Formed in 1998, Black was one of the first alternative rock bands in Bangladesh, producing a unique blend of rock music with hook-laden tunes and equivocal lyrics that stupefied the nation. The band started attaining immense popularity among the fans around the time of release of their second album, "Utshober Por." The band has released 4 albums so far and contributed many singles in various mixed albums. There have been several changes in the line-up of the band since its inception. Many a hearsay have been thrown around regarding the band and its change in line-ups, yet, the band stood tall through its hazy times and overcame the odds by living up to its name. To this day, Black stays strong and is continuing to perform on stage and recording albums.  Showbiz is humbled by the presence of the preeminent band and proud to present a fun and interactive session of rendezvous with Black.

Let's start with something basic. How did the name "Black" come about?

Back then, we were not sure what specific genre to pursue. The guitarist from our first line up, Asif, along with us was pondering on what to name our band. At that time we used listen to and cover songs by Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, White Snakes, etc. We noticed that all these bands had one thing in common: Colour. So Asif threw around the idea of naming the band Black and we all felt a positive vibe to it. There was no specific meaning behind the name; rather we believed it had a certain ambiguous character to it, just like our genre at that time. So we saw it to be befitting that we name our band Black.

Rubayet Chowdhury (Vocals & Guitars) and Charlz Francis (Bassist)

Which bands led to influence the sound of Black? 

LRB, Miles, Feelings have been our core influences, to name a few. There are many other bands that have been our inspiration. The thing is, we all have different tastes and influences and all together the influences have accumulated to the sound that we have today. 

It has become a sort of norm to release a three or four song album and digital releases rather than full-fledged solo albums. How are you taking this digitization process?

Change is inevitable. Back in our days CD was the optimum medium for album releases and ever since things have evolved. We believe these technological changes happen for the convenience of people, and in this case, for the fans because thanks to digitization they can have as many songs as they like without having to spend little or no money. So we think change will happen regardless of whether we like it or not, but we stand for change so we are taking this positively.

It has become very difficult to do music as a full time profession these days. Are you all involved in the corporate life alongside music and what are your thoughts on this issue?

We have been doing music as our passion alongside our corporate jobs. The music scene, especially the rock music scene is very challenging place to adapt a full-time job because society, even to this day, has not been able to completely accept the concept of rock/metal music. Another thing that further add to this problem is the lack of bonding between artists, especially from what we have noticed, the new generation of musicians. If we could have helped each other out more often, maybe a solution could have come about on how to tackle this problem. 

Mehmood Afridi Tony (Drums) and Khademul Jahan (Guitars)

What can the fans expect from Black in the coming days?

We are working on our next album as we speak. Some of the vocal lines and extra guitar parts are left to record to complete our next album. There will be 8-9 songs in this album and we are planning to get done with the mixing and mastering process during the month of June and hopefully release the album after Eid. The audience can expect changes in the album in terms of the sound since we have a very diverse band line-up now. The album will comprise of various guest musicians; we came up with the idea so that we can add dimensions to the quality of the album. We found it interesting and hopefully the sound will come to the fans as an upbeat change! We can assure one thing: the sound will be completely different from our previous albums. One more thing, for the fans that enjoy the sound of old-school Black, they are in for a treat because we have kept few songs in this album that resemble Black's vintage style.



By Syed Ahnaf Sadeed