“I can fly higher than an eagle/For you are the wind beneath my wings.” – ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ by Bette Midler

vocalist is often the face of a music group. When they decide to pursue a solo career - in addition to being in their respective band, the road to a purely solo career often follows, particularly if the solo effort gains serious traction.

The music scene is littered with such stories for one reason or another. There is no greater example than that of Junoon. It really was an iconic band with six studio albums to its credit. However, when its three main members – Ali Azmat, Salman Ahmad and Brian O’ Connell – decided to go their separate ways, the group lost its charm.

Ali Azmat chose a solo career based in Pakistan; Brian O’ Connell moved to the USA and Salman Ahmad (who also shifted base to the USA) kept the name Junoon and continued to make new music and play shows.

He filled the void left by Ali Azmat as vocalist by singing himself but Junoon was never the same again.

However, as the trio agreed to make a comeback for a series of live shows in and outside of Pakistan after 13 years, they have had a successful run, at home and abroad, primarily because it is the original line-up singing the cherished songs from those six albums.

From Islamabad, the rock act Qayaas went haywire without lead vocalist Umair Jaswal, who is also pursuing a solo career as an actor and musician; EP called it off as a music group [perma-nently] after Fawad Khan decided to pursue an acting career full time. Jal is another great example because it lost two of its front singers since inception (Atif Aslam, after just one song, followed by Farhan Saeed).

Jal doesn’t have the same pop characteristics anymore. And on and on it goes.

There is always a good chance that if a solo run is successful, the band will be left to its own devices. A Queen song title comes to mind: ‘Another one bites the dust’.

Strings is perhaps the biggest game-changing example in the present with Bilal Maqsood and Faisal Kapadia pursuing solo careers after being in the band for 33 years. If the former is pursuing solo music by design, the latter is a solo act, purely by chance.

However, the rule of going solo after beginning as a band doesn’t always apply to all acts. There are artists who can find a solo career while staying with a music group because they first catapulted to fame through the band.

A case in point is Kashmir.

The six-member group has at least two members who are pursuing solo careers but there is no hint of the band drifting into the sunset just yet. The evidence is found in the fact that they are on the verge of releasing their second album, Zindagi, with seven songs already out.

The first one who officially flew from the nest was singer-songwriter Bilal Ali. From colla-borations to singles, he is follow-ing a solo career without Kashmir and often by collabo-rating with different artists. But during multiple conversations, Bilal Ali has told Instep that Kashmir is always his top priority.

Now comes the story of Zair Zaki, an equally substantial mem-ber within the group who offi-cially holds the position of rhy-thm guitarist.

Zair Zaki, who also maintains that Kashmir is a priority, is the second one to fly out of the nest. Perhaps to let fans know that Zair Zaki of Kashmir has launched an experimental music project, he has adopted the stage name of ZAKII. However, neither bringing the Kashmir sound to the table nor competing with its identity, ZAKII has gone in an opposite direction, giving electronic music and its many hues a greater chance to serve as the backdrop. We’re not talking about electronic dance music but something closer to sonic dubstep, lo-fi, reverb.

It sounds good because the sonic layers allow ZAKII to do songs that are as dissimilar to Kashmir’s own music as possible.

If you head to Spotify, you will learn that ZAKII has been quietly releasing singles since last year. In 2022, ZAKII released ‘Smoke King’ and ‘Elevate’, with both songs co-written by Zair Zaki, in collaboration with Umer Ahmed, who also produced the songs.

Zair Zaki, rhythm guitarist for Kashmir, is expanding his horizons as a musician. Apart from launching an experimental music project called ZAKII, he reveals that there are plans to work on a side project with Kashmir’s Bilal Ali. For ZAKII, an EP with Poor Rich Boy’s Umer Khan is also on the cards. 

ZAKII’s first release in 2023
is a song called ‘Tu Hi’ which
Zair Zaki co-performed, co-wrote (with Mashhad) and produced it on his own.

But the three tracks were not just random experiments. They were just the beginning.

