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Aamir Zaki is one of Pakistan's most prolific guitar players. Zaki released his long awaited debut album Signature in 1995. To date, it is his only full length studio recording release. Zaki also played briefly with the Vital Signs circa 1994.is father initially got him a drum kit that was deemed too loud. A saxophone took its place, but the trumpeting was too much for the family to handle. Finally a compromise was struck on the guitar and that suited everyone just fine, especially Aamir who immediately started working out melodies on one string. Soon he had learnt the ropes by instinct, playing the music others made before him.
Playing alone soon got boring for young Zaki, so he started jammin' with a friend who played the drums. The drummer is now a cab driver in New York; hardly glorious, but he probably earns more than what he would have as a musician in Pakistan. However, the short time that they played together was enough for Zaki to start a band called Drug Enforcement. In 1984, they played their first show at Rangoonwala Hall where they scandalized the audience by doing covers of The Who, Cream and Jimi Hendrix. The line up consisted of Salman Habib on drums, who eventually gave up drumming for Habib Oil Mills, and Abbas Premjee, who went on to the States to study, amongst other things, classical guitar. Apparently, Premjee still plays a mean flamenco, but can he match his counterpart who followed his heart?
Zaki found enough inspiration to start composing his first, (and to date, only), solo album - "Signature". It featured one Urdu song, two English songs and the rest were instrumentals. He put his own money into releasing this high-risk venture. He produced the CDs in England and got Sonic to release them locally. This behind him, he got cracking.
Amir Zaki is currently conducting Guitar Training Sessions at "Beatles Music Academy", Tariq Road, Opposite Jheel Park, Karachi.
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