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stormkobra-5 · 2 years

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Escapade in Egypt: Part 1

Panic at the Pyramids

A Batons and Unicorns Drabble

Summary: When Steven is willing to battle his fear of flying in order to take little Amonet to Egypt, you immediately agree with him... Although it looks like the two of you have underestimated how much trouble a toddler can get into at the Great Pyramids.

Fluff, parental panic, Khonshu having grandparental panic, but don’t worry, everything’s fine

A/N: I’d seriously like to thank @khaotic-kris for giving me the idea of Amonet’s crib and mobile. My dude you rock. Also, I have never been to Egypt, although I do hope to go to college there, so... I know nothing!

Notes: The stuff that happens henceforth in these drabbles sounds unbelievable. But kids will do some stuff, guys, and if you’ve ever helped to raise one (or more) than you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Warnings: This story is rated 14+ for strong language.

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All Steven hears from where he sits taking notes from an Egyptology book is a loud, dull, thud from upstairs, followed by a crash and your loud, “Son of a bitch! Khonshu! I’m gonna strangle your emaciated zombie-bird ass!”

Steven knows you’re not too badly hurt, else he would have come running, but he can’t help but smirk a little to himself as he pretends to keep reading, retracing over the notes he’d just taken.

Before Amonet had been born, you guys had traveled from store to store looking for the right crib for your baby. Little did either of you expect Khonshu to pick it, when you had come upon a crescent-moon-shaped wooden crib. The god immediately showed his doting-grandfather side when you expressed your doubts, then going, THE CHILD MUST HAVE THIS CRIB! SHE IS THE DAUGHTER OF THE MOON GOD’S AVATAR! SHE WILL HAVE IT!

The good thing was, you kinda liked it, too, and Steven had just set eyes on an adorable star mobile that would go together perfectly with it, so that moon-shaped crib was bought.

Unfortunately, you both keep cracking your heads on it.

The frequency with which you do has lessened, since you both are getting used to it, but sometimes you’ll get so engrossed in baby Amonet that you forget there’s an overhang. Sounds like you knocked off the mobile, too.

Steven’s smirk turns into an amused smile as he realizes that while he himself has rarely caught him, you can never see Khonshu sometimes hovering over Amonet, cooing at her and shaking an Egyptian rattle over her, or even softly chanting Ancient Egyptian lullabies. For all intents and purposes, Amonet might as well be a newborn princess to a pharaoh, even though she’s never been to Egypt.

Steven’s eyes trail down to the picture of the hieroglyphs in the book. He’s alone in his mind right now-- Marc and Jake are both asleep, he can feel it, and Khonshu hasn’t yet made any appearances for the day. This gives him a rare moment of quietness to think, without any interjections. And he’s thinking, alright.

He drums the end of the marker into the tablet, notes forgotten. Amonet’s never been to Egypt. She’s never seen the pyramids. She’s never seen the tombs, or the ruins of temples, to Cairo. And yet her “grandfather” is the Egyptian god of the moon. Her father is his avatar. Gods, why hadn’t he thought of taking her there before?

But a trip to Egypt would be expensive. He’d have to pull on some of Jake’s money, which would be worth it. But a boat? The idea of being on a can surrounded by ocean for days is worse than being on an airborne can for a handful of hours. He’s so deep in thought that he doesn’t notice that you’ve come down the stairs with Amonet, that you’ve been saying his name and are coming up to him, concerned-- he doesn’t notice until you give his shoulder a nudge, making him jump.

“Geez, Steven, I’m sorry. You okay?“

Steven smiles-- the sight of the two people he loves most in the world always fills him with a sense of overwhelming joy. “Quite alright, love.” He eagerly takes Amonet from you and sets her on his lap. “Good morning, scarab. You slept late today-- no, no, don’t do that. Don’t chew on the pyramid.” Immediately, she’d grabbed the paperweight and had begun to gnaw on it, so he carefully pried it from her hands and gave her the Taweret plushie you handed him before plopping down in an opposite chair.

“What’re you thinkin’ ‘bout, Steven?”

He bounces her on his leg a bit. “...I want to take her to Egypt.”

Your entire head snaps up off your arms as you stare at him with childlike innocence. You’ve never been to Egypt. Or maybe you have, and haven’t been back in a long time. Or whatever. Like I’ve said before, I don’t know you. Anyway you stare at him like he asked you to marry him.

Which.

Honestly?

He’s been thinking about.

He loves you. He loves you more than anything in the world (except for Amonet). You have a daughter together that he cherishes more than life itself. Yes, he wants to marry you. And with how deeply tied-in to the Egyptian pantheon your little family here is, he wants to ask you with a ring made in Cairo. He’s been looking for a ring for awhile now, but he can’t find one for you. Maybe Cairo is the best place, like Khonshu’s been hounding him about.

