Backyard Pub News Page

>> NEWS

NO ORDINARY MUSIC MAN
Jun 12, 2005, New Sunday Times

By JESSICA LIM. Pic by: Rosli Mat Tahir.
Click to enlarge.

WHETHER he's singing on stage, telling you about how he busted his index finger trying to get a guitar cable fixed, or spinning a yarn about his schooldays in an all-boys boarding school in London, Adam Farouk's boundless energy reminds one of the exploding popcorn kernels in a covered pot.

The good-looking chap carved a name for himself in Malaysia last April as a member of New York-based acappella group The Breakers during their successful Equinox Tour.

The singer-guitarist-pianist was also nominated for Best Musical Direction at the 2004 Boh Cameronian Arts Awards for his work on I Have Dreamed: An Evening With Sean Ghazi.

Taking a break from a solo guitar gig at the Backyard Pub in Sri Hartamas last week, Penang-born Adam took time to reveal how he came to discover his real buzz - writing music.

The Chinese-Malay youth was studying in Cornell University at that time and had never written a song.

He sat musing with his room mate about their friends who seemed to be churning out song after song.

"They'd come up to us and say, 'hey,man, I just wrote this song, about politics, or that song about urban living', and I was like, 'crap, man! I want that'," said Adam.

"That's when the two of us decided to write the perfect song," he said, his hands emphasising the point.

Three months and no songs later, a discouraged Adam was hanging out with a group of six friends.

After some time, their conversation started to centre on love and issues like 'so what is love?' and 'have you ever really been in love?'

It was only a matter of time before the group turned their attention to an uncharacteristically quiet Adam with a question - "So Adam, tell us about your first time?"

"I was 18 and had never been in love. Hey man, I was from an all-boys boarding school, love was out of the cards for me, save for an extreme lifestyle change, you know what I mean? "And then they looked at me with this look (gives a very shocked expression) for like, 10 seconds.

"Man, I got offended. I said, 'Hey look, don't feel sorry for me. Don't patronise me, geez'," he exclaimed.

Adam left that discussion and went to a quiet spot where he started to pluck out the introspective tunes like Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind.

After one and a half hours of storming it out on his guitar, Adam Farouk was ready to present his first song to the world.

He called it Place to Be, a song about lost love and how one finds peace with it. After that, he says, songs just started to "flow" from him.

Nine years, 50 songs and innumerable gigs later, Adam says he can't remember not being immersed in music.

Although he had always been exposed to classical music and jazz lessons, it was during an Interlochen Arts Camp (an eight-week international arts training camp in Michigan held each summer) that he decided to make his music career, and he has not looked back since.

Perhaps, it's his life motto that makes him such a successful music personality.

"That's what it's all about - fun and good." - nstunt@nst.com.my

Keen on more gigs? Visit www.backyardpub.com

Links: June 1st Photos | Adam Farouk's profile | The Breakers website |

© News Straits Times Press Bhd

ARCHIVE

NOVEMBER 2005

OCTOBER 2005