In an exclusive and forth-coming interview, Zair Zaki (ZAKII/Kashmir) spoke to Instep about his sonic dreams outside of Kashmir, collaborating with other artists and what’s coming up…

“So, I was the one with all the glory/While you were the one with all the strength” –’Wind Beneath My Wings’ by Bette Midler

According to Zair Zaki, as ZAKII, apart from the three sing-les released, a new song with Umer Khan of Poor Rich Boy will be released after the month of Moharram.

Umer Ahmed (Janoobi Khar-gosh) will also co-produce the next EP that ZAKII is doing with Poor Rich Boy’s Umer Khan.

Given just how terrific Poor Rich Boy and Janoobi Khargosh are and this is based solely on their musical achievements, ZAKII’s upcoming EP might even surpass the songs it currently has in rotation on music platforms like Spotify.

“I’ve been writing songs for a long time but I was never able to translate them into a computer sonic way. I do know production but I was lazy about learning,” began Zair Zaki. “When you have an idea in your head but you don’t know exactly how to translate it, the process becomes frustrating.”

As Zaki recounts, he began learning via his laptop and played around with basic beats. “I wanted to make a song for Kashmir because usually Bilal (Ali) is the one doing it. We arranged the melody with him but he was doing the basic sound writing.”

Zair Zaki kept working on his own, trying to bring his song-writing to a level that he could share it with the group.

“Bilal writes about real issues such as mental illness, social norms and injustices, and I am not such a strong songwriter,” he says.

Zaki did know how to write about love and relationships and he also knew these are themes that resonate universally. But as he made those songs, it occurred to him that they don’t exactly sit well with the sound of music that Kashmir is making.

As it turns out, the young and talented Umer Ahmed from Janoobi Khargosh is Zair Zaki’s cousin and someone who knows a thing or two about the kind of sound Zaki was looking for.

He shared his music with Ahmed and soon enough, the two cousins realized that they should collaborate.

Zair Zaki’s experience with Kashmir did allow him to also learn about vocal intonation, and while he makes no claims about being superior to anyone, he found his own voice and was able to sing the songs that have been released so far.

As he tells Instep, Zaki began to work on everything from music to lyrics but when it came to the voice, he admitted picking one person or another from the music scene to sing the upcoming songs or co-sing like the last release.

To that end, an EP with Umer Khan (of Poor Rich Boy) is on the cards.

“We wrote and arranged everything together but he is the one singing. In Kashmir, there is a plan we adhere to and how many weeks will we jam and when will we record and so on. But when you don’t have a deadline or pressure, it changes things. I don’t work well under pressure. I started enjoying what I was doing as ZAKII.”

However, this, according to Zaki, in no way means walking away from Kashmir. “None of us in Kashmir have a day job. Our priority is Kashmir. And we work hard. ZAKII, in that respect, is fun for me and there is no musical direction. I listen to all kinds of music and regardless of genre, if I like a song, it is, to me, a good song.”

He explains that when there is space for him to sing, he does, but in some cases, he opts to work with others because he believes his voice will not do justice to the song or fit with the musical backdrop. Zaki notes that the idea behind ZAKII is to (a) have fun and (b) release music consistently.

As an example, Zaki notes, “Mashhad, who was the former vocalist of Kashmir and shifted base to America, is a good singer. But technology has come so far that I can make a song here and we can sing on it and create a track without being in the same country.”

Bilal Ali and Zair Zaki are also launching a project that has nothing to do with Kashmir.

“We’ve made those songs. Many songs have piled up so
I’m not writing new songs but finishing songs that I had written earlier.”

In a way, ZAKII notes, this musical experiment is a collab-orative one, which includes him and another artist. For example, the first two songs include Umer Ahmed of Janoobi Khargosh, who is easily one of the finest artists in the present. ZAKII’s last release, ‘Tu Hi’ includes Mashhad.

Working on these projects is educational, as Zaki has learnt about the complexities of pro-duction than he used to know.

An experienced guitarist, he has produced and co-produced some songs on Kashmir’s new record, Zindagi, which is an elating feeling for him.

He concludes by noting that while other music projects do mean a great deal, nothing will take precedence over Kashmir and he will continue to stay with the band that he has been a part of for 15 years.