Young rockers rock music scene | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Young rockers rock music scene

By Shoaib Ahmed

LAHORE: The youngest rock band of the country comprising a brother-sister duo has rocked the rock music scene here.

The two young souls — 10-year-old Ali, a drummer, and his 16-year-old sister, Zoya, a vocalist – are working on their debut album which is expected to be launched in a couple of months.

Zoya Uzair and Ali Sultan stepped into music world some two years ago, and started off as an underground band ‘The Others’ in February, 2010.

However, Ali’s magical performance on drums and Zoya’s melodious voice soon brought them into mainstream.

Impressed by their talent, many mainstreams bands and solo performers like Strings, Atif Aslam, Call, Josh, Simat and Ali Azmat offered the duo to perform at their concerts as ‘openers’.

Zoya told this correspondent that she was also learning guitar at a private school along with singing.

“Me and my brother are inspired by Ali Azmat who is a rock music icon in Pakistan, and we will always love to perform as openers of his show,” said Zoya.

The young vocalist said she was studying at the Lahore Grammar School along with pursuing her passion for singing.

“We are composing our first album featuring four original numbers – one in Persian, one in Urdu and the remaining two in English.”

The young musicians are also planning to launch their first music video in June that will be based on one of their four compositions. “We are inspired by Guns and Roses, Brian Adams, Pink Floyd, Coven and Ali Azmat,” she said.

The promising vocalist also performed at the All Pakistan Music Conference in 2006 and 2007. Besides singing, she loves swimming and won a gold medal in Punjab Olympics Swimming Competition-2008.

Ali told Dawn that on his sixth birthday his parents gifted him a pair of drums and he enjoyed beating it a lot.

For six months the little maestro took lessons in drumming from Zubair, a drummer in the music regiment of singer Ali Zafar.

About their first public performance, Ali said: “In February 2010 we presented our first performance in a café and we had a huge response.”

He is proud of the fact that he and his sister were invited as judges at LSE Idol last month. “We perform all kinds of music such as classical, rock, hard rock and metal rock,” he said.

Being a young musician, Zoya regrets that many good underground bands don’t have any recognition.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/5/2011