If you ever meet the Asian Dub Foundation (ADF), don’t call their music political.
Expert genre-blenders, ADF take elements of dub, ragga, hip hop, bhangra, dancehall, and a generous selection of the spectrum of styles in between, to create their own unique brand of music.
With their long history and specific way of doing things, lead guitarist Steve Chandra Savale reckons ADF has grown to be a genre of its own. “We go against the grain, naturally and without even thinking about it. A genuinely radical, musical organisation with a different perspective, with our own viewpoint that informs everything we do. I think some of the most interesting music has been like that; where the music, the sound and the philosophy is all one.”
During an interview with Soundsphere Magazine in 2011, following the release of their album ‘A History Of Now’, the interviewer queried Chandra if ADF would take a break from their politically-motivated back catalogue. Chandra said: “We’ve been trying to get away from feeling the need to have a mission statement. I think on the next one, I don’t think there will be, I think it will loosen up.”
When asked his feelings about this now with another record ('More Signal, More Noise') to their credit, Chandra’s recollection was different to the Soundsphere reporter. “I don’t think I said that. I was definitely misquoted. That’s crap. I’ve never looked at it like that. It’s not a political band, it’s not political music. We just happen to write about certain things and not censor it.”
Coming from a band who campaigned to have wrongfully convicted Satpal Ram released from prison, and who write about such topics as racism, domestic violence, the ‘war on terror’ and asylum seekers, this distaste for the word ‘political’ is puzzling.
However, Chandra has his own ideas about what constitutes political music. “Justin Bieber is political. He is massively political in my opinion. There’s an end-game there, to encourage a particular kind of consumption. It’s about preserving the status quo and using psycho-sexual manipulation in order to make bucks. What’s more political than that? That’s a combination of Freud and Marx isn’t it? Exploiting emergent female sexuality to the max. It’s not overtly political but the most successful political messages usually are clandestine.”
With this being his definition of ‘political music’, it becomes apparent why he finds the term so contrary to what ADF produce. “Our music is out there for you to use and get into and relate to as you want. We’re not politicians. We don’t want to be. I don’t even want to be an activist. I can’t stand that stuff, I’m just not good at it. So I decided to do music instead, to express how I feel about the world.
“The last thing I want to do is tell anyone how to change whatever it is they want to change. In fact, that’s what we don’t want. We don’t want people telling people how to do things in some centralised way, handing down manifestos and ‘this is the way you must do it'.”
While Chandra is concerned about the susceptibility of young minds to agenda-laden pop music, he takes a determined step back from being any kind of role model. “I can’t even tie my shoelaces. I’m very much the scatty musician. And a bookworm. Don’t look to me as some kind of icon, please, don’t look up to anybody. Just use that interaction, that relationship to the music to enrich what you think and what you feel. Don’t think anybody has the answers because they don’t. Nobody has all the answers.”
Asian Dub Foundation play WOMADelaide 14 March.