You nudge him again, and he realizes that he hasn’t been listening to you. “Sorry, birdie. What’d you say, love?”

You reach over to ruffle his curls, which makes him smile fondly. “I said, are you serious? Like you really wanna go? We’ll have to use Jake’s money.”

“I don’t mind,” Jake said groggily, making Steven jump.

“O-oh, um... He says he doesn’t mind...”

“What about flying?” You asked, because you know that even with Marc or Jake fronting, Steven is terrified of flying. He’s scared of putting Amonet on a plane. He can’t sleep through a flight, either, because there’s no sedatives strong enough to put out all three alters, especially when last time it was tried he summoned the suit on instinct, snatched up Amonet, grabbed your wrist, and took you both to the car, where he decided you were gonna drive.

To L.A.

Steven took a deep breath. “...I can do it. Amonet deserves to see Egypt. She doesn’t need to be held back by my fears. If I can handle Harrow, I can handle...” He swallows hard, picturing the plane ricketing along the runway before exploding in midair. “A-a plane...”

Slowly, you beam. “...Alright then. I’ll start packing.” You lean forward to give him a kiss, then stand up. “If you wanna change your mind at any point, we can, okay?”

He nodded in understanding as you excitedly raced to the stairs, and when you looked back, Steven was showing Amonet the book he’d been reading. “Look, little scarab; you wanna see the pyramids for real? Each block weighs two and a half tons. That’s real heavy, innit?” When she carelessly smacks the page, he smiles with adoration, then moves on to start showing her hieroglyphs.

Your smile widens and your heart swells with love at the sight of your little family.

~***~

Marc sighed as the two of you approached the airport doors. “It was nice of him, really, for Stark to let us use his private jet. But why the hell do we have to navigate through the damn airport to get to it? Isn’t he rich enough to have his own?”

Maybe... he wanted it to have airplane friends? You suggest in ASL with one hand; in your other, you carry Amonet’s car-seat. Marc shakes his head at your antics. On one shoulder, he has your bag and his, which also contains Steven’s and Jake’s things, and on the other, he has Amonet’s bag. He uses one hand to hold your elbow, ensuring he has a hold of you and a protective eye on your daughter, and his other is occupied with the big roller suitcase you felt the need to pack.

Then again, he’s never traveled with his alter’s partner and their daughter, either. It’s always just been him, with hardly even one bag. He sighs again at the sight of the massive, congested crowd, tightening his grip on your arm.

Jake’s reflection in a passing surface held up a hand in suggestion. “Maybe if we set off a rapid-fire machine gun, it’d scare them all away.”

“We are not doing that, Jake,” Marc huffs.

Jake shrugs. “Just a suggestion.”

“It’s a horrible suggestion.”

You roll your eyes playfully, knowing Jake well enough to know that he’s probably offering a solution that involves unnecessary violence. How’s Steven?

“Well...” Marc glances toward a nearby window as you enter the airport, seeing Steven reflected back at him-- eyes wide, pale, looking like he’s ready to hurl. “You don’t have to do this, Steven. We could always--”

“I’m doing this,” Steven replies, as sternly as he can, “I’m not letting Y/N and Amonet go by themselves. Who would protect them? They need us. And... I want to be there when Amonet sees the pyramids. I want to show her the tombs.”

Marc nods, reluctantly. He can feel Steven’s tension, and it’s making him feel sick to his stomach. But he can also feel his determination to succeed. “We’re right here for you, Steven.”

You’ve reached the ticket booth, and of course you stand back; Marc takes care of everything, making you feel safe and secure. You’re led by a security escort to the tarmac, where Stark’s private jet sits ready-and-waiting. Marc still has a hold of your arm even though you’re far away from any crowds, and he keeps checking on Amonet. “Wish we could’ve taken Empress...”

Don’t worry, Marc, you say, and he wonders where the hell you get your confidence from. She’s got her grumpy grandpa, her parents, and her uncles to protect her.

“It’s not enough,” Marc insists as he gestures for you to go up the stairs first. He scans the tarmac, looking for any threats from his vantage point at the landing behind you. You don’t hear him mutter, “It’s never enough...”

Once you’re finally on the plane and have gotten into your seats, there’s a several-minute delay before the engines start. You jump, startled, when as soon as the plane starts to move, Marc slams his hands down onto the table between you despite having a seat belt. You raise your eyebrows at him. “Steven?”

“Nope,” He grounds out through gritted teeth-- he’s pale, and sweating, and his hands are shaking when he brings them up to his face. “Fuck, Steven... Calm down.”

“Real bloody easy for you to say!” Steven snaps, and it sounds like he’s fighting back a gag. “Oh, bollocks...”

