Why the name Dads in the Park? “Well, it sounded cool.”
The statement itself is one that captures the essence of these musicians on their way to making their mark on an international stage. Two “Dads”, three countries, and the heavy haul of rickshaw painted dreams.
“Dads in the Park” Tajwar Ul Islam and Ishmam Salim Chowdhury, are on their way to Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore for their second international tour of 2023 with the American rock band “Tiny Moving Parts”.
Having kicked off their trot around the globe with one of the “largest rock/metal festivals in Asia” at “Hammersonic Fest”. The Dads played at the same venue as international music giants “Slipknot”, “Story of the Year” and “Trivium”.
Responding to a question about his feelings on this opportunity, Tajwar Ul Islam took a deep breath and paused, “The feeling – to have Slipknot as the headliner, at the same event as us. The opening act – to see ‘Dads in the Park’ on the same poster, was, and still is, such a huge deal for us. Slipknot is objectively is a huge band, but personally, Story of the Year, Trivium, they were there too. These bands, they helped me grow into the musician I am today. Emotionally it was a huge feeling. It has left a huge impact.”
A glimpse into the future of the Dads, they stated, “We went to the Hammersonic Fest, through Skesh entertainment. Which is when we were introduced to ‘Tiny Moving Parts’. After going to the show, we hung out and became friends. After that, they asked Skesh, who is handling the ‘Tiny Moving Parts' for this tour, to invite us. That's how we ended up on this tour.”
Self-funding the tour, the Dads are open to collaborating with brands working towards similar goals.
One of the many minds working behind “Dads in the Park”, the band’s Manager, Adib Ahnaf Aroz stated, “So it’s all self-funded. Our dream is to go international. We’re doing this thing, and it is huge for us. Our tour starts from September 27th ‘till October 10th. We are planning to perform in Thailand and Indonesia. We are open to any bands who would like to collab.”
Acknowledging his “privilege of representing Bangladesh on a global scale”, the Dads in the Park expressed their gratitude to “desher manush”.
“On a global scale, that's how we are introduced as ‘Dads in the Park from Bangladesh’. Mostly everyone that supported us came from our desh. Whatever we’ve built, we’ve built in desh, with desher manush – it feels wonderful to be able to represent our people, our country, and our culture. Culture mostly because it is basically art that we’re creating there. We tried to incorporate culture in whatever way we could because we’re not singing in Bangla. Because we couldn’t take one form of art, we took a different form along with us. Which were the rickshaw-painted outfits we wore made by Dacca. They custom-made those outfits for the five of us and we’re planning to wear those outfits on stage this time around as well. Since we were fortunate enough to have two international tours this year, we’re calling these outfits this year’s outfits for now. Maybe next year we’ll come up with another way to represent our country’s art on international grounds,” said Tajwar Ul Islam.
The primary songwriter of the duo Ishmam Salim reminisced on the origins of their musical offspring, “Tajwar and I met at BRAC, back in late 2014. In the middle of conversation I just asked Tajwar ‘I have a few songs, do you want to make music with me?’ He said ‘Yeah, sure’. When we actually started making the music, I realised that we actually have pretty good chemistry. Then we thought okay, maybe we can make this big. ‘Dads in the Park’ was born from this thought.”
Beginning officially with their first original song “Lullaby”, Ishmam explained, “Dad’s in the Park became official in 2017. We worked on Lullaby, Pareidolia, and Afeenolove simultaneously, and officially released Lullaby in 2019.”
The spirit of the band resonated in the bond between the two musicians as they riffed off one another in their lyrical innovations.
Ishmam Salim noted that their “vision for Dads has always been international, to keep playing at bigger and better festivals”, almost in sync Tajwar quipped, “Our vision is to see Dads be remembered as an empire or a brand for the rest of anyone's lives.”
Chowdhury stated, “We want ‘Dads in the Park’ to be a household name, not bound by borders. We want the name to leave an impact on people. That is our ambition, that is our final target.”
The band is set to release an extended play (EP) of three songs soon after their new single. In addition to its music, "Dads in the Park" considers itself an "entertainment service provider", exploring various artistic avenues beyond music.
Elaborating on the premise Tajwar Ul Islam stated, “We’re expecting people to pay for the art form we’re providing them, Right? That's how people make a living. If we’re expecting people to do that, we have to have more products other than just music. In that case, since we’re both very ambitious towards other forms of art as well. Ishmam bhaiya makes art. I like other forms of art, like designing, drawing, and painting as well. If we collab and can create something else under the name that we started from. What would you call that? You can’t call that a band. It doesn’t have to be a band that makes music, it can be a brand that makes music and sells products in different ways.”
The band has collaborated with the accessories brand “Sock n’ Roll”, having their own custom-designed socks available.
The Dads in the Park stated, “We’re hoping to come up with our new T-shirts, we have two new designs that we want to launch before we fly for the tour. So we are able to provide people with some means to support the band, also so that we can take the t-shirts with us on tour. We’re taking our music and our merch with us.”
Hoping to launch more merch before they fly off on their second international venture of 2023 the duo all set with an array of their originals “Lullaby”, “Pareidolia”, “Afeenolove”, and “Into the Iris” to perform with “Tiny Moving Parts”.