An ‘Easier’ debut for DAMEER

Photo: Sheikh Mehedi Morshed

18 year old Dameer Khan, son of seasoned musician Pilu Khan, made news when he signed up for Majestic Causal Records, a European label. His song, Easier, made waves in the indie circuit last year, and the music video recently debuted with much critical acclaim. The Daily Star talks to the young musician about his music, philosophy and future plans.              

What inspired you to write ‘Easier’?

I was just experimenting with different sounds, and I had come up with the guitar riff for Easier spontaneously before. I was really into the indie-rock wave that was prevalent at the time, and I reckon that influenced my sound a lot. A part of the reason that I started writing lyrics, is to do with me being out of my country. I moved to Kuala Lumpur about two years ago, and being away from home made me feel expressive. Easier was my first attempt at proper songwriting.

The music video is already a hit with the audience, who came up with the concept?

The concept for the video was cinematographic, rather than it being a narrative. My friends Taha, Saif and I exchanged images or other videos that we thought captured a certain vibe that we liked, with lots of spontaneous improvisation. We created a surreal representation of Dhaka. We never had much of a ‘story’ in mind in particular, but we knew what emotions we wanted our audience to feel. I made some of the best memories I have in that week that we shot the video. I had never carried out such an elaborate project, and it was so spontaneous too. We all clicked instantly, we all wanted to portray these emotions of urban disassociation, romantic guilt and loss.

Do you consider yourself an ‘indie’ musician? If yes, what defines ‘indie’?

The indie genre has had different defining features throughout the past few decades, and I am sure that it will change again. It used to just mean that you’re ‘independent’ of labels, but now it pertains a whole aesthetic, particular chord selections, particular narrative choices. I am not sure where I fall within all that, but it is easy to see some influence from this aesthetic in my music. If anything, I do consider myself as a singer-songwriter and hope to carry on writing more like Easier!

What are your plans for future releases?

Right now, I am working on an EP (Extended Play) and a few more singles, the next one should be out by the end of this summer.

Will you make music in Bangla in the near future?

I will most definitely write in Bangla, one of my main aims is to also make Bangla appealing to international audiences, so the songs will be in a certain sound and a vibe that has never been explored in the Bangladeshi scene. After moving to Kuala Lumpur, I realised how charmingly eccentric our country is, for better or for worse. I realised that I had been taking all these idiosyncrasies for granted. I have a budding, deep love and immense curiosity towards the city and I really want to represent it on an international level. It would be a disservice to not have some of that representation in our mother tongue. I have a lot left to explore, with myself, and with Dhaka, the city I love.