Dig It! Magazine

I had the pleasure to interview Sameer Khan of Karma Sheen who is probably one of the most humble people in the scene. 

I did expect a lot from Karma Sheen as the members are all in different kinds of bands, Flare Voyant, Creeping Jean, Soviet Underground in a completely different band that managed to show something new and exciting for everyone to see. Mixing psychedelia with Hindustani elements creating a lovely atmosphere wherever they play. Karma Sheen definitely deserves a bigger stage and audience!

How are you after this amazing gig?

Sameer: Humbled is the word that I definitely feel after every show regardless if there was like a thousand people there or like a hundred people there or even less than that, it would still be humbling because there are people who have taken the time out to come and see us, to experience us and for us to give something back so if the one thing that I certainly say how I feel about the gig is humbled for sure!

How did the name Karma Sheen come about?  

Well, karma is obviously one of the Buddhist pillars and I always wanted to try to include something that was connected to my Pakistani roots and each of the letters that are in the alphabet when they are put together to form a word, each letter represents something. So if we say, for example martyr in english, the letter M doesn’t mean anything without the whole word you know, if anything it’s just a sound. The reason I chose the word martyr is because the word for martyr is shahid and the sheen means honour. So when I came up with Karma Sheen, it was more like a representation of like the West and the East, the karma and the sheen. So when we were designing the symbol, we designed it in a way where the K and Sheen were both together. So it had some sort of uniformity and is also to a degree, it was inspired a lot by Prince actually cause Prince said that he was the artist formerly known as Prince and he became the love symbol. I always wanted Karma Sheen to be like a symbol rather than a name. Like it could be a symbol for anything, whatever it is. But when you put the K in, in this context, the Sheen together and you read it from left to right from K Sheen, Karma Sheen it’s Karma’s honour. And if you read it the other way where it says Sheen Karma, it’s to honour karma. So that’s where Karma Sheen comes from. 

I was wondering if there was anything more behind it as it sounds like there’s a wordplay of some sort when you say it out loud 

*Laughs* I never really wondered about it. I mean, of course it was obvious to me. But you know, I guess I fell in love with it because there were so many little signs that came about, like karma is actually within my name as an anagram, you know, if you rearrange the letters, it says karma. And I chose the letter Sheen cause when I was a sermon, the priest actually spoke about the letter Sheen and what it means in the context of Shahada and everything like that. And that’s where it like really hit me! I put Karma Sheen cause I liked the way that the symbols looked and everything like that. So afterwards as we finalised the design and the idea, all of a sudden boom, I heard it in real life. And I was like, we’re keeping it now. You know, there’s much more depth to it than just the name. Because I think if I chose maybe Sameer Khan and The Somethings or The Sameer Khan Experience or something.. it just doesn’t slap for me, you know! Because I think with my background, my musical background and with my training and my devotion to the art of that, I guess I was always taught to be humble. I was always taught that music brings humility. And if you bring humility to music then it brings you a blessing so I’ve never wanted it to be like my name, I wanted it to be like a symbol of something and this made the most sense. And especially as we started to progress and we started to write songs and we started to play gigs, it just stuck with us the most! And I always say, you know Karma Sheen. Yeah, cause not everything is what it seems, you know what I mean?

How did you meet the current people you’re playing with? You have people from Creeping Jean, Flare Voyant, kind of like a super group!

*Laughs* I really appreciate you calling it a super group! It is a little bit like that, I guess. I met Rodrigo at a gig, he saw us, with the old version of Karma. He invited me for something else to sing with him, he was doing his own sitar covers and we then started our own group called The Sitar Service where we do Indian classical versions of rock songs. So he’s on sitar, I’m on vocals and we have our friend Anthony, also the drummer from Flare Voyant on drums. And we recorded an album and so on and so forth. And in the midst of all of that having this side project and stuff, I asked Rodrigo to join the band. I was on hiatus from this band actually.

As members left and then from that, we met Grisha because he’s also the bass player from Flare Voyant. And we met Aaron through another friend of ours who’s part of The Flamingos. His name is Karthik and he introduced us to Aaron. And one day we were having a problem with this looping pedal I used to use for one of the song called Sunflowers, and I said alright, I have a friend, he’s my childhood friend and he plays guitar so let’s bring him in for a few shows and let’s just see how it goes. And he joined us for a few shows and I wrote some different guitar parts, him and I came up with a couple of different things as well. And after those few shows, I asked him, I was like, oh, what do you think? You wanna join us full time? And that was the story of how Ahmad joined us really. So it’s a mixture of, you know, our like really, really close music friends, childhood friends. A connection through music, essentially. 

When was the point you decided to go with these guys to play with specifically?