All three alters, however, are now victim to the roiling stomach. Marc freezes up, trying to fight it-- and then he launches himself out of his seat and for the bathroom. You look after him, concerned, because he stays in there until the plane is airborne. He staggers out, and if there’s such a thing as airsickness, you’re sure he has it.

“Guys... you uh...” You turn, digging around in your bag as Marc sits across from you. He frowns when you offer him a couple of pills, but when he sees you sweetly smiling at him, he softens a bit. “It’s not sedatives, I promise. It’s just to settle your stomach.”

His hands tremble when he takes them from you, so badly that he can hardly put them in his mouth. He swallows them dry, because the thought of liquid makes his stomach churn again.

“Damn, Stevie,” Jake mutters from the buckle of a nearby seat belt, “If it’s this bad when you’re not fronting, I can’t imagine how bad it is when you are.”

There’s no response. In fact, Marc can hardly feel Steven’s presence at all. There’s a surge of panic. “Steven.” Nothing. Seeing his panic, you hand him a compact mirror out of your bag, and Marc immediately inspects his reflection. “Steven!”

“I-I’m here...” Comes Steven’s weak response, and Marc breathes a sigh of relief. “S-sorry, I just...” He’d curled up in the recesses of their mind, trying to distance himself from the terror of the flight. Marc can feel him now, but... just barely.

“Respond next time, Steven.” With some difficulty, Marc stands, comes around, and pulls you out of your seat. You don’t protest, although you’re confused, especially when he sits where you’d been. You understand a moment later, when he pulls you onto his lap and keeps an arm around your waist, putting a hand on Amonet as she dozes. “How’s this, guys?”

Steven’s come out a bit more, relaxing a bit with your presence there to comfort him. Even Jake eases up a bit, and Marc can’t deny that he feels immensely better as well. “Better,” Steven says, “A lot better. Just... stay like this for a bit, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay,” Marc says.

You lean your head on his shoulder. “We got you, Steven. Just chill throughout the rest of the flight, okay?” Marc snorts with amusement; you lift your head to give him a mock glare. “What?”

He can’t fight a smile. “Nothing. Just... you.” He presses a kiss to your cheek, which you return. Eventually, with you and Amonet so close, Steven is able to doze with the help of Marc and Jake, and so the nearly eleven-hour flight passes, if painfully slowly.

~***~

When you touch down in Egypt, Steven is fronting as soon as you’ve stepped off the jet. Immediately-- despite the fact that he’s carrying most of your bags-- he reaches over and unbuckles Amonet from her carrier, lifting her up and out and into his arms with a beaming grin. “Aight lil’ scarab; you ready?”

She baby-babbles excitedly, giving him a toothless smile. He kisses her cheek. “Yep, we’re gonna go see the pyramids!” Meanwhile, you’re pulling some of the bags off him, trying to take half the weight. Once you’ve done that, he pulls you in under his arm. There’s no trace of his former fear. His nerd mode has been activated. All the way to the hotel, he’s going on and on about Egyptian mythology and culture from ancient times, eagerly pointing to all the places on the map he’s planned for you to go to. Once actually in the hotel room, he takes Amonet to the window, where you can see the pyramids off in the distance.

Enormous orange-gold goliaths of stone, the great triangles take up the whole expanse of the horizon, set in the gold sands. It’s a beautiful view, and you take a picture from behind, catching both Steven and Amonet in the frame. He turns at the sound of your phone kshing, smiling when he realizes that you’ve taken a picture. “First picture of the trip, birdie?”

“Yep.”

Steven very carefully sets Amonet on the bed, waiting until you’ve got her before stepping away. “I’ll be in the loo for a sec, love. I’ll be right out.” He ducks into the tiny hotel bathroom, and you turn your attention to Amonet, lowering your voice so that Steven can’t hear you.

“Say it, sweetheart: can you say daddy?” You’ve been trying to get her to say it for days. You love Steven with all your heart, and you can only imagine how happy he’d be if Amonet’s first word was daddy, but, honestly? The two of you have been trying to get her to say something for weeks now, but all she does is giggle at your attempts and baby babbles at you.

“Say dad-ee.” You emphasize, but she only stares at you.

Come on, kid. You can do it. Your dad is Moon Knight! Your grandpa is Khonshu! Your mom is Skinchanger! You can do it!

But Steven’s out too soon, and you stop, disappointed. Steven’s so excited he doesn’t even notice your fallen expression, scooping Amonet up and rushing for the door. “C’mon, love! Let’s go see the pyramids!”

It’s a long, hot walk to the tour guide center, which is absolutely packed. And then, you’re walking the path with hundreds of other people, and Steven is absolutely beaming when he sees that Amonet is awestruck by the sheer size of the pyramids. He keeps a tight hold of her with one arm, and with his other hand, he holds your hand, entwining his fingers with yours and occasionally leaning over to kiss your cheek. He’s spouting off facts and lore and stories and you’re listening intently, because you rarely see him this excited.

