When Melissa Etheridge and Junoon performed last December at the Nobel Peace prize ceremony in Oslo, we were doing soundchecks before the show at the Oslo Spectrum in Norway.
Listening to her sing just from a few feet away, I was blown away by the power of Melissa's voice and the Unity of vibrations contained in it. She gave me goosebumps. Later that evening Al Gore and the Nobel peace prize gathering of Hollywood stars and moguls, rock stars, King, Queen, Prince, Princess of Norway, politicians, business leaders and environmentalists all agreed with my observation.
Melissa and I became friends and musical admirers and in January, this year, she invited me to her home to spend a couple of days in Los Angeles where we talked about many things. Among them, Love and Unity and how they are universal themes running from Rumi to the Beatles.In both East and West it's poetry and music which unites humanity rather than politics which aims to divide and demonize 'the other'. Melissa and I also talked about the children of Abraham: Jesus, Moses and Muhammad and their common spirit of brotherhood and sacrifice.
We sat with acoustic guitars and out of that intense talking and jamming came RING THE BELLS.
Ring The Bells is a cry for Peace and change in a world of war and chaos. Our only guiding principle was to be passionate, truthful and sincere and to allow the Universe to inspire us...and boy did the Universe ever conspire to inspire!
In April when Melissa was recording her album (A NEW THOUGHT FOR CHRISTMAS) I flew down to Burbank studios in California to record my guitars and vocals, we sang face to face, her emotional rendition inspired me to sing some traditional Qawwali (Islamic sufi devotional singing),and tarana bols like 'Ta-na-derey-na-' which are a metaphor for mystical unity and Oneness.
Both of us are well aware of the deep divisions and fear that exists today between races, regions and religions and we hope that Ring The Bells will confront fear with an alternative vision of Hope. When you see with the heart all the masks fall down. RING THE BELLS ALL OVER THE WORLD!