Waves: Weekly Robbar 15th April 1984 cover story.

We’ve covered many Sabbath songs over the years. I’d like to mention another name that I love is John Petrucci. He inspired me to learn 7 string guitars. Sadly, we couldn’t find more venues to perform, TV shows were over. Everyone was saying the same that Waves is promoting “Oposhongskrity”. Music producers in Dhaka had too little idea about outside world that they didn’t even know what is Rock or Metal or how to differentiate genres. Most of them didn’t even have minimum education or training on any kind of music. They were in the business just because they need to do something for living.

Waves in Flood Aid Concert – Engineer’s Institute, Dhaka. Mahmud -Guitar. Mithu – Drumas. Iftekhar – Bass/Vocal. Sept, ’84!

Mahmud, Minu, Maqsud & Iftekhar.

Dances with The Waves – First Ever Mosh Recorded in BD! Concert @ Shilpokola, June 14, ’84!!

We’ve invested so much energy, time, efforts & money that we got tired of all those nonsense. Some band members called it quit. After our last concert in ’85, Maksud, who left Feedback and joined Waves for a while went back to his old band, Vocalist Minu left after the BTV conspiracy and went back to Sweden. Keyboardist/ Vocalist Kamal went back to his IT career. Mahmud & I ended up in the US. I had passion for music all my life. My younger brothers grew up watching me doing music, also they had access to any and all kind of musical instruments I had at home. Guitars, bass, drums etc. We also had a huge collection of audio/videos even video store owners and musicians used to borrow them from us. Not to mention some of them never returned. For example: video of our first BTV appearance was borrowed by a fan and it was gone forever.

Talking about my siblings, they were half musicians already and not to mention maybe even better than many full musicians you could find there in the 90s. I started teaching them music to reform Waves. I went back to Dhaka in ’95, stayed there for months, wrote & rehearsed some songs and one day we hit the studio. That was the Waves, a completely new line up. Mushfiq (Rockstrata) – vocal, Ehtesham – bass, Intekhab – drums, Imtiaz – Guitar & I was on guitar & vocal. Four brothers and a friend. We spent the night at Audio Art Studio. Set up, sound check and recording, all live. No second take, no mixing, nothing. You need to be 110% perfect to record a live album. Looking for some label to release, it was the same story, just different day. They offered us something that is even less than what we spent at the studio. It’s not the amount we care for but I felt like insulting as a band and its music. So we gave it to Yusuf Electronics for free, not even a single penny.

The last known line-up of Waves during the recording of “Purono Shrity” L-R: Ehtesham, Iftekhar, Intekhab & Imtiaz

Classic Waves. Mithu: Drums. Iftekhar: Vocal/Bass. Kamal: Vocal/Guitar & Keyboards. Shafiq: Sound & Keyboards. Mahmud: Guitar. Minu: Vocal/Keyboards.