Zarir Warden of ONEmpire is feeling on top of the world. He has just released a brand new single What’s Going On that is a must hear. It’s got some fab lyrics with a catchy hook that gives this a truly international flavour. “When the world falls down, all that you’re left with, is pieces”…. Wow this is some good punch in a long time. A lot of time, energy and hard work has gone into making this new music and the video.

Launched a few days ago, Warden is excited about the new track. At first listen, it has all the ingredients of a hit in the making.

Verus Ferreira chats up with the singer to know more about his new single, the video and what he and his band are doing.

When we last interviewed you as a band sometime back, you had mentioned you were to get a top producer in India and someone in Canada to work on some new stuff?  So has this now happened with the new single What’s Going On?

So for ONEmpire and my current solo project, I have worked with the same producer based in Toronto, Canada. His name is Benjamin (Ben) Pelchat and he’s a co-owner of Kensington Sound Studios in Toronto. The difference with the ONEmpire EP was that along with Ben, we had Loy Mendonsa (of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy) working with us on the entire songwriting process as well. For this project, it is just Ben and myself.

How did the writing process for the song come about?

Honestly, I’m someone who thinks and sometimes even over-thinks things a lot. I remember for this particular song, there was a day sometime initially during the lockdown, where we were hearing some bad news and things were starting to get a bit intense and scary to a point, and I remember just sitting at some point and, in my head, saying “What the hell is going on?”, “Why is this happening”, “How is this happening”, “What’s going to happen?”.. And I started to just pen down some thoughts, generic ones at that, about various things going on around us and before I knew it, I had verses to the song, The chorus was something that Ben and I discussed and worked on together, and went back and forth a bit on as well, as we knew it had to be something really catchy with a good hook and melody. And very soon, we had the lyrics and arrangement down,

So what is the song What’s Going On all about?

In a very generic sense, it is about various things going on around us today. The first line of the song, “The world is changing, and what are we doing”…. It’s basically about addressing some fairly obvious aspects of today’s changes and speaking about coming together and finding answers. Hence the chorus lyrics, “When the world falls down, all that we’re left with is pieces; But if we look around & come together, we can answer, What’s going on?”

How was it working with a producer in Canada considering the time difference?  

This was THE most interesting, challenging and fun part of this project. So this is the first time that I’m working on a project like this outside the band. It’s me really stepping out my comfort zone and trying to do something different and a lot of it is with musicians I’ve never met or even really spoken to before. So, firstly the musicians that I’ve worked with deserve a special mention, there’s producer Benjamin (Ben) Pelchat, drummer Chris Sutherland, on keys Vezi Tayyeb and on backing vocalist Denver Haylee.

The music video for What’s Going On sees just you in the video, devoid of any images of the pandemic, compared to what you are talking about. Comment.

I feel there’s so much of that going around anyway. Honestly, I did think of doing that initially, but then I thought to myself that so many people are doing that now and there’s enough news and content being shown 24/7 on various platforms which shows these images, and I just wanted it to be something different. Wanted it to be intimate like I was having a face to face conversation with the viewer. Hence, I decided to do something like this. I literally shot it on my Samsung phone and gave it to a colleague of mine Siddhi, who runs a company called The Orange Booth, to edit, and another colleague Chinmay, who added in the lyrics in the video.

You also worked from your home studio. What kind of setup do you have?

As basic as basic can be honestly. I have small Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 soundcard, a beautiful Neumann TLM 102 microphone; an SE vocal shield to place in front of the microphone, so as to contain the sound a bit, a pop filter and my DAW is Ableton Live 10. So nothing super fancy. I’ve actually learnt the basics of recording and production during this lockdown itself, just by watching various tutorials on YouTube and doing my best by practicing and working at it.

With many a musician doing a song on the Pandemic, how different can you say your work is from another?