Then things went downhill.

Literally.

Amonet dropped her blue Tawaret ball, and it went right under the fence. The thing bounced, all the way down the side of the little cliff and into the ruins below. “Oof,” You said, turning into a caracal cat without a second thought. “Again? Amonet, really girl. Keep a better grip of your ball.”

As a cat, it’s effortless for you to slip under the fence and traverse the side of the ruins and grab her ball. When you turn to climb back up with the ball in your mouth, Steven and Amonet are smiling down at you--

--until Amonet turns into a fucking scarab and buzzes easily out of Steven’s shocked grasp, flying up, up, up toward the top of the pyramid.

For a second, you’re both just standing there in shock. Did that just fucking happen?

Then you both scream (although for you, still a cat, it’s more of a wail), lunging for the tiny glittering blue speck that’s your daughter. Steven can’t jump very high, but Marc fucking kills parkour, so Steven lets him front. He even summons the damn suit so people will get out of his way.

Notoriously, birds have terrible eyesight, and a bug is far too slow, so you turn into a cheetah after a few moments, bounding alongside Moon Knight, eyes on Amonet.

CATCH THAT CHILD! Khonshu roared, but you couldn’t hear him, I SHALL KEEP CLOSE TO HER, BUT I CANNOT CATCH HER MYSELF.

People, at the sight of Moon Knight and a cheetah rushing for the pyramid, screamed and got out of your way in a panic, which is good, because it gives you a direct path.

Moon Knight is fast as he ascends the massive blocks, but you’re faster as a lion, jumping easily from block-to-block. She could get squished. She could get eaten by another bug. She could get eaten by a bird. Oh my god why the fuck did she inherit my powers.

“Of all the powers she could’ve gotten,” Marc growled as he lunged up onto another block, “She had to get yours.”

UP HERE! Khonshu started waving him down, from his place perched near the top of the pyramid. SHE’S A GECKO NOW, AND I’VE CONVINCED HER TO LOOK AT THE VIEW. HURRY, BEFORE SHE BECOMES BORED!

Marc relays the message, and the two of you reach the designated spot that Khonshu kneels over. With his healing armor, Marc isn’t fazed at all by the devastating climb, but you have to lay there, panting heavily. Between you is Amonet as a tiny green gecko.

Steven fronts again, suddenly Mr. Knight. “Alright, little scarab.” Amonet’s tongue flicks out. “You’ve had your fun. Come on, now, back to a human, yeah?” Luckily, she’s only a baby. She can’t hold another form for as long as you can. Her minutes of chaos have made her tired, so she does as her father asks and returns to human form. You shift so that you’re laying in front of her, keeping her from rolling off. Steven pets your head, settling beside you. “You gave us quite a scare, sweetheart.”

She reaches for him, and he goes to pick her up...

“Daddy!” Ok, so maybe it’s not exactly “daddy.”

But it’s really fucking close.

Your head shoots up off your paws, ears pricked. Steven has frozen, glowing eyes wide. “W...”

“Daddy,” Amonet repeats, reaching for him impatiently.

You and Steven are still stunned, and then Steven tears off his mask and unleashes a loud cheer, pulling Amonet up into a hug. There are tears in his eyes, and you turn back into a human so that he can pull you into a hug. “She said it! She said it, Y/N! She said her first word on the Great Pyramid of Giza!”

“I know! I know! Say it again! Say it again!”

Amonet was actually belly-laughing at the reactions of her parents. At your prompting, she does say it again, and when you two cheer and shower her with kisses and praise, she belly-laughs harder.

OF COURSE SHE SAID HER FIRST WORDS HERE, Khonshu said, like you’re both idiots for being so surprised and excited, IT IS A PLACE OF GREAT IMPORTANCE, THEREFORE A FITTING PLACE FOR SUCH A MILESTONE, ESPECIALLY FOR THE GRANDCHILD OF KHONSHU.

The three of you stayed up there for awhile, laughing and hugging, even staying to watch the Egyptian sunset. Watching over you was Khonshu, who wouldn’t admit it, but he was proud.

~***~

The next day, you’re surprised when Steven wakes you up at the crack of dawn. Amonet is still asleep, and he’s fully dressed. You lift your head, groggy; there’s a certain kind of light in Steven’s eyes, one you’ve never seen before. You reaches forward, caressing your cheek and resting his hand on your neck. “I’m gonna set out a little early today, birdie. I’ve got some things I wanna look at...”

“What kinda things?” Even for Steven, this is unusual behavior. And you’re still half-asleep, so...

