Photo by Christina Gutierrez
Sarah Al-Mulla is the enigmatic and charming lead singer and song writer for Halimede. The band will be performing at Viento y Agua on Saturday, November 10th at 9 PM. More on the band in a moment.
Al-Mulla grew up in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates.
“My father was a local and worked for Emirates Air. My mother was American, and was a homemaker. It was a very different time in Dubai. It was open, yet I was never Arab enough to be full Arab, but it also seemed that I wasn’t mixed enough to be Western, so I felt that I was caught in this very strange in-between land, where I didn’t really belong in either place.
“I was kind of a strange kid. I was very inquisitive. I tried to fix broken radios and decided that it wasn’t that I didn’t have the engineering skills, I just didn’t have the right tools. That kind of a thing. I was very imaginative.
“I put a clear boundary between my school life and my personal life. Even at 6 years old, I cringed at the thought of seeing people from school in a social situation. I was there to study, in my mind, not to make friends. I was friends with my neighbor, and her sister, each was one year older than myself and my sister, and I actually have cassette tapes of myself when I was three speaking about them, so they were my friends. I guess my mom made those friends for me. [laughs] I’ve just always felt strange and awkward talking to people I don’t know, as though I’m bothering them. So I just didn’t do it.
“Of course my mom had a field day asking kids in the neighborhood if I could play with them. If it’s never happened to you, I’m telling you, it’s mortifying! But things like that usually happened at parks and stuff. I’m sure I was just driving her crazy with questions, so she tried to pawn me off! [laughs]”
Although her father liked to sing, Al-Mulla admits that neither of her parents were particularly musical.
“They did love music and always had it playing, but my mom would listen to Sade, Kenny G, Boys to Men and my dad listened to Arabic music, so what I knew of music I really just learned when we moved to the US in 1997, when I was 11. I wouldn’t necessarily say that the music they listened to influenced me much, but I was always musical. When I was really young my mom bought me a ukulele and I sat with it for days until I could play the happy birthday song on one string.
“I have that same practice method now. It’s somewhat of a compulsion. I play repetitively until I get it right and can do it flawlessly three times in a row. I’ve always just played what I liked hearing. I started playing piano when I was 6. I begged my dad to buy me a piano, sliently hoping and thinking that I was going to sit down at the keys and be some kind of child prodigy. Though that wasn’t the case, I did pick it up pretty fast. My dad agreed to buy the piano if I agreed I would take lessons, which I did but, as a child, I didn’t have the endurance to sit through having to learn sheet music and learn other people’s songs. I wanted to compose, so I did.
“I’ve always played better by ear, and surprised my piano teacher with Für Elise, which I learned by ear. He was impressed, but was displeased that I neglected the song I was supposed to be studying and the sheet music I was supposed to be reading, and would constantly tell me that he knew I wasn’t practicing, but would still encourage me to do my own thing.”
Al-Mulla abandoned the piano at age eight, however.
“I just couldn’t bring myself to sit and learn the music and play sheet music over and over again. I became disinterested and started to associate the piano with having to do something I didn’t want to do. So I just quit. In hindsight, I believe that I would be a much better skilled pianist today had I stuck it out, and really wished that I did.
“It wasn’t a question of putting in work and time, or a question of devotion. It was that the instrument, in my mind, was supposed to be there for me to express myself, not to express myself while playing another person’s composition. I still have the same outlook today, and find it difficult to learn cover songs, though I do enjoy it and appreciate it a bit more now.”
Al-Mulla moved to Long Beach, where her mother is from, in 1997. She was 11. The move became challenging once she entered school.
“The education system was more advanced in Dubai. I was eight years old when I was in the fifth grade. Here, it was in science class that the culture shock really set in. I was using a bunsen burner by myself by the time I was nine or 10. Then moving here, [they were having me] mix warm water with salt.
“Also, I couldn’t wrap my mind around how mouthy the students were, the blatant disrespect for authority and the disregard for education. Furthermore, it seemed that schools just agreed.
“I was used to more order and control and that there were consequences, especially at school, if you stepped out of line, which didn’t seem to be the case here. That laxity made me uneasy and made my first couple of months here difficult. Had I been told, then, that I would grow into such an opinionated and ‘question authority’ type of person as an adult, I wouldn’t have believed it. [Laughs]
“After crying for a few days, I just acknowledged that this is the way things are. Places are different, cultures are different, and that I had to be resiliant enough to go with the flow and learn how to do what needed to be done. My mom encouraged me to continue to strive to be the best I could, but that I couldn’t constantly bitch and moan that I didn’t fit in, or that I felt out of place, because that’s simply the human experience. We try new things, meet new people, move to places that are foriegn to us, and we have to simply make it our own, and find our place and role in it.”
