PUBLISHED Jan 26 '10

Tambet, the Emir of Zahir

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You can be called a legend on the Estonian independent music scene. How many bands have you been in?

Just two, Zahir and Shelton San. Some buddies of mine, Martin and Peter they were doing this band and they had this gig in Erkki Tero’s birthday party back in 1993 or something, they were planning to do this 3 song live there and would I come and sing something or whatever, scream or something, I was totally not interested, but I still went to the party and got really, really drunk, of course hehe, I took the mic, I can’t remember much about that. The first gig I was just goofing around, just screaming shit and they were playing there, and it was quite alright. A few days later then we thought maybe we should do more stuff, then I borrowed a bass and we started to rock. I only bought my first bass in 98, some 5 years later, we didn’t have any money or anything then, maybe money for batteries for distortion pedals and for beer.

The name for the band came from the first drummer, Martin, it’s from a book by an Argentine guy. I didn’t pay much attention to what it means or what it is.

The Zahir or El Zahir is a book written by Jorge Luis Borges published in 1947. The Zahir is a person or an object that has the power to create an obsession in everyone who comes into contact with it. It’s about losing touch with reality and the focus becoming more and more on the Zahir.

The 2nd gig was in a former gun club, the ticket was 5 kroons and I don’t think we were paid. With Zahir we have probably played 100 gigs since.

Walking into Levist Väljas the best indi music could be heard from 10 until 4am. This late night drinking station has a reputation. Tambet worked the bar and educated those still sober enough to discern in a wide range of US, UK and European garage and rock bands.

I was ordering from the internet when there were these cheap internet shops, now they are all closed, at least this place where I bought my stuff, it lasted like 6 or 7 years. I put all my fucking money into this shop. And a buddy of mine Antti is a record dealer in Estonia and also in RnR and garage rock and he also was importing records. He is still doing this. This year, I bought maybe 3 records, it used to be 100 per year or something. In a way I was addicted, you just have to have the stuff right now. There were times that I forgot to pay my electricity and rent and was living without power for 3 weeks as all my money went to the stupid CD’s. I could play them at my workplace when I was working at the bar. It was the whole point of buying CD’s you know. So I could go to work and play my own shit. I started there in 2000 or 2001 until 2007, its actually a pretty long time, I guess I was just too lazy or stupid to take a hike. I don’t much think about it.

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Tambet is also playing bass in Tallinn band Shelton San. After meeting and becoming buddies with vocalist and guitarist Valter Nõmm they were supposed to start another band but then the original Shelton bass player took off and a place became available.

I really liked the band and Valter asked do you want to come and play with us, I said “Fuckin’ A. Why the hell not?” This was 2004 or 5. I don’t think as myself as a musician, I just do it to have fun and make good rock and roll, when it comes to if people like it then that’s alright and if someone is willing to pay for that then that’s really alright also.

In between stints ship building in Newcastle or welding in Germany you are sometimes seen in Juuksur behind the bar, again playing your music, the difference between sitting in a bar with average or bad music and sitting in Juuksur when you are there is a big contrast.

Working now in the bar is not my dream job, I am waiting for a call to get out of here for some few months do some hard work and you know, make some green. It’s quite alright to get out from Tallinn for a few months. I was working in a fucking kebab place for a year and there was this commercial station playing, I started to go mental, in fact there were a few things I started to like. Actually I don’t have anything about pop music except it’s just so fucking annoying. When I was last in Newcastle in the bars they played a lot of shit but when Oasis started to play everyone went mental, like it was the national anthem, actually it was pretty cool.

Finnish people are pretty rocky people, RnR has been there for 30 or 40 years already, they have a shit load of stuff we never heard of, I went there to the record store on the ACDC release date and I saw 30 people standing waiting to pay with the record in their hands. I’m never gonna see this picture anywhere else ever again.

Who writes the songs for Zahir?

We just come together and plug in and start to do something, and 6 minutes later there is something going on, Some sort of ‘magic time’, It’s different in Shelton, Valter has some basic idea and everyone starts to follow this thing, In Zahir it’s the total opposite.

I really hope this will happen in 2010. Planning a double CD, or something, we have a lot of new stuff and old stuff so some kind of compilation, some leftovers and some brand new material. We have the songs and now we need to record them, this time we plan to do all the shit ourselves. We have been thinking about a vinyl release too. I don’t know. With the leftovers I want to release 7 inch singles, over some few months.

When the time is right and there is some money, then we are going to do it. Then again, things change like this. I have a plan, in a way.

Could Tallinn 2011 be good for you? Are they getting behind bands?

Let’s see. I don’t have much hope about anything like that, but whatever happens its fine, we are not planning to break up but to just keep it going.

Where do you like to play in Tallinn?

Von Krahl. The thing is people are pretty lazy to go to places, if you don’t play in the centre of town and you play somewhere else, they don’t come, If you play in VK then its alright. In a way they are too comfortable with this old town stuff.

Tambet recently featured in the film «The Temptation Of St Tony», he was called by Veiko for some small part, he hasn’t seen the movie yet, where he has a few crazy second during a sleazy libertine cannibal club scene. On set were the Magik Markers and according to Elisa Tambet was pretty scary.

This movie business, we went there and just started to wait the whole fucking day, of course you get drunk and that’s the way it happened. We had a motel a few drinks and stuff. I got pretty drunk and pretty aggressive as I got tired of waiting but actually it was cool there. I had been in Germany a few months and then came back for the movie shoot and a few days vacation, which ended up as a month in Estonia. I’d been working hard for a few months and hadn’t seen my buddies so actually I went a bit mental. I thought what the fuck am I doing here. Oh Shit.