Music Munchiesare free with The Brownies

4 Brownies and a Spliff’s phi-losophy includes sharing laughs together while watch-

ing comedies and following the “Colonel - it’s ‘finger lickin’ good.’” The funky jazz fusion band’s lead vocalist Vijay Lucas is a hippy at heart who believes that music comes about through freedom, it is something that has always been shared, and therefore it should be free. In contrast to The Brownies’ chilled out vibe, Vijay starts fires for a living as a pyrotechnician, but his true passion ignites with his music. The Brownies got together after Alex Bryun (Rythym guitar), Roshan D’Silva (Percussion) and Sachin Mendonca (Bass guitar and

backing vocals) competed and won first place in the band category at The World Championships of Per-forming Arts 2002 in Dubai, and Vijay Lucas (Vocals and guitar) won for best solo act; The Brownies came into being and have existed to include these men as well as Kiran Tauro (Drums and Sound Engi-neer) and Basilio Clifford Sequeira (Drums). Vijay Lucas powered through the Dubai heat for an inter-view, with his humour intact. But as a musician, he could not be more serious, “Im a human first, and a musician second; Music is every-thing to me.”

What is the story behind your name?We were on our way back from a gaming centre and we were looking for a name. We were called the G- Strings, but that didn’t fly with any-one. As we were mostly all brown So our friend came up with The Brown-ies. And since we had four brown guys and a white guy, we became 4 Brownies and a Spliff. And when Cliff joins our set, we are 4 Brownies and a Cliff. You got to read between the lines on that one.

How would you describe your sound?Partially jazz, some acoustic, and new. But we don’t like to contain ourselves within a genre, we’re con-stantly trying out new stuff all the time. I prefer listening to the ra-dio over an mp3 player so I get the chance to listen to new music.

Who are your Influences?Anything with a good tune really. The tune is the first thing you take away from a song. Seal, Sting, Guns and Roses, Jason Mraz, and John Mayer. As of recently, R.E.M, not only because they are good, but they also became noticed through student radio, which is something that the U.A.E. needs.

How do you go about writing your songs?The tune comes first and then we put the words to it. At least that’s how it is for me. So far writing has been shared between Alex and me, but we never start writing the songs to-gether. When someone has come up with a song they share it, and as eve-ryone’s opinions matter, it might get shot down or we’ll work on it togeth-er - and that is when the real song writing happens. Sometimes songs will continue to change; we have one that we have been working on for 8 years as we still haven’t put our fin-gers on it. The shortest time it took to write a song was with ‘writer’s block.’ I was going through a mental block, so I thought, why don’t I write about this? We usually try to end our set with that song.If you could only pick one, who would you like to do a collabora-tion with?Mariah Carey. If I can only pick one, I might as well pick one of the best.

How long have you been per-forming?We’ve been together for 8 years now, but we started performing after 6 months of practice, which included picking up our guitars and jamming in between light comedic episodes.

What was it like playing on stage for the first time?Scary. There have been times where I would get up on stage with the band, and shake. But personally get-ting up there is what’s scary; once I’m on stage it’s second nature to me. Singing is my soul. I feel like I was born to sing and I am going to con-tinue to do it, regardless.

What was your best performance ever?You’re only as good as your last per-formance. Our last two shows were pretty much one after the other; one was at Nasimi Beach for The 2011 Chill Out Festival and the other was at Irish Village for the Peace One Day event. I think our last two gigs are/were when we actually found our-selves conformable on stage, every-one was who they are naturally. Usu-ally I am stuck behind the mic, but recently we’ve been adding in solos so I can run around the stage. As of yet I’m not doing slides, especially because they’ve started adding car-peted flooring.

And your worst performance?The Music Room, two months ago. We weren’t prepared for it, but sur-prisingly to me, we gained fans that night.

Where are your favourite places to perform?Definitely outdoors and actually our best performances have been at the beach, so the beach too. But any-where really, give us a guitar and we’ll be able to play for a crowd.

Do you guys hang out as a band? Yes, definitely. We meet up at least once a week, and try to have a few pints, which is usually combined with band practice. Band practice normally consists of watching our favourite shows and playing a few songs. Where do you hang out?Anywhere, we don’t like being an-chored down. So Alex or “Toto,” has a girly nick name from his mother that you usually only share on stage. What is it?Sandra. In Dutch his mother calls him Sander for Alexander, but when we first heard it we thought she said Sandra. And since then, we’ve never let it go. I‘ve heard that you like telling stories. Care to share one?I have this uncanny ability to tell a 5minute story in about an hour and a half. The first time I saw South Park - the movie, I was shocked and I ended up going on about it for a week. But now I’m addicted. And Sachin, is ex-actly like Eric Cartman.

How do you deal with criticism? Very easily. We are all very critical ourselves. Before we showcase our music, it has to get approval from all of the band members. Everyone has an opinion, which is what we like. We take criticism with a pinch of salt, and really, it only helps us. What are your thoughts on the U.A.E music scene? It’s growing and it’s a lot more musi-cally diverse, but it’s slow. It’s hard to put yourself out there because their is no concept of touring within the U.A.E. and licenses are needed to play at gigs; I think they need to look at the music scene here with a wider angled lens. And I also don’t think that enough children play either, so I’d like to encourage kids to pick up instruments. I strongly believe stu-dent radio is what’s going to get the local music scene heard here.

What are your views on the un-ion that some U.A.E bands want to form? This would include getting paid for gigs. Well first of all, bands are not necessarily worth the same value as each other, so they would need to be paid according to their worth. And getting paid would only work if the audience was getting charged. If you want to pay me for a show that’s okay, but I believe music should be free and it has to be shared. Music

Do you have an album in the works?Yes and no. It’s hard to have an al-bum become successful here. We would rather release EPs, and give the people a taste. I fee that music should be free, believe music should be free. At the Chill out Festival we auctioned off CDs for - nothing, for pints of beers lets say. Our music can be shared at our Facebook page, and it will all be made available for down-load soon. Visit http://www.facebook.com/4brownies

has been shared since the begin-ning of time, you can’t not share it. If someone didn’t allow others to par-take in listening to music; how else would people be able get their music out there? If someone purchases my CD- that isn’t out yet, I’d rather they share it, regardless if it’s free or not. If you’re going to be bound by a union you have to follow those rules, which isn’t applicable to music really. Even if I was in a union, I might decide to do something outside of it, because I would still be a free person. Do you feel like you’re progress-ing as a band?Yes, everyday. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t pick up my guitar or sing. We try to keep our-selves fresh.