After abandoning the piano, Al-Mulla developed her music skills on the guitar and, by the time she was 13, started writing songs.
“Writing lyrics came somewhat naturally to me. I was never a real poet. I just liked wording things well and in rhythm. For some reason I’ve always written really dark lyrics, I think it was just an outlet for dissatisfaction, worry and anxiety, as I was always kind of a bundle of nerves, even at a young age.
“Poetry, to me, didn’t seem to have the same effect as lyrics. With lyrics, there’s melody behind it, which forces the listener to engage and be thrusted into the emotional mindframe you are intending to evoke with the prose.”
Still, the allure of the piano proved to be irresistable and, at 17, she succumbed to its graces. It was not, however, without its challenges.
“In my mind, no other instrument compared, so I bought myself a small keyboard, and composed some instrumental songs. Within three months I had about nine compositions, which were pretty technical. But I wanted to take it into a more fully engaging level. I wrote a slow, really depressing, song and, with much difficulty, tried to sing while playing piano. It was one of the most difficult things I think I’ve ever had to learn. Trying to play something technical on the piano and split my attention to my voice isn’t very easy for me, mostly because I’m very self concious about my voice. I’ve never considered myself a singer.”
Now, at 26, Al-Mulla finds herself fronting Halimede, a band that evolved from a collaboration with drummer David Chetkin, who she met via Craigslist.
“He posted an ad searching for a female singer/songwriter. Within three or four days, I was at Mambo Studio, in Long Beach, recording my personal compositions. He liked my material and encouraged me to play. He had a guitarist and bass player at the time who jumped on the bandwagon and we started practicing my material.”
These early studio recordings evolved over several months, but the original bass and guitar players left. Mambo Studio, however, has a number of talented musicians working there.
“I met our current bass player, Wade Wilkinson, on the first day I went into Mambo studios. He’s a recording engineer there. Dave and I went into the studio to start tracking the debut album and figured that we’d just deal with the lack of a bass player and guitarist after we had all the piano, drums and vocals tracked. As we progressed with the recording process, Wade really loved the material and we, somehow, convinced him to play on a few songs, which then led to him joining us as part of the band.
“Mark Cox, our guitarist, also works at Mambo studios. He and Wade are long-time friends, and Wade suggested that he play guitar. We were stoaked to have him aboard. They liked the material, we all got along. It’s really just as simple as that.”
With a recording completed, and a group of seasoned veteran musicians behind her, she had one remaining hurdle to overcome.
“I had never played my music on a stage in front of people, and I most definately had never sang in front of people. I’ve been in plays and productions since I was a child, but performing my music is something entirely different. It’s nerve-wracking because it’s the epitome of vulnerability. It’s like reading your journal to a group of people who, firstly don’t really care because they don’t know you, and setting yourself up for judgment.
“Furthermore, you’re expected to do it beautifully and sound great, with some feigned sense of confidence which simply isn’t there. But Dave was gracious enough to not only motivate me, but to continue to tell me, and believe, that I could do it, and that the more I did it, the more comfortable I would be with it. I still remain extremely nervous while playing live. I love the feeling after a show, or a third of the way into it, after I’ve messed up a few times, and simply resign myself to having fun.
“The problem is that I am a perfectionist, and want people to hear the best version of the song that I can deliver. Putting that pressure on myself doesn’t necessarily make for the best performance, because then I’m so wrapped up in being acurate that I can’t enjoy the fun of performing.”
Surprisingly, she’s found that working with people, some of whom are older than her parents, has been enjoyable.
“[laughs] It’s a lot of fun, actually. Being surrounded by three mature men who like to remind me that I’m special and that they want to do whatever they can so that I can successfully have full creative expression, I mean, what girl could turn that down? [laughs] I never think about the age difference until we’re taking a break and get into a conversation about movies, or music and there’s that whole remember when’ kind of a moment, and I’m left thinking, ‘not really.’ [laughs] They’re a pleasure to be around, and being that I’m a very nervous performer, they constantly remind me that they’re behind me 100% and that I’m not up there alone.”
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Check out Halimede’s new album, C/O A Conscience, on Bandcamp, iTunes, or pick up the CD at Fingerprints Music.
Viento y Agua is located at 4007 E. 4th St. To learn more about Viento y Agua’s amazing schedule of art and music, visit VientoyAguaCoffeeHouse.com.