[ STRINGS ARTICLE - THE PAKISTANI DUO FAISAL & BILAL ]

The Pakistani duo of Faisal and Bilal have moved from the college kids image that they initially had in 1990 to a leading mature, hard core band named ‘Strings’. This is not an overnight transformation. They have evolved over a period of 13 years in the pop-rock industry. Their hit singles like Sar kiyae yeh pahaar and Duur has appealed immensely to the masses. They enjoy a huge fan following which is spread across England, North America, the Middle East and the sub-continent.
They recently launched their new album Dhaani and had a promotional concert in Bangalore on Wednesday. The album is a blend of ethnic Indian sounds to the world of funk, jazz, rock, world music and dance. “The meaning of ‘Dhaani’ is light green colour, which represents a symbol of freshness as we believe that the album has a very fresh sound,” says Bilal.

“What we are playing can be called pop-rock, an electronic sound with dominating guitars,” said Faisal speaking to Metrolife, earlier in the day.

When asked about influence of western bands on Strings, Faisal says, “Strings, unlike many other bands, was never formed on the basis of cover songs, and we always did original songs. We just did our own thing and never copied any particular singer. Our first show was a school concert and we performed five original songs.”

Track number five on the album, Dhaani is Bolo Bolo is collaboration between the duo and Hariharan of Colonial Cousins fame. “When we finished doing this song, we felt that there is some classical element to this song like the thumri and so we approched Hariharan to collaborate on the song.”

“The song ‘Pal’ with Sagarika was a project of Channel [V] and we did the song in three days,” says Faisal.In addition to an audience of 20,000 fans at Chandigarh Channel [V] concert and a cheering crowd of 14,000 at Pune-India for a B4U concert; Strings recently performed live in England at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall. They have performed at events like Zee Cine awards, Lux Style Awards, Shekar Suman's Movers and Shakers, Govinda's Jeeto Chapar Phar Kay.

Does Bollywood beckon them ? “Yes, of course,” says Faizal, “If there are projects in which we can perform, we would like to, but we prefer to avoid music direction.”