Musical fusion takes many forms. But have you ever heard punk rock blended with bhangra and klezmer? Probably not—unless you’re a fan of Firewater, a punk band out of Brooklyn whose musical reach extends across the Middle East and Asia. Its founder and lead singer/songwriter, Tod Ashley, better known as Tod A, set out in 2005 and traveled overland from India through Pakistan, and into Istanbul and Israel. Along the way, he met lots of local musicians who were happy to share their songs.

The resulting album is Firewater’s The Golden Hour— a zingy distillation of worldwide influences, anchored by the band’s essential punk roots and disaffected lyrics. Tod edited it in cheap hotel rooms at night after the sessions, and mixed and produced it in Tel Aviv with drummer Tamir Muskat from Balkan Beat Box. What makes the CD really shine is the mixture of flashes and bursts from Tod’s impromptu recording sessions with a bunch of unknown musicians, and the way he's managed to break down borders in countries where few musicians could ever imagine having the chance to perform with foreign counterparts. (As Tod notes in a publicity video, “Even though Israelis can’t go to Pakistan and Pakistanis can’t go to Israel… somehow a bunch of Pakistanis and a bunch of Israelis wound up playing on the same record.” Surely a first.)

Firewater performed earlier this month in Washington, D.C. Before they went onstage, I sat down with Tod  in Firewater’s big white van, parked outside the Black Cat club, while he smoked cigarettes and answered a few questions.

Your music is variously described as punk klezmer, world punk, and probably a few other things I can’t even imagine. How do you define it?

World punk is probably not a bad label to have stamped on it. To me, punk rock is not about piercings or tattoos. It’s about honesty of delivery and stripping off all the b.s. and trappings and frosting, and delivering something really from the heart that’s direct. Some of most amazing punk rock bands are the Mexican banda or the Indian wedding bands. They’ve got that energy where you feel a person’s soul is being laid on the line. That’s punk rock for me and that’s where I take my inspiration from, no matter from what country.

Qawwali, the Indian subcontinent’s ecstatic, devotional Sufi music, has a searing emotional quality, too. People around the world used to flock to performances by the late, great Pakistani qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, even though they couldn't understand the lyrics. Were you already a fan of that music?

Yeah. But you know, I’m not a musicologist. I came into it a bit like a tourist. It’s a part of the world I didn’t know about but my government has been interacting with in a big way. I went there because I was curious, more than anything. I was going in as a blank slate, with no preconceptions—just a musician, hopefully with an open mind. The main impetus for the trip was not to make a record but to take a trip. As it happened, I got really lucky and got some great stuff.

How did you meet the musicians you ended up recording?

A lot of it was chance and luck. I would just go into a town and start asking around at my hotel or sometimes at shops. I met a guy on the street in Lahore. It was the first day of the monsoon and the skies opened up. So me and this guy took shelter under a roof and he pulled out a cigarette and I asked him for a light. It turned out he was a tabla and harmonium teacher. I recorded at his house and in his courtyard, with chickens running through, and goats.

One night that was kind of amazing was a Sufi night in a village outside Lahore. It was kind of a battle of the bands, different groups would come in and start playing, and they’d really get smoking and people would gather around. Then someone else would start. I was surreptitiously recording and there’s a little snatch of that at end of "This Is My Life."

Few of these musicians spoke English. How did you communicate with them?

The translations were a bit like playing telephone. Sometimes I’d just make noises with my mouth and whip out my acoustic guitar and give them an idea of what I was after. Most of these guys had never been recorded. They play at weddings, nautch [dance] parties, whatever gigs they could get to get some extra money. They’re from little villages. I couldn’t afford famous studio musicians so I was just looking for real down-home folks.

With the lack of language, a lot of times it’s just communication between musicians with the eyes—a lot of smiling. I felt somehow it rose above politics and borders in some small way.

Pakistan and Israel were both founded around the same time, both as religious homelands. Did you find musical similarities between the two countries?

I’m an atheist but I love a lot of religious music. For me it was almost a similar learning experience to understand a country like Israel and a country like Pakistan. There’s a soul that comes from religiously inspired music that I really get off on. It’s the honesty and letting it out in a very unpretentious way that both countries share.

What were the main things you learned from the musicians you met?

To listen a bit more. My schooling in traditional music comes from records and radio and things I dug up and found myself. These guys have an apprentice system. Every band I worked with had old guys in their 70s, and guys maybe 14 or 15 years old, and every age in between. Gypsy bands work the same way. They watch and listen and absorb it, till the young guys become the 70-year-olds. That was cool to watch. We don’t do it that way in this country.

Pakistan’s technically a dry country. Were you able to find firewater?

I went to buy a six-pack and was offered a rocket launcher. I said, “No. I’m here to buy a six-pack.”

Did you travel much growing up?

I was raised all over. I was born in South Carolina and grew up in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vancouver, Wales. My mother’s a geologist. She travels a lot now, more than I do. She’s worked in Antarctica and right now she’s in Kenya, in the Rift Valley.

You didn’t want to follow in her professional footsteps?

Well, you know, I went into rock.

-by Hannah Bloch

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