“My Best Friend Hates Me” New Single By Vancouver’s Sound of Kalima

Vancouver DIY Duo Sound of Kalima have recently released their first track of 2021 titled “My Best Friend Hates Me”. Sound of Kalima has to be one of B.C’s most interesting duo’s, not only do they deliver their own well crafted songs to make you ponder life, they produce for a number of local artists as well. They don’t stick to one genre, and their influences seem to range from metal to pop and everything in between. After dropping their previous single “ALIEN” in 2020, which came from feeling like an alien on Earth, they’ve now pieced a new creative conflict into a song that lets a friend know, “Thank you for all the years, but the way you stress me out, I’m really done”. 

“My Best Friend Hates Me” is a concept I’m sure many have felt at one point, but not a subject I think I’ve heard written about before. It’s not uncommon for friends to fight, and even less uncommon for bandmates to go at it. Sometimes it’s petty, sometimes it’s necessary to grow and go onto bigger things. After almost a decade of working side by side on so many projects, I can only imagine the highs and lows these two have felt together. One thing I know for sure is that I’m glad they’ve gotten through it all, because these guys are a seriously important contributor to the Vancouver music scene!

“The song is about the moments when we dislike someone we love. After 9 years of working together, Sal and I are no strangers to creative friction.  Sal’s punched me in the face… that’s a fact.  I’ve ghosted Sal and sent nothing more than an emoji in response to an important message. We put these types of feelings into the words and music of My Best Friend Hates Me”

The songwriters and producers of (SOK), Sal Verma and Peter Niewenburg, have been creating their sonic worlds over the past nine years and recently composed an indie pop track that’s entangled with relatability and embellished humor. “My Best Friend Hates Me” came out of an online 30-day MasterClass enrollment with Grammy awarded singer, songwriter and producer – Charlie Puth. During the class, they followed Puth as he wrote and produced two original songs completely from scratch. After going through the creative process, Sound of Kalima put their new skills into play and emerged hating each other. Just kidding! Seriously folks, they wrote what they believe to be their most relatable song to-date. Amidst the guitar riffing and the backbeat, is a simple message: you can love someone, but that doesn’t mean you’ll always like them.

When the guys aren’t producing hypothetical scenarios for themselves, they are diligently focused on writing/producing songs for their close Vancouver based artists/friends such as Andrea Clute, Chris Clute, Dora Kola, Victoria Groff and more! They even took the time to create their own short documentary called Who The F*ck is Sound of Kalima?, which is their fifth episode on SOKTV and available on their Youtube Channel. Check out what their artists have to say about Sound of Kalima, witness all of their special moments in the studio and let the band introduce themselves. WATCH HERE

Sound of Kalima tells their message behind the short film,

“It’s often been difficult to explain exactly who Sound of Kalima is. People ask… “oh, so you’re artists?”, “oh, you’re producers”, “oh, so you’re like a band?”, or “oh, so you’re kind of like a label?”. Well the truth is we’re a bit of all of those things, but at the same time we’re none of those things. Sound of Kalima is it’s own thing. And yes we make art. And yes we produce for others. And yes we perform in a band. And yes we act like a label at times. But we’re not exclusive to any one thing. We’re Sound of Kalima and we do a lot of dope shit. Hopefully from watching this video you get the sense that the only thing we care about is making honest music. The rest is just fluff.”