Oh, well, it’s a continuous thing for me. Personally as I started the group 10 years ago, almost 10 years ago now, I actually never ever thought to myself, yes, OK, I’m gonna start this band with these guys. It was always like once I went on hiatus when my old pals Martin and Samuel, when they left to go to Berlin and Spain, I thought, OK, I’m just gonna do solo stuff. I did solo stuff and it was cool for a bit and then Rodrigo got involved, Aaron got involved, Grisha got involved, Ahmad got involved, and then it just kind of built from there. So it started off as a three piece band. People left, got some new people in, people left, new people in, went solo, then these guys joined. And then it was just a continuation, really. It was like, I always remember this title of when Metallica released Death Magnetic, like all those years ago. And I remember reading in Kerrang magazine: It’s not a comeback. It’s the return of the masters! and I actually always remembered that and I always joke about it, that it wasn’t a comeback. It was the return! *laughs* you know what I mean? And that’s what it feels like more than anything. So it was never really, oh, I’m gonna start the group like this. It was the return of the group being back to where it was. Well, actually ascending that even.

You have a bit of psychedelia, 60s and Hindustani with classical elements, who are your main influences? 

Honestly, if you’re asking me personally what my influences are, I can literally tell you there’s every genre of music apart from 2 which are psychedelic trance music, which I never hate, I never really hate music cause I always joke that music is like your partner, you don’t love everything about your partner. Sometimes you dislike a couple things, but those things that you dislike other people really like about them! And regardless of who you are, where you are, if you hear Britney Spears in a club and everyone’s going Hit me, baby one more time! you’re gonna be getting gassed with that as well! You’re gonna be sticking your hands up! And that is the part where you’re like, I don’t like this, but look at the faces of everybody! So that’s my viewpoint on genres of music and stuff like that in general. So psychedelic trance and Norwegian black metal, just those two I don’t really get on with, but Jimi Hendrix, is like my absolute everything. When I first discovered Hendrix, I didn’t listen to anything else apart from him exclusively for like three years. I heard like every version of Foxey Lady, every version of Wind Cries Mary, every version of Red House..Japanese editions, American editions, English editions, live versions all that kind of stuff. I’ve heard many different bootlegs of Hendrix and stuff like that. Just went down a massive rabbit hole because the way he played guitar, I was just so shocked, just couldn’t believe it even when I saw and I think I discovered him maybe when I was 22. When I was 22 and from there I went into the 60s psychedelia and then almost it was like I had a rebirth of the 60s and as I was growing up musically, I went from ’66 down to ’60 and then I hit the 70s and now I’m just kind of in between ’66 and probably maybe like ’77. I think like that’s the genre of music that like I really, really, really love and I could listen to almost anything from there and still be inspired. But then with my Hindustani classical background it all comes from my teachers.

I think the same with Grisha, our bass player. He loves a lot of music, a lot of Soviet rock. He has a project called Soviet Underground where they do lots of different covers of Soviet era rock songs and when you see people’s faces singing these songs again, it’s unbelievably superb. Ahmad is listening to a lot of Bollywood music and a lot of heavy metal music, so he loves those two, which is such a weird combination anyway, you know what I mean? Very eclectic. Rod, one thing I love about Rod is that he is unbelievably strict in his music taste. He knows he’s close minded, but what he always says is that he loves all music from the beginning of time up until 1976. But I do think that there is an album that Yes released in 1977 that he actually really likes as well. So we joke that it’s 77! Led Zeppelin is his absolute favorite. So I guess that’s the eclectic mix. And same with Aaron as well, our drummer, he loves a lot of electronic music. He’s also a DJ and producer under the name Zar, and he does a lot of mixing and producing and stuff. So he loves a lot of electronic music, a lot of techno and also loves Queens of the Stone Age. 

Do you find it difficult to stick to your sound or does it matter to maintain one?

The sound is always evolving! I think like if you are one of those retro bands that is very hell bent on staying retro, then probably yeah, it’ll probably be the most important thing to you. But for us, we added the synth afterwards. Grisha added more pedals to his sound. Before that he just plugged in and played. He didn’t even care what the settings were, just get a boom, boom, boom sound *laughs* But he added more pedals since then, Aaron has added a bit extra bit of percussion, Ahmad is becoming more and more comfortable with him doing backing vocals and like the type of pedals that he’s using as well. Me, I want to try to include more elements of singing in the music. And obviously we also added the theremin in our setup as well, so we have an opportunity to expand the sound.

I don’t know whether I feel comfortable saying this, but I guess I’m just gonna say it for the sake of saying it. Yeah, for argument’s sake, if it’s appropriate to our sound, then why not? If it’s appropriate to what we currently have, why not? You know, we’re always trying to adjust our fuzz tone so they sound a bit more classic or whatever, but I don’t think for us, I don’t think sonically the sound is something that’s super like important to us because we’re always evolving it. But I do find that the way that we structure our songs, so the technical geeky aspects of it, those things are really important because all the notes that we play are all mirrored to the scales that I use, which are ragas and ragas, they’re not notes actually, they’re not scales, I just say scales to make it easier for musicians to understand and of course non musicians as well. There are some notes that you play on the ascending and some notes that you play on the descending.