“It’s a surprise,” He answers softly. He leans forward to kiss you tenderly. “I’ll be back before noon, love. I promise.”

With Steven leaving, you sit up, determined not to leave Amonet unguarded. He quietly snuck out, down to the streets of Cairo, which was just waking up. He felt the presence of Marc, keeping alert, and Jake might as well have been rubbing his hands together eagerly. “Aight, Stevie-- no budget! Pick whatever you want!”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Steven answered him, “The problem is finding it...”

“We’ve got your back, Steven; we know what you’re looking for.” Marc promised, and Steven caught a glimpse of him smiling in a nearby window. “Now go find our girl’s engagement ring.”

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Thanks for reading!

Taglist:

@dameronsknight

@sylkisdagger

@atzlena

@pastel-0-princess

@gucciboots

#steven grant x reader #moon knight #oscar isaac

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hetmusic · 8 years

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A conversation with Strong Asian Mothers

Strong Asian Mothers are a London trio consisting of Kalim Patel, Josh Stadlen and Amer Chadha-Patel and over the past year, their music has been blowing up online, thanks to a mixture of pure energy, creative madness and numerous genres influences. Of course, the HumanHuman community had a head start thanks to The Undscvrd who unearthed this alternative project two years ago following a support slot for past successful discovery Jungle.

The band recently released their debut EP, Lynx Africa, which includes singles “Out Of Love” and “The More That I”, plus newer cut “Stay Down” and “Megabucket” that was resurrected from a previous project. If you like music to move to, then you’re really going to like Strong Asian Mothers.

Would you like to introduce yourself and what you do in the band?

Kalim: I’m Kalim Patel. I sing, I play keyboards and I shake a bit of tambourine.

Josh: I’m Josh and I play drums and that’s about it really! We all produce and songwrite in equal thirds as well, so I’m also a producer and writer.

Amer: I’m Amer, I also play keys and tambourine. I also play samples on the SPD and a cymbal.

K: A single cymbal.

A: Singular! I dance and sing for parts of the songs as well when I’m not playing anything.

Let’s talk about your band name, which is rather brilliant in itself and rememberable to say the least. Tell me, what’s the origin story behind it?

A: So, Khushi [Kalim] and I grew up together and both of our mothers and a lot of our friends’ mothers were part of a group of young, gunslinging, Asian women in London, either divorced or single or slightly left-field of the norm in the 80s and 90s.

J: Independent women.

A: Independent women, yeah! We grew up in a group of wild, free-thinking children with wild, free-thinking Asian mothers. It was a solid matriarchy. When we formed the band we decided to honour that by naming it after them.

K: It was his girlfriend who came up with the name.

A: My Suki came up with it, yeah.

K: From the first moment I heard it, I was like “yep!”

It’s good that she’s finally being credited!

K: She’s been credited in every interview!

A: And they cut it out every time.

That’s about how you two met, but how about all three of you?

J: Kalim and I went to sixth form together. We used to play in a rock band, and we were doing that for about seven years before we cottoned on to the fact that it wasn’t going anywhere. We stuck with it for quite a while, but yeah, when these guys started up Strong Asian Mothers, I wanted in! When we were in our old rock band The Mercers, there was one summer where we were going to do this hip-hop project. We planned to write four or five hip-hop tunes and then - rap! It was going to be a joke, like a parody, but then…

K: That’s how some of the best things begin, as a parody.

A: That’s how this band began, as a parody, we’re not a real band!

J: So then I did a remix of “Fat Bottomed Girls” by Queen, played it to Kush and Amer and they were like, let’s play this in Strong Asian Mothers. Then they asked me to play for them, and that was that!

I can imagine working as a trio involves plenty of compromise, but have there ever been any clashes over what you wanted the band to sound like?

A: [Laughs] every day!

K: That’s part of what makes us who we are, it’s the collaboration.

Yeah, and you said that you each take a third of everything.

J: Well, not always. We don’t always try to make sure that everyone has an equal third in every single song. We all write equally and for any song that is mainly from one of us, there will be another that is mainly from someone else. It all evens out. Yeah, there are clashes, but it’s healthy clashes.

A: I think we made a commitment to be part of a project where everyone is equally represented, so whether someone is a songwriter or someone is a frontman, it’s all irrelevant because every single thing that comes out of this project represents all three of us. It becomes a question of signing everything off as a trio, so even if Kushi writes a whole song, whether we’ve had any influence, we then decide if it’s something that actually represents us in a way that we want it to. I think that makes it better, because we only bring stuff to the table that we feel is appropriate. That comes from knowing these people for like fifteen years and more!

“I think we made a commitment to be part of a project where everyone is equally represented, so whether someone is a songwriter or someone is a frontman, it’s all irrelevant because every single thing that comes out of this project represents all three of us.”— Amer from Strong Asian Mothers

I guess that collaboration is why people might struggle to pin down a genre, because there’s so many different influences.

