Premi Group was named after it’s founder Johal Premi. Johal had a daytime job working at Nestle. “I love to write lyrics and songs to the rhythmical sound of the factory machines” he said.
Premi’s first album was recorded and mixed in just three days by Kuljit Bhamra. Johal was was so excited after the recording session that he took a cassette tape of the mixed songs to show his singer-friend Kumar, who lived nearby. Kumar was also in the process of setting up a new band (Heera) and was looking for a producer at that time. He approached Kuljit and they recorded their album Jagh Wala Mela.
Both albums were played back to back on a loop, 24 hours a day by a pirate radio station Sina Radio. The songs blasted out of car stereos and shop radios for a few months until the station obtained its license and renamed itself to Sunrise Radio. By then, each and every song on both albums had become well known.
Arguably, out of all the UK-based bhangra bands, Premi have enjoyed the most number of hit songs that are still known and played today – over thirty years later.