "Pipe Line" and "Let's Go,"
then The Beatles came along and it was all over.
 When
did you decide that western music was what you wanted to perform?
It just so happened that a cousin of mine who played and owned
a guitar had to leave
Karachi and went for some higher studies abroad, but he left
his guitar behind for me.
Since then I just taught myself everything I could and would
listen to a lot of pop music through
short-wave radio around the world. Gradually I started singing
and joined my first band
The Hill-Toppers which eventually became The 21st Century...yes!
we were thinking ahead.
Guitar is a very cool instrument, and girls love it, that was
the biggest reason to play music :)
You are a very solid songwriter.
What songwriters influenced your songwriting style?
Oh! thank you...I would say, Lennon-McCartney along with George
Harrison, when I first learnt
that the Beatles were not trained musicians, I thought to myself,
wow! that's magic, I'd like to get that someday and so here
I am still trying to find that magic. Hank Williams, I was exposed
to him in Texas, thanks to a professor of mine (not music),
I learnt simplicity from Hank.
Bob Dylan, the only songwriter that scares the hell out of me,
what a body of work...amazing!
The cousin that left his guitar for me back when I was a kid,
once had a cut-out made of this guy with a funny shaped guitar,
I asked him who is that? he said it's Bo Diddley, Bo's vodoo
beat was reaching far and wide...now tell me Who Do You Luv?...Willie
Dixon, some of the great blues songs are written by him. John
Fogerty (CCR) I met him, a real cool cat, great rock voice and
songs. James Brown, I once wrote a song "Thinkin' 'Bout
James Brown" when he was slammed, he still keeps making
news in that sense. Simon and Garfunkel, loved their harmonies
and Paul's songs. Holland-Dozier-Holland, seemed like every
Motown hit were written by them, it was such a pleasure meeting
Lamont Dozier, and the late great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the
qawali man from Pakistan, more for his voice and performances.
I really dig the title of your
CD, EARTHIOTIC...songsfromaoneroompalace.
Where did you come up with that title?
Right on! :) Well, with everything that's going on, on our planet,
and since I've been of age,
it seems like there have been all these conflicts that are never
ending, and new ones keep croping up and lately there have been
a lotta talk about patriotism. So I thought of earthiotic
as oppose to patriotic...because once we become an earthiotic
person, than everything falls under that. Patriotic seems too
small and selfish in this day and age, I feel, we as people
are a lot bigger than that.
There's no such word as earthiotic, which is quite surprising,
so I'm hoping that somewhere down the road Webster's and Oxford
dictionaries would add earthiotic to our vocabulary. Let's give
the kids one extra word to learn...this, coming from a guy who
hated school. :)
Anyway, that's the big picture and now we come to the sub-title.
When I first moved in my current apartment, which is very close
to the ocean
here in beautiful, sunny Santa Monica, California, I started
calling it my one room palace, hence...songsfromaoneroompalace!!
I noticed you had a few songs
on the record that were sung in your native language.
Was it difficult incorporating all the material together on
the record?
Not really...as we were getting close to finishing the 16 songs,
I was already getting the sequencing in my head...Geoff Tyson
who I co-produced the CD with, is a very passionate
musician, and other musician's like Albert Reyes the bass man,
Mike Oristian who played the harmonium, Brandon Schott, accordion,
Stefano Ashbridge drums on some tracks and Meena Makhijani who
played the tablas, they all did a great job especially on the
songs with the eastern touches and they made it their own. Btw
the language is Urdu, which is spoken in Pakistan and India.
Aao, Aao, Aao means come, come, come and is a song that was
inspired by my mom's cooking and Yahrah means friend, pal.
Have you been fortunate enough
to meet Merhan Karimi Nassiri? The inspiration behind Man Without
a Country.
No, I wish I could, I would at least like to hand him the single,
let him know that hey, somebody wrote a song for him in '95
long before Tom Hanks and Speilberg made that movie Terminal
inspired by him in 2004. Merhan's "Alfred" story is
one of the most bizarre ones out there. The guy has been sitting
at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris for more than 16 years
now.
The song New Orleans seems very
fitting right now considering the events brought
on by hurricane Katrina. Does New Orleans have a special place
in your heart?
Of all the cities that I've been to here in the U.S. New Orleans,
has been the most inspiring,
and I was there for only two or three days, it wasn't even the
Mardi Gras...the people and the spirit of that city was so cool,
it was so genuine.
So it was really disheartening to see the havoc Katrina did
and then the sorry response to that was most mind-boggling...I
mean this is the United States Of America with all the resources
and brain power in the world...Adversity is a true test of our
strengths as individuals, as family, as nations and as people
living on this planet...The Big Easy has to come back.
How did you get involved with
WPMD? And tell us about your show.
I met Mike Stark host of "Rock 50" on WPMD in the
early 90's here in L.A. through an organization called Music
Alliance which was put together by Lee Ballinger, (Associate
Editor of Rock and Rap Confidential), when I was doing a thing
called TEE-M and a Drummer.