A: Yeah, definitely! But we love that.

K: Definitely, definitely.

J: All three of us have our own passions, especially music that we’ve grown up with and love. Amer in particular has the most ridiculously vast taste, like metal, which Khush and I don’t really like, but Amer loves it! Whereas I grew up listening to jazz, so I have this perverse jazz side of me that occasionally rears its head. Khush likes Top 40 pop music.

K: Yeah, I like the Now That’s What I Call music hits. Number 24, 97… you know all the legends like Britney, Christina Aguilera, Boyzone.

A: [Constant laughing] yeah, yeah, we’ve all got pretty eclectic tastes.

J: Amer definitely has the most eclectic.

A: It’s not a skill, it’s a flaw. This is not a competition!

What do you guys think about the music industry’s need to label and categorise everything?

K: It’s think it’s sick, man! I love that shit. Actually we did get a good genre description the other day.

A: From The Most Radicalist.

K: Hip-hop alt-pop. It rhymes as well! I think that’s the only genre I’ve ever heard that I’ve been satisfied with.

A: Yeah, we’ve been described before as alternative pop or chill electro...

I think it’s quite far from chill!

A: It’s very far from chill electro! On that subject, I think it’s kind of sad that everything has to be pigeon-holed, but everyone sees that for what it is.

J: I think it’s fine, because ultimately people are listening to the music and the genre that you’re labelled with becomes immediately irrelevant.

A: We usually just make up a new genre for every song.

K: We once told a group of people we met that we played “armchair stack”, which was just a phrase that we had invented. They were like, “we love armchair stack!”

A: Why did we invent that...? Oh yeah, we had loads of amps on an armchair once, so we made up armchair stack.

K: From that day on we lost faith in human nature.

A: What would you call us if you had to describe it?

If I had to… alternative dance-pop. Maybe!

A: Alternative dance-pop, add it to the list guys!

I find it really interesting, because so many bands seem to hate genre labels these days, but it’s good to see that you’re just embracing it and saying “give us whatever you’ve got!”

A: Yeah, we’ve only had one that has summed us up, and the other attempts haven’t quite. I think that’s because we know our sound is kind of all over the place, but in a good way, so nothing can really hurt us. It’s like if someone was like, “they’re goth clash!”, we would just be like, “Er, okay.”

J: I just don’t think it matters! If you feel that strongly about it, then maybe that’s because you have some kind of insecurity about your music being generic.

K: Burned up!

A: Woah, Josh is bringing the fire to the fans!

K: No, no, it’s exactly the thought that went through my mind as well.

J: For example, if we were making music that was quite derivative of Mumford and Sons and people were saying it sounds just like that, then I would be pissed, because I’d be like “oh it’s true, dammit!”

K: Yeah, or if you’re making indie-rock and everyone was only saying indie-rock, then we wouldn’t want to be that. I always find it quite interesting, just any attempts to put any genres on us. It doesn’t really bother me.

J: Also, most importantly, I don’t think it ever affects us and the way that we look at our music.

A: I was going to say, and it’s kind of a cliche, that we literally write most of this stuff for ourselves. That’s literally how it started. At no point we were like, “this is going to be a hit, so we’ve got to go in this direction with it.” It’s hard enough for us three to say it’s done, so by that point, it is whatever it is. There’s loads of tracks that clash with each other, but it works.

“At no point we were like, ‘this is going to be a hit, so we’ve got to go in this direction with it.’”— Amer from Strong Asian Mothers

You’re writing this project for yourselves, but have you been involved in other things before?

K: Oh yeah, well I’ve got a solo project, called Khushi Music.

A: Khushi’s coming back in a big way by the way. I’ve heard the new material, it’s utterly inappropriate for our band, but it’s great for him.

K: And Josh produces...

J: Yeah, I do a little bit of production for other people. I have a solo production project in an embryonic state, that will probably never be played to any other human ears. Other than that, there was The Mercers, that indie-rock band we used to be in. I also used to do session work as a drummer for other artists.

A: I’ve mostly been in wedding bands. I’ve played in like three wedding bands in my life, and they’ve all been amazing! I’m actually a filmmaker, that’s my job. I’ve been doing that forever, that was my career path, but music was always my passion. I’m also an actor, I’ve been in a lot of things, like small bit parts and commercials. Basically, fingers in pies.

K: He’s also a phenomenal DJ! AKA Chocolate Susan.

I haven’t noticed these little nicknames!

K: Yeah, so I’m K9, Khaotic, Kali-P, K-Twizzle.

A: They’re all variations of hip-hop names. Our wannabe hip-hop alter-egos! [Towards Josh] here we have Rogan Josh, Josh Posh Beats, J-Dillaworth.