This takes a while to master right?

It’s a forever! Even my teachers, they all say that they are forever students. And if people like that are saying they’re forever students, then I can never, ever say that I’m someone who has mastered or is good at it. You know what I mean? I’m learning it and I always like to say that I’m learning it. I’m a learning musician, not necessarily learned or a master, virtuoso. None of those kinds of superlatives, just humble learning, learning musician. That’s it.

You just finished a church tour around the UK but soon will be going on a bigger tour…

We released our debut album in October 2023 and we went on our first UK tour together. We hit up Newport, we went to Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham and then we also played Brighton and London as well. We did that, we did the little round and then after that we went on a series of shows left, right and center.

First of all, this year opening up in Brighton for Independent Venue Week with Black Market Karma. That was an amazing show, like sharing the stage with someone like them was great. And you know, we’ve just been promoting our album ever since really. And now we are hitting up the UK again! The details for this one are slightly blurred because I just finished the poster and all that kind of stuff, but we are playing in places that we’ve actually never played before, like Stockport. Then we are playing in Sheffield again. But lots of other places that we’ve never played before, I think maybe Hull and Huddersfield might be another part of them. South Wales.. so that’s really cool. And then I think that tour starts August 23rd, finishes on September 9th. And then we’re hitting up the EU in November, which is the 27th of November where we are starting in Paris, and then we are doing this festival in Belgium and then we’re playing in Holland with this fantastic band called Heath. And then we are finishing our tour in Amsterdam and there’s gonna be our first ever stint in the EU together. So I wonder how that’s gonna turn out for us. But we are super, super excited and again, humbled is the word for sure cause this is not something that we booked, this is something that we were invited to! And that’s another thing that humbles you when you realise that, oh, actually these people are hearing about us like, you know, and they know of us for some reason… And you do always question it like, oh, what’s that about? but thankfully, I feel like look mom, we made it! But that’s what those tours are about. 

I personally think that we are ready to start working on album #2 and with all the other videos and all those things that may come with it, I think that’s where we’re at. But for now, these UK tours, EU tours, that’s something that we’re really, really looking forward to. 

Do you feel like you’re starting a movement of some sort, like bringing in or combining something that’s relatively new to the London scene cause that’s how I feel, like seeing Pink Floyd or someone similar for the first time, some people didn’t really know where to put them

That’s an honour for you to say. I really appreciate that! And actually, funnily enough, I had not heard of Pink Floyd when I was listening to Hendrix. So when I found out about Hendrix at 22. I knew of Pink Floyd, of course, the name, you know, but I didn’t really listen to their music and so on. I probably started listening to their music when I was like 25 or something like that. So back then, before I’d even listened to them, a lot of people referenced Pink Floyd, I think cause of the delay sounds or whatever, that was their kind of thing. But to say that I’ll be starting something new.. I mean, Brian Jones was the first western person in music to have a sitar. Actually, no, people say it was Brian Jones, but actually in fact, it was Jimmy Page! So Jimmy Page and Brian Jones. So they were doing that. The Beatles did a lot of this kind of stuff as well. But I think maybe the way we’re doing it is probably different. Yeah because Brian Jones kind of brought something in but he didn’t base their music around it, isn’t it? I still believe that currently we are quite unique. But I think this is the sound of modern Britain, you know, Ahmad, Aaron and myself, we have Pakistani origins. We support Pakistan in the cricket, but we support England in the football *laughs* It’s very much like that, we were born here. We roamed the streets of London our whole lives. And I don’t know whether this is like a new thing, I wouldn’t say like a foreign export. It’s something that was always here. And I think what we are doing, and this is a direct quote from a friend of ours called Chris Perry, who says that this is the sound of modern Britain. And I remember when he first told me that, I thought that this is actually, that’s actually quite humbling again, to hear like, yeah, that actually has got a ring to it! This is the sound of modern Britain indeed. So I think probably that’s what it is more than a new sound or we’re so different Egotistical thing. I think now this is more of a community. This is where we were supposed to be. This is what we are, what we’re doing. So this is the sound of modern Britain. 

