Mekaal Hasan, the front-Line musician from Pakistan is the lead guitarist and producer of the musically acclaimed band, which goes by his own name, Mekaal Hasan Band (MHB). He also switches roles as the guest bassist for Junoon along with producing for other bands at his studio, Digital Fidelity. He has coincidently been the mastermind behind 'eP', 'Noori', 'Jal' and many other bands' success. He shared a few words with Omer Khattab recently, during his performance with Junoon in Dubai.

What was the feeling like to be performing in Dubai with a band like Junoon and what was the extent of your involvement?
It feels fine. It's really Junoon's gig that brought me here (Dubai). I never really thought about it in sense that I'm replacing Brian. For me it's not a replacement, it's more like being just a guest bassist for Junoon. I'm playing for them till they want me to. If you ask how it is to play for Junoon, all I would say is that it's quiet all right. It's a gig like any other. It's fun because we're friends. I met them during the recordings of Parwaaz, which was recorded at my studios Digital Fidelity. But I've known Ali for a long time because we live relatively in the same area.

You've contributed quiet a lot lately with EP's album, Noori's album, Jal's Addat, the single and your album as well. Still not many people know of you.
I am not very media savvy, so to say. You wouldn't see me doing a lot of interviews. It's because there's nothing much to say if the listener, himself, can't make out if someone is good or not by just listening to the record.

MHB is known to be an excellent live act. How often do u practice?
Everybody rehearses very hard. I make the band rehearse a week before a major event has to happen. Otherwise, everybody does do individual practice. Plus, all of us are professional musicians who play quiet often. The vocalist has his own stuff going on, the flute player, Pappu, plays with a lot of people. They are quiet experienced players.

You seem to have a nasty reputation but people who work with you always come back to you. How do you explain that?
Basically when people come to me, they want to get a job done. Most of the musicians who come to me don't exactly know what they are playing, so I do give them a tough time. They hire me to get a job done, not to make them feel good about themselves as musicians, or being good friends. If they can't handle criticism, they shouldn't be in the studios in the first place. This is something professional it's not a joke. I'm not here to make them feel good about themselves as people; I'm there to get a good performance out of them.

What are your comments about the new studios springing up in Pakistan? Competition of sorts?
All I know is that it's funny that with all these other studios, ultimately, everyone ends up coming to our studios to get their recordings done. Even those who have studios. It's that they ask us to help them with drums or if they want help with mixing, so they us to do that. That's even the case with Noori, they have a studio of their own, but I end up doing the mixing for Noori.

Who's been the most professional artist to work with?
Noori, no doubt about it. Ali Noor is a professional guy and he works really hard. He's very organized and he has a very clear idea of what he wants to do and what he wants. Other than that, he is a very good singer. Same goes for Ali Hamza. He's also a very talented person. It's a lot of fun for me to work with these guys. The reason being that they're well prepared before entering the studios. With other musicians, they can't play their parts and other musicians end up playing for them. I am not going to take names but that happens a lot that a certain musician would play a band or artist but his name is nowhere to be seen in the credits.

Couldn't you come with another name for the band?
The concept in this part of the world and back home is that a certain band is linked to the singer. But that's not the case in the west or elsewhere. But when someone's singing writing all the material, from the album's design, lyrics, melodies, arrangement, production and any thing else related to the album, then it's pretty much your band. It's your call at the end of the day. The type of the stuff, which Javed does, the vocalist, it's entirely different from what you hear him doing in the band.

Anything new by MHB?
Presently I am working on Noori's album in the studios. It's going to be done by May hopefully and MHB's new record would be completed by September.