So, I don’t think my song is actually just about the pandemic. That’s what I meant by writing about it fairly generically. If you think about it, the lyrics in the song speak about “love turning to hatred”, “dreams being broken” , “some lives having no meaning”, … so these are actually fairly generic points about things happening around us right now. Of course, the major change of the lockdown and pandemic is how the song starts off by saying “the world is changing….”. So I feel it is different in that regard as it’s not completely specific to the pandemic. In addition to that, I feel that the overall sound and vibe of it is a bit different too as, rather than a sad song, I feel it’s one that’s motivating people to come together and be smart and rational and look for solutions. Also, ironically enough, the song released on 9/11. So I think it is very generic for everything around the world honestly, because there really is a lot going on, and has been for a while.

Now that you’ve released a debut single under your own name, is it a solo career for you from now on.

No, that’s not something that I’m thinking of honestly. My band ONEmpire is very much around and like I said, hopefully will continue to be around for a long time. We all work extremely hard and in fact very recently, we won the award for ‘Best Live band in India at weddings and social events’ at the 2020 WOW Awards Asia Event. So that’s not going to change. This is a project that I’m working on simultaneously and honestly, the way things are right now, only time will tell which direction things are going to move in. It’ll be interesting to see the response that I get for this project though… I’m nervous and excited about that.

Do you also plan to release more singles in the months ahead?

With regards to the releases, the plan is to release two more singles before the end of the year, each having a gap of about 40-45 days between them. The reason is consistency… I want people to listen to one song and then look forward to what’s to come next. The big picture is to release about four or five 3-4 song EP’s, in the form of singles, over the next two years. Of course, that depends on a lot of various factors as well but ideally, that’s the plan. For now, I’m just focusing on this first one with the first 3 songs.

Going back two years ago, your band ONEmpire opened for One Republic in 2018. How did this gig happen for you and what was it like to perform for One Republic, a band who also shares part of your band name

You know, it’s so funny actually. When we were brainstorming and thinking of a new name for the band during our re-brand, ONEmpire was one of three names shortlisted. And I remember joking at that time saying, “Can you imagine if we ever had to open for One Republic or One Direction? How crazy would that be?!” And literally one year later, One Republic announced their concert and we got chosen to be the opening act and that was just wow. That band is phenomenal. The musicians are so talented and their music is so good. This gig happened because as soon as I heard that they were coming, I took it upon myself to do everything in my control to land that opening slot. So I found out that the promoter was (Cyrus Gorimar), got his number contacted him… He was very sweet and asked me to send in our material which I did immediately. He then sent the same to the PR team for this event (DNH Media) who forwarded it all to the band’s management and literally in less than 24 hours; we got a reply saying that the management really liked it and approved us as the opening act. So honestly, it all happened very quickly and I was so thrilled that day.

Did you guys get a chance to spend some time with them?

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hang with them, but we did say a quick hello and we did hang out with a few of their team members. I remember, after we got off stage and before they went on stage, their guitarist Drew Brown and his wife came up to me and said they wanted a picture with me. And my reaction was that of utter happiness but utter confusion at the same time. And I was like “YOU want a picture with ME?!” So that was pretty funny, but meant a lot. Obviously we did something right that day. Our team was outstanding on the day. Our sound check time got cut short majorly because of some delays, but our team of engineers just pulled everything together literally within minutes. It was outstanding.

So what’s up with the band ONEmpire?

The band is doing really well, touch wood. As mentioned earlier, in 2019 we won the runner-up award for ‘Best live act in India for weddings’ at the Wedding Sutra 2019 Influencer Awards, and this year just a couple of weeks ago actually, we won the award for ‘Best live act in India for weddings & social events’ at the WOW Awards Asia event. Honestly this last season that just went by October 2019 to March 2020, was easily one of the best seasons we’ve had till date. We were lucky enough to perform at a lot of events and weddings and parties as well as travel to some beautiful places. It was exhausting but we loved every minute of it.

So as a band what music have you released lately?

With regards to new music, we have released three songs over the past 3 years. The three are ‘Shine a light’, ‘Run to you’ and ‘Run the world’. We do have one more that is ready that we are looking to release which will probably happen before the yearend or definitely first half of next year.

Interviewed by Verus Ferreira