J: That’s because my middle name is Dillworth.

A: I’m Chocolate Susan, Amer-change-your-life, Amer-millionaire.

K: Do we have to go on with those?

I think I’ve got enough! Strong Asian Mothers has been going for longer than your online presence would suggest, as two years ago, you played with Jungle. How did that come about?

K: I think that was just through our booking agent.

J: That’s decent knowledge by the way!

A: Yeah, on HumanHuman the first post is like two years ago talking about the Jungle gig and they’ve been tracking us since then.

So, what was it like to play with Jungle?

A: Well, we actually played after them.

J: Yeah, they were supporting us, technically.

A: They were amazing and we loved it, but then we had to go on after them which was terrible because they took all their lights away, so we had to go on a really empty stage and play not as famous music. It was really fun though.

Well more recently, we’ve been hearing “The More That I” and “Out Of Love”, but do you have a favourite track from the new EP?

J: “Stay Down” for me, personally.

K: There’s a video for “Stay Down” with a fifty-piece choir in it which we’re really happy with. There’s also a song on the EP called “Megabucket”. [To Josh] so, “Stay Down” is your favourite?

J: I think so, although “Megabucket” has a special place in my heart because it was originally a song that was played in a different band a lifetime ago. I used to play in a jazz hip-hop fusion band.

Did it have a name?

J: Erm, yeah… it had a name. We were called the J H Collective and we had a rapper and horns and it was jazzy.

K: Josh is a recovering jazz addict.

A: Can you say which famous people were in your band?

J: Yeah, we had Michael Kiwanuka playing guitar for us, Mark Crown who now plays trumpet for Rudimental, and rapping we had Jack Hughes and Street Journalist, who is now an actor in the Lion King on the West End. But yeah, “Megabucket” was one of that band’s favourites and it became something much better. It has found it’s home and it’s a beautiful thing to see that track released into the world finally.

A: You were so happy with that. It’s like nine years old that song. I think “Megabucket” is my favourite too.

I would say that my favourite is “The More That I”.

K: Mine too.

Yeah! Well for me it comes down to how the words add to the overall rhythm of the song, they’re snappy. I was wondering, does one of you take the lead with lyrics, or is that a collaborative process?

J: At the moment, most of the vocal content is from Kalim, although we’re all branching into writing vocals and lyrics, but Kalim has the most experience as a singer. [To Kalim] sorry, I’m speaking on your behalf!

K: It’s fine. On that point, it’s a funny thing for us because having being influenced by so much hip-hop, but feeling it might be awkward for us to rap… In “The More That I”, there’s an influence in terms of the importance placed on rhythm in the melody.

A: In “Out Of Love” too. It’s basically secret rapping.

“Out Of Love” is a song that seems to be about a break-up and all the feelings surrounding that. Why do you think that music so often comes back to this idea of falling in love, falling out of it and everything in between?

K: Because in our sheltered Western lives, it’s the most intense thing we will go through.

Woah, that is one quote right there!

A: That’s it, cut it there!

J: Anything you add to that is going to be an anti-climax.

K: True, true. It’s really easy to put down the feelings of love, but it is an intense thing that we all go through as human beings.

A: It’s also a really easy thing to feel comfortable to write about, because you know that people will understand. It’s a human feeling, and that transcends all creed, race, religion. You’re not putting too much on the line by singing about a subject that everyone can experience.

K: I guess it’s also different from a classic break-up song, which are like “oh fuck, my heart’s broken, I miss you.” I guess this is celebrating the other side of break-ups, which can be quite liberating and energizing. It can be a new chapter and a new lease of life if you’ve left a relationship that you felt was no longer right for you. There’s that side of break-ups too, which isn’t that commonly talked about.

To move on to something a little less intense, how on earth did you convince your mums to do the Mothers Interview?

A: Our mums, and this is something we learnt from the interview, they represent us quite easily, a little too well, and that was an embarrassing revelation for me! My mum couldn’t fucking wait. Straight on there, she was like “oh yeah, I’ll do that!”

J: I was absolutely convinced as soon as the idea came up that there was no way I was going to get my mum to do it. Since I’ve known her… [laughs] which is most of my life! She’s always hated having her photograph taken, but as soon as I mentioned it she was really up for it and she ended up being a star! She was amazing.

K: She’s an undercover comic genius!

J: What was the amazing quote? I think it was when the video came out and we shared it on Facebook and my mum saw it, she showed my dad because he doesn’t have Facebook.

A: Then she sent me a private message!

J: Yeah, she sent it to Amer, she didn’t even tell me! She sent Amer a private message saying… [starts laughing] my dad’s called Godfrey by the way, as a prerequisite to this story.

