Fridays in April

Miki (Jeet) Singh has hung with the Rolling Stones, dined with Roger Waters, and had his life threatened when he played a show two months ago in Kashmir, a joint effort with the Pakistani rock band Junoon. Signh, 45, is the singer-songwriter-guitarist for the band that bears his surname, the Singhs. Singh, guitarist Peter Parcek and a tabla player and a sitar player, played this "unity" concert for 6000 people – the idea being that people from India and Pakistan could get along. Yes, Singh said, he had some fear, but the security “was in lockdown.” It went off without a hitch and he had a blast. He should not have fears when the Singhs play a Friday residency at Precinct in April.

The Singhs started out in 2001 as Dragonfly. They changed their name, Singh said, not out of his ego, but because an Internet search revealed more that a few bands, old and new, shared the Dragonfly name. Not good. So, for their third album, “Supersaturated” – and into the future – they are the Singhs. “Like the Smiths,” Singh says. “It was less an issue of having a great name than having a name.” (The band includes former Del Fuegos and Combustible Edison keyboardist Brother Cleve.)

They’re a Boston band – sort of. The Indian-born Singh had a pre-musical life in the high tech world where he built a company and made a considerable pile of money. He co-founded Art Technology Group in 1991. Singh was CEO and president. The company develops consumer focused Internet applications and development tools. Singh cashed out and returned to his first love of music. His high tech friends thought he was nuts, and asked, “Isn’t this your identity?” No, he replied. He says he liked the idea of not devising and following a business plan, but a musical one. "Music is so subjective,” he says, in contrast to the numbers-oriented business world. And he could afford to be part of a “baby band,” just starting to find its way through the rock world's thicket. He’s also keenly aware that some think his band is “a vanity project for a rich kid.” He finds many Americans have the attitude that it’s great to excel at one thing – the American dream! – but you're suspect if you attempt another. The “don’t get too big for your britches syndrome.” Singh can live with it – “I don’t worry about it so much and can’t do much about it,” he says over drinks and dinner at BarLola. He spends 7 months a year at his home in St. Bart’s – it’s where the band records, too – and stays with a friend when he’s back in Boston.

For “Supersaturated,” they wrote 50 songs in 2006, whittled that down to 20 the following year and then 12 for the CD. It’s mostly mid-tempo rock – not so much Indian-influenced – that mixes the upbeat and downbeat, the latter coming through in lyrics. (Singhs vocals have improved; he's taken voice lessons for two years.) “It’s pretty melancholic,” he says. “Friends would say, ‘Are you really that sad?’” (No, he isn’t.) The music is, he says, “adult rock” and is being pitched to the adult alternative and adult contemporary radio world. Oddly enough, he laughs, a market survey showed teenagers really liked it, too.

“Supersaturated,” the title track “is about a young American girl brought up thinking she’s the best thing happening … it ends in guitar noise. It’s about being lost in gloss.” He does have edgier material. Singh says that may surface in the future, but for now, this is where he wants to be. “This record needed to be pop,” Singh says. "I do want to do two extreme records – a rock record and a great moody, Lanois-ish record.”
As to touring to support this CD – or slogging it out on the road – Singh has no problem, saying it beats flying to four cities in a day when he was in the business world, talking to bankers.

The Singhs are on at 11. Opening and closing bands vary Check website below. Tickets: $10.

70 Union Sq., Somerville, 617-623-9211 www.precinctbar.com