‘I don’t think of my past with Atif’

Goher Mumtaz, member of Pakistan’s popular pop band, Jal, says the band has moved on after lead singer Atif Aslam turned to Bollywood. Read on.

After hitting the high notes of popularity and consequently splitting up, Pakistani pop band Jal will release their third album in India sometime this year. Three years since the band split up, it is ready with a different sound. “Our new album is ready,” says Goher Mumtaz, founder member of the band. “We have set up a new home studio and have mixed our tracks on our own. We are not Sufi pop any more, like we had been termed earlier.”

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Bearing the brunt

The new sound will be a marked departure for the band, which was the highest grossing Indipop outfit in the country till 2007. The band’s popularity soared on the back of its unique combination of Sufi pop and great looks. But post their second album,

Boondh

, which released in 2007, things began to unravel. Following a major misunderstanding, the band split and lead singer Atif Aslam walked out.

“

Boondh

had just released and we were on a high,” says Mumtaz, who co-founded the band along with Aslam in 2002. “The fact that we were splitting up posed this big question on our fate. We bore the benefits and the brunt of popularity.”

Focussed on the future

But Mumtaz says the band has recovered from that setback and is firmly focussed on the future. “I don’t really think about my past with Atif. We were college friends. I don’t ever regret that he became a huge hit after singing songs like

Aadat

and

Lamhay

that I had composed and written,” he says.

In the new line-up, Mumtaz and new member Farhan Saeed have replaced Aslam on vocals and Aamir Sheraz has taken over the bass. “We sound totally different,” says Mumtaz. “So change is a good thing. This evolution wouldn’t have happened otherwise.”