A: Josh’s mum messaged me saying, “Love the video. Thank you so much! Godfrey is tickled pink. You’re brilliant. Shout out to Amer Chadha-Patel and his tight swags.” [all three burst out laughing]

I also really, really loved the debate over plug-ins!

A: That was a last minute thing, so the way we did that is that we interviewed ourselves, transcribed the answers and gave it to our mums to just be us. We only gave them couple of things to talk about, but they ended up getting into an argument anyway!

It was pretty convincing! On that point, how do you think things like plug-ins and digital audio workstations are affecting the sound of current music?

K: In many ways it democratizing it, because otherwise it means you have to wait until you have loads of money behind you to get into a studio.

J: It levels the playing field, doesn’t it? Everyone is now releasing music in the same way.

K: As long as you can afford a laptop, because that’s not everyone, but it’s definitely more than can afford a studio. It also gives people more time to experiment and play around with sounds, because in a studio you have this fixed time where you have to write music mainly in the rehearsal room or on the run. Whereas now, you can construct it bit by bit and experiment. I think it’s an exciting new chapter.

A: It’s also teaching me to respect simple songwriting, because there’s so much on offer that I can kind of freak out with all the plug-ins and we have so many samples. You just have to remember that as long as the chord progression is good, and the lyrics and melody works, then everything else is just filler. You have to start with something good. I was listening to Q-Tip the other day, who I really love, and thinking this is so simple and really good. Or I’ll get in the car and I’ll be listening to J-Dilla with an amazing drum production and a really simple guitar line, and the only thing on top of that is vocals. In comparison to our music, it’s so simple! That is totally achievable with what we have, without any need to go as far as do. Learning to reign it in a bit has been the most valuable lesson for me. I can go fucking mental! And I have done, there’s so much stuff on my computer that’s just not for anybody. It’s basically the ramblings of a madman who likes metal and hip-hop.

J: As a production-based trio, it can be overwhelming and you can become obsessed with becoming a really technically accomplished producer and learning all the ins and outs of your DAW. You can get really hung up on that and it can become really problematic, because you stop focussing on what’s really important and start trying to sound like Flume and produce like Hudson Mohawke. I was recently reminded by a friend that the most important thing is to have really strong core content. The source material that you’re working from, whether that’s a really strong sample or chord progression or melody or vocal idea, that’s the most important thing and everything after that is filler.

A: On the flipside, and as the least technically adept musician in this band, I have an instinct for music and I really like it and I can write chords, but I’m not the best musician, but I’ve been able to get very, very far with DAWs. I’ve been able to achieve stuff with my computer that is remarkable for someone who can’t actually play music very well.

K: That’s a good point, because it’s also enabled me to do things I couldn’t have, because I’m not a technically advanced musician either. There’s a long-running condition in popular music of not technically advanced musicians just doing their thing, but it gives them their own style.

A: Like Michael Jackson.

K: Well, not really, he was a very technically advanced singer.

A: But he couldn’t really play any instruments, but he would write whole songs in his head. Imagine what he would have done if he had Logic!

I think it was really interesting that you’ve all said you have to find a balance between technicalities and sticking to your original goal. Referring back to the Mothers’ Interview, Amer’s mum outlines your aim as “to form a band where you could play at a party with relative ease and people would dance regardless of knowing it”.

A: You’re quoting my mum!

K: That’s the genre label we want, dance regardless.

Has that goal been achieved?

K: We’re on the way to achieving it.

A: No, I think we achieved it. I think we achieved it very early on, and we’re on changing our tune a bit. This band started with a few hip-hop beats Khush had written and a few instrumentals from me that we thought would be good to put on a backing track and then we could just take some top-line melodies and a couple of keyboards to play live. At that point, the sole aim was to make music for parties. We had no idea what we were, we would just dance along! That was the essence of dance regardless. Since then we’ve grown exponentially as actual songwriters.

J: I don’t think that’s our sole ambition anymore, to turn up at a venue and make people dance.

So, you’ve gone past the initial goal now?

J: Well, I think we’ve just adjusted what we want. That’s still definitely an important angle, we don’t want to turn up to gigs and play music that doesn’t move people in a physical way. I don’t think we’ll ever write any kind of music that doesn’t achieve that, but our aim includes other things now too.

A: That will always be an element of our songwriting, for the foreseeable future. We’re not likely to go in and write an acoustic song. Well, we might do at some point, but we’ll know if it’s right or wrong for the project, because we might not be defined by the idea behind the band which is to play boisterous party music.

For my last question, where can people go dance along to your music next?

A: We’re doing Secret Garden Party on the 22nd of July. Also Bestival, Cirque Du Soul, El Dorado Festival.

K: Anyone who lives in Beirut, we might be playing there too.

https://humanhuman.com/articles/interview-strong-asian-mothers

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