We hit it off right away, and since then Mike has been a big
supporter of TEE-M music.
But in the mid 90's I dropped out of the music scene for a few
years and Mike and I lost touch.
Then one day about a couple of years ago, Mike was watching
this short-film, The Ultimate Song, that had people like Springsteen,
Ice T, Tom Morello, Wayne Kramer and Steve Earle
and out popped TEE-M on the screen, and Mike went oh! where
has this guy been, so he got in touch with me after that. He's
had this show "Rock 50" live on http://wpmd.org
out of Cerritos College since about three years. He invited
me a couple of times over for an interview and live performance.
The last time I was there in early 2004, I asked Mike if I could
play some cd tracks of other unsigned bands, that I had taken
along with me to the station. After the
second song he said to me, hey TEE-M do you wanna do this, like
once a month. I said hell yeh! So that's how "TEE-M's UNsigned
Music Show" was born and it's spreading worldwide.
We usually get a couple of live performers on every show besides
the recorded music. Last April was the first anniversary of
the show, we had fourteen performers, ending with an all-star
UNsigned finale of my song Aao, Aao, Aao. The party was a blast,
some great performances!
If any of your unsigned readers wanna send their music, please
go onto my site
www.tee-m.com click on the UNsigned show, scroll to the bottom,
the submission address is there. The show happens once a month
live, but it replays 3 times daily, 7am, 3pm, and 11pm
(pst) on the alternative stream http://wpmd.org/unsigned
Mike's show happens live every Sat.11am-1pm (pst) and just like
he has me over once a month, he also gets Bill Ward drummer
of Black Sabbath who does his thing, plays his favorites. (Btw
Mike Stark is also the author of, Black Sabbath: An Oral History
besides being the West Coast producer of the nationally syndicated
Tom Joyner Morning Show). So please check it out.
You've made the Music Connections
top 100 Unsigned Artists five years in a row.
What do you think it is about your sound that people dig?
Man! when I look back, five years in a row does seem like a
long time now, and a lotta work.
I'm so thankful to the people at Music Connection for the honor...so
I have respectfully asked MC to withdraw my name from the list
this year on, and instead I would be very happy if they would
give it to some artist or band that has never been selected.
It's a great thrill to be on that list and believe me it's not
easy to be on there. Besides I feel like Music Connection and
TEE-M have made their point, if the music industry does not
wanna wake up, well than let them sleep, they're doing a great
job at it. :)
I guess people are getting into the songs because they are about
real people and places,
and the songs are easy to sing along too...I think they feel
that I have a legitimate
rock 'n roll case. Lot of rock 'n roll stories have inspired
me and I hope to do the same for a lotta people all over the
world.
How well has the album been received?
This is an independent release without any advertising budget,
so considering that,
it's doing quite well and the word of mouth is what really helps
an indie release too.
It's getting rave reviews, one of the very well known beach
bar and grill The Venice Whaler has put EARTHIOTIC...on two
of it's jukeboxes, replacing a signed artist...not bad for an
unsigned artist. I'm giving you an interview and you're in Atlanta,
so this goes to show that the EARTHIOTIC...movement is spreading.
I wanna thank you guys for all of this, The Unsigned Magazine
is a neat idea and you
guys are doing a great job, I feel a lot of passion from your
end, and that's what music is all about.
What's on the horizon for TEE-M?
Well, the band just made it's debut at Music Connection showcase,
now we are getting
ready to do more shows. I'm planning a tour and a visit to Pakistan
in December-January,
take a few band members out their too. Possibily have a reunion
show of my band
21st Century in Karachi, the members are spread out all over
the globe. But we've been in touch and have located each other,
some of them have charted accountant firms, some business authors,
and some with business adventures all over. So I'm gonna see
if I could get all of these guys to put their brain power and
take TEE-M's EARTHIOTIC...songfromaoneroompalace to the rest
of the pop loving households on the planet, in the real 21st
Century :) Think big thoughts but enjoy small pleasures.
Filmmaker Lisa Scott is also making a documentary on TEE-M and
the independent music scene called "You Go On" which
is track 15 on my CD. Expected release spring 2006.
How can readers get in touch with you?
www.tee-m.com
If you could tour any country
in the world, what country would you tour?
It'll have to be England, after America that's the place, I
can't believe how small it is
with so much pop music history. In a week one could tour the
whole country.
Describe your music in three words
or less.
Eclectic...
Please visit CDbaby and pick up TEE-M's album
EARTHIOTIC...you'll be glad the day you did. Also,
check out his show on WPMD.org and hit up his
website too, he's a great guy and you'll love his music.
EARTHIOTIC...is available from anywhere on the globe
from www.cdbaby.com/teem
www.tee-m.com
Photo's by: Bernard
Baur |
