Early years O'Connell's musical roots stretch back to
Tappan, New York. In 1978, O'Connell, then a sophomore at
Tappan Zee High School, was invited by two classmates, Paul Siegel and Mike Langer, to join their band "Apple Corps", a group that played mostly
Beatles covers. Shortly after O'Connell joined the band, Apple Corps changed its name to "Sloke", and modified its repertoire to include
Led Zeppelin,
Boston, and the
Grateful Dead. In early 1979, O'Connell and other Sloke band members invited their friend
Salman Ahmad to join the group. Ahmad had only recently taken up the guitar, but was already good enough to play with the band at a Tappan Zee High School talent festival in February 1979. That performance marked the first time that O'Connell and Ahmad performed together publicly. Following the departure of Sloke's bassist several months later, O'Connell and Ahmad formed a new band, "Eclipse". Before the two could take their aspirations onto a bigger stage, Ahmad's parents moved back to Pakistan in 1981, and Ahmad began to study medicine at Lahore's
King Edward's Medical College.
Junoon (1992-2003) After Junoon released their self-titled debut album
Nusrat Hussain departed from the band and then
Salman Ahmad contacted O'Connell and invited him to play bass on the band's second album. O'Connell quit his job as a social worker and traveled to
Karachi,
Pakistan, where he reunited with his old friend. It was after ten years the friends reunited. In 1992, the band started working on their second
studio album. The album was recorded and mixed at Tahir Gul Hasan's Sound On Sound recording studios in Karachi. While working on their second album at one side, on the other hand the band also featured in a television series,
Talaash, directed by
Atiqa Odho and written by
Anwar Maqsood, based on the true story of the band in which the band members acted themselves and due to its novel storyline it became an extremely popular television series in Pakistan. O'Connell continued to play for Junoon until their seventh studio album,
Dewaar, the album which last featured the trio together. However, after the release of the album O'Connell went back to United States.
Junoon 20th anniversary (2011) On August 12, in an interview with
The Express Tribune Salman Ahmad confirmed that he is set to celebrate Junoon's 20th anniversary with the band's former bassist Brian O Connell. “We are reaching Junoon’s 20th anniversary, so I’m excited about more projects coming up regarding that,” Ahmad told
The Express Tribune. ==Discography==