It’s really hard to determine what’s going on in the scene, you wouldn’t expect to hear something fresh like Karma Sheen as it’s so hard to make something unique in this day and age, you have access to everything

It just comes like naturally, this is my sound. This is our sound. I don’t know how I feel about it. I never sat there and I actually never really thought about that all because like, obviously there’s so many bands in London and so on and so forth. Like, oh, we’re the most different kind of sounding band or the most unique sounding band maybe if we take the ego out of it, I guess. But I never really sat there and thought about it, but does the sound come naturally? Absolutely not! I have studied Hindustani classical and I’m studying Hindustani classical even till now, you know, it’s been 16 years, almost 17 years and I am still in the infancy of my studies. There’s still so much more that I need to understand regarding the ragas, regarding the manipulation of the sound, regarding my own guitar practice. Ahmad as well feels the same regarding his guitar practice. Aaron as well feels the same about his understanding of music. Well, actually his understanding of music is pretty damn spot on. But what I mean is that his absorption of music and what he wants to bring to his drumming that he’s worked really hard on that he’s had to adapt a lot his style to fit in with us as well.

Grisha is just he’s just a solid hitman really. So I don’t understand what his bloody problem is. He’s just so good! You know, he just adds little things all the time and he’s just absolutely solid. And Rodrigo is just a master of melody, man. So for me individually, it’s absolutely not natural at all. I am a practice person and I live for practicing, you know, like I love rehearsing, I love jamming, I love learning, you know, about music and stuff like that. But I don’t know how it feels to or what it feels like to be, and I say this in quotes, like a unique band in London, you know, I don’t really know how that feels. But in terms of like, does it come naturally.. It’s hard work, it’s effort. And it’s the blessings of my teachers, my parents as well. I put my faith in God, put my faith in the universe. And I think above all, all it is, is that we are grateful. And when you are grateful, you open the gates to the universe to offer you gratuity. And I think that’s where we stand with our music and what we are doing and the uniqueness of it.

How do you approach writing music? Are you the only one writing in the band?

Well, the songs that I sing, they’re all what we call Bundish. And Bundish is lyrics that are put to each syllable of a raga to give a lyrical definition of the mood of the raag. So whenever you’re singing a raga for example. I like the one I alluded to earlier, big history. Whenever you’re singing big history, you often write lyrics or are taught lyrics from your lineage. So the lineage that I’m part of is, and I’m blessed to be a part of is Shaam Chaurasi Gharana. I learned the singing or how to sing these verses that a lot of musicians from Gharana, from this specific family have written over centuries. So what I’m singing, some of them are centuries old. And what I do with my teachers is that I sit and I learn how to, it’s almost like I learn how to like have a couple of golf balls and I’m just like juggling with them. I learned how to juggle with the music. And then what I do is after I learn the raga, so I learned the ABC of the raag, I then sit down with my guitar and then rather than playing chords, I try to make riffs that use only those notes.

Sometimes I just have a verse and like two chords and then I bring it to the guys and then all of a sudden it’s like, Oh yeah, let’s do this, let’s do that. And Rod and I don’t compete. We debate like whether this is the right thing to do, whether that’s the right thing to do and so on and so forth. And then we include it in the song or we never take anything out. We always include it. But it’s probably at a later stage. So, I do come up with the ideas initially, but it’s a joint effort regarding the music and everything like that. 

Where is Karma Sheen headed, where would you like to see yourself and the band?

Everywhere I guess. You know, honestly, it is everyone’s dream to be able to play music and only play music and develop your music and develop your sound, learn new instruments and stuff like that. You know, it’s everyone’s dream to do that. I don’t know if there are many bands in London who are just doing it cause it’s fun. I think a lot of bands all over the world are probably doing it not for fame, but I think it does depend on what your idea of success is. But I think every band, almost every band is out there to have some sort of success, you know. And I know that I would love to be at Glastonbury. I know that I would love to be at Shambhala Festival again. I know that I would love for us to be a festival favourite band. I know that I would love to have our music played on 6 Music and BBC, so on and so forth. And I know that I would love to have our music played on the TV and with our music videos and things like that. So that’s where I think I see Karma Sheen

Plans for the future? What should we look forward to? 

Well, currently you should be looking forward to us playing more shows in and around the country, especially with our UK tour and our EU tour. And of course as well, one of the most humbling and beautiful things that we can offer is our music. So currently we’re writing a couple of new songs and stuff like that. Got a lot of ideas that we’re trying to pull together. And so hopefully in addition to the shows and the continued promotion of our album, which you can find on Spotify and Bandcamp and all that kind of jazz. You can also find us playing new songs at our shows. I know we have mentioned Pink Floyd earlier, but we do take a bit of a Pink Floyd approach where we play the song live first, and we make all the mistakes, we add all the different things, and then we go and record it. So right now we’re currently working on a couple of new songs that we hopefully should be debuting this summer actually. So that’s the one thing to look forward to. And of course, if you want to look back on us, we still feel like our album is completely fresh, even though I was working on it for like 2 years. But it’s still fresh, it’s still freshly released, look for us and then any plans in the future.. It’s in tangent with the UK tour and the EU tour and hopefully at the end of the year maybe a couple new songs!

Thanks for reading! For info, requests, anything email digitmusicmagazine@gmail.com or send a DM on instagram: @digitmusicmagazine