Transcription
So, I first met both these guys separately. I met Saman first on the set of "Drunk" in 2012, and then me and I started working together. We were sort of exploring different sorts of sounds and cultures. Uh, and he is Persian and said we should make a Persian tune, and so we started making it. Halfway through making it, I said, "Can we use a Persian word in this?" And he said, "Yeah, the language is Farsy." I said, "Well, what does 'like love' mean in Farsy?" And he said, "Well, it's 'Azizam.'" Instantly hearing that word, I was like, "That's a really cool word."
And I said to Ilia, "What would you do as a music video?" And he said, "The best way to showcase my culture would be a wedding." I was like, "Totally, this is awesome. Ed, in Ed fashion, is basically like, you know, wedding buzzword." And so, you know, I went and I wanted to create an experience like Persian weddings are really a good crash course into all Persian things. Just like lots of love, lots of affection. Even just like when you showed me the table with all the things on the table, and we went to the Azizam restaurant yesterday, and they had all the stuff out for Persian New Year and stuff like that's all so specific to the culture.
But um, I think that within like Irish weddings, you know, which I've gone to since I was born, it's the same. It is the same. You're up on your feet for the entire time, and it's very loving, and it's a big, it's a big thing. Even though we were all from different walks of life, it felt like a family at a wedding, cuz that's literally what that is, the video is that's what a Persian wedding would look like. You know, you would be, it's this forced food and and then there's dancing, and there's everyone's like, "You have to dance." Yeah. And everyone, like one thing that I've found with like the Persian community is everyone is so welcoming and happy and so excited to like showcase their culture. It doesn't feel gatekeepy. Like everyone's just like, "Yeah, man." Like, like even even today, like Ben coming here and to say thank you, he brought us all like this amazing Persian food that we've just been eating, and it just felt like him sharing, wanting pe-people to sort of love his culture as much as as as he does, does.
And yeah, I found that in the video, and everyone was just really excited to be there, and you got my dad in it as well. My dad's in the in the video, and uh, he just wants to experience things with me, and him coming on his own and just being there like meant the world to me, and also introducing Persian culture to him. I know it was for me it's been one of the most uh powerful experiences that I've had, you know, and I was able to reconnect. I think for me the most exciting thing I always find with anything creatively that isn't necessarily something that is natural to me like is just discovering new things and like learning. I think that's what I've loved about touring the world. Like I come from a really small farming town in Suffolk. I grew up with like Irish traditional music in my household, and that was kind of about it culturally, like it was just having an opportunity to not only like explore different cultures musically but then also learn about them, to be brought into a world, and music is the thing that connects us all, and every everyone around the world can communicate through music. I found that like I've been playing in countries where people don't it's not even that English isn't even the first language. They don't even speak English, and I can go into a studio and we can communicate between rhythms and melodies and song. And just like jamming, we all have the same joy.