Yeah, they're back with a bang-and a new album, Andaz.

Heard you were sick of the Sufi label...

Salman: I said I found it was straitjacketing us into a one-dimensional image. Sufi poetry, philosophy and imagery are very cool in the new millennium, but I'm not going to give up my freedom or be confined by anybody.

I felt that the album was not very cohesive...

Salman: My writing process has always been to allow myself to drift, to throw things on the wall and see what sticks. It's never regimented or planned and I find that liberating for myself-that's why I am an artiste. If an album sounds uncohesive to you, it is basically reflecting what I was going through. I feel privileged that we had the creative freedom to allow ourselves to drift.

Was "Ishq" written for Bollywood?

Salman: Sohail Khan wanted to know if I'd be interested in composing music for a movie with 6-7 songs. The idea appealed to me, but it's still drifting. Maybe because I can't base myself in Mumbai. My schedule with Junoon is so tight, I travel a lot. I'd love to do it for a movie that inspires me, like Mission Kashmir, or Shool, or Earth...

"Sheeshe Ka Ghar" is a uncharacteristically polite, politically relevant song...

Salman: It's a very idealistic, Utopian song. People have become so cynical these days that when the truth stares them in the face, they can't see it. You have to give it some sort of spin to make it listenable. But music is not a fashion thing, it lasts for years... someday, someone will discover the song. It works on a lot of different levels-poilitcal, social, uh... (Laughs) domestic levels.

Why did you choose"Zamaney Ke Andaz" for the first video and why is it so ordinary?!

Salman: My recollection of the video is the best time I ever had! I find videos very tedious. You have to wait for your shot, it's hot, you've got make-up on- it's a pain in the ass for someone like me. But on this one, the whole terrain suited my soul so much. Since there were camels and goats and horses on the beach already, it wasn't difficult to steal one of the horses and run with it for miles and miles... when I got back, they were ready for my shot and the horse was... (Laughs) dead. So there are no horses in the video!(Laughs) Before we make a video, we try and test songs live. "Zamaney Ke Andaz", "Ishq", "Dharti Key Khuda", "Kaise Gaoun" and "Shaamein" were the five we were playing a lot and we found that there's an energy in this song...

"Sheena" seems like a very personal song...

Salman: My mother, when she was 16, made a painting that hangs in my grandmother's house in Lahore. It's a painting of a Spanish dancer, in brilliant gold and red, with made-up eyes and rosy cheeks, and in the corner is a guitar player with a cigarette in his mouth. I was always fascinated by it. My mother's nickname is Sheena and she is a woman who has sacrificed her life for her children-my parents are divorced. In a roundabout way the song is talking to an imaginary Sheena, which is that woman in the painting, and is saying 'move on, don't die for love.'

"Chal Kuriye" is a Sufi song about death, but doesn't sound like it!

Salman: It was a way of un-straitjacketing ourselves from the Sufi image. I feel it's good to take the wind out of our sails. People felt that we took ourselves so seriously about the Sufi image and I felt this was the way to just chill, man.

Salman and Ali are both composing... What about you?

Brian: As Junoon's musical horizons expand, you will see more input from me on composition, rather than primarily on arrangement, theory and production. As our audience grows internationally, we should have more freedom in creating music for a broader palette. It was, and is, paramount to rely on our true identity and bond with South Asia. It's what we have created here at home, that must be offered to all corners of the earth. But having that strong backbone of identity, we can experiment and incorporate influences on a more global scale. This is really very exciting for me, as "compositionally speaking", I still feel like a tourist in the subcontinent. Mind you, only compositionally. In all other aspects, I feel like a true desi.

What about the basslines on Andaz?

Brian: We wanted to capture the spontaneity of the band, one of Junoon's strong points, on to tape. To create the magic we find at our live shows, as it's difficult for us to artificially create that soulful space in the confines of buttons, knobs and microphones in closets. We've learned that the line must be drawn somewhere in the middle. Personally, I feel that if I had more time to let the compositions stir in my soul, you'd have heard some basslines that were more from the heart, and not the cuff. But, I do feel that the basslines are functional in that they are an integral part of the rhythm that propels the Junoon groove.

Do you think you've digressed from the Junoon sound on Andaz in your three rocking songs"Shaamein", "Jaaney Tu" and "Dharti Key Khuda"?

Ali: Yeah, I think I have. It was natural, because the sound of my songs is so different from Salman's songwriting. I wanted to do a solo album, I have so many songs, and the band felt it would be interesting to have my songs on the album. Salman's writing style is very Eastern. My melodies are just melodies, they are not Indian or Pakistani or anything, I don't worry about genre.

Does composing give you a bigger high than singing?

Ali: Yes... I guess. Composing is something you can say is your own, it's like your baby, and just to find out that you have it in you to write these interesting songs, is good enough. As an artiste, I think I've always lacked that, my own field of expression.

Which song is best for you to do live?

Ali: We haven't done the whole album live... "Shaamein" is a lot of fun to play live, so is "Zamaney Ke Andaz", it's a very energetic track, and played live it's quite different from the song on the album.