It is Friday night at Jackson Heights in Queens, and the Himalayan Yak Restaurant is filled to capacity. Nepali diners craving a taste of home are scattered all over the restaurant’s two floors. The regulars at the bar are starting to drink the night away. It is busy and it is loud.
Drowning in all the noise is the voice of Phiroj Shyangden, former lead singer of Nepal’s most popular rock band, 1974 AD. He is singing ‘Parelima’, the song that helped catapult the band from relative obscurity to a dominant force on Nepal’s airwaves in 1998.
When the song ends, faint applause follows. Few eyes glance over at the stage where Shyangden and company are set up. Had this been Nepal the crowd would have been singing along, word for word. This was a band that once sold over 40,000 concert tickets, a record at the time.
“It doesn’t affect me,” Shyangden says. “I have got used to the apathy and anonymity. It’s my job and I do it.”
A few sips of beer later, he is more honest. “Of course, I feel bad at times. Sometimes I just stop playing to make the crowd realise they have spoiled the atmosphere.”
Shyangden’s words carry no resentment: they are soft and composed. He has none of the airs of a celebrity. He politely ignores two drunks who say to him, “Hey, bro, you performing today?”
Shyangden was 22 when he started 1974 AD with bassist Nirakar Yakthumba and drummer Bhanu A in 1994. The three met while working at a school owned by Yakthumba’s mother in Kathmandu. All shared a passion for Western music, especially of the ’70s, and were inspired by Western bands like Deep Purple and the Eagles.
“Back then we were total amateurs, we thought we were great because we could play covers of Western songs,” recalls Shyangden, now 44. All that changed with the release of their first album Time Out. Fans loved it and the pop-rock ballad Mayalule became an anthem of sorts for young Nepali men in love.