It’s time for Electronic Rock Music – The Western Ghats
Thinking why you should take a turn towards the western ghats. Because this band brings in versatility for its audience. Some authentic folk blended with electronic pop music. It’s a sensation that you should be aware of. We’ve got all those insights covered in this interview that connects you with this band.
What was the inspiration behind having a blend of folk music with modern pop, rock, and electronic styles?
So, the inspiration behind mixing folk and modern pop and electronic music is nothing but simply experimenting with music in a way as diverse as possible. When we start a song, we do imagine how it’s going to sound, but through the entire journey of creating a song, the song starts to shape itself. We just give the songs their time to breathe and come alive. Once you start a song and have a structure ready, after that the song starts surprising you with all the potential it has, and if you just give it enough time to be and to breathe, it becomes something way better than anything you ever had in your mind.
Do you think the Indian audience is open to new genres?
Indian audience is super wide and extremely diverse. We know there are very different people listening to our music. I think that’s an advantage we have. Some people might connect more with our electronic tracks while some would like weird alt-rock stuff like ‘Oh Look’, so more people generally would listen to our music than, because when I see people listening to artists like Prabh Deep, who are so engrossed in experimenting, receiving some mainstream success, it reaffirms my faith in the new age audience that we are really lucky to have.
How’s the response of the Indian audience changing to the introduction of more genres?
As I’ve said above, the audience had become increasingly perceptive to these new styles of music coming in. We are so glad to be a part of the scene where artists are not afraid of experimenting. Although, due to this long-time exposure to the remixed world of Bollywood, the audience was a little more closed off and it took some time for indie music to take some real strides in making experimental stuff.
Even with some really good tracks dropping in the Bollywood scene, once in a while, the remixed music that we hear on the radio, is a far cry from what film music was all about. The labels have a lot of power and because of that, the film-music industry for a while now with a couple of exceptions has been producing completely commercial music, which has no doubt changed what music an average listener listens to. With that said, the audience that we have has time and again proved that we value these gems that keep cropping up every once in a while, no matter how new and experimental they are.
Can you talk a bit about your track “Thousand miles” we’ve heard this track has been the biggest in the Western Ghats.
Thousand Miles most definitely has been one of our biggest tracks both ambition and size-wise. With a duration of close to six minutes, the song has more than a hundred individual tracks in the mix. A thousand Miles is super special because it does come from a place of yearning, and a hint of self-actualization for me. The line ‘You and I, we’re characters’ is super powerful in my opinion because it paints a picture of what the song stands for. Never in a line so small have I been able to say so much. It talks about complex human emotions like guilt and desire. That no matter how we think we are, good or bad, it’s futile, because it’s the choices that we make that paint us in the different shades of grey.
I wrote a thousand miles back in college and revisited the piece only recently when we sat down to arrange and structure it. The lyrics for the song for me were the easiest part in my opinion because writing a Thousand miles was a dream. Musically we have some really interesting stuff going on in the song with some meaningful inspirations drawn from the music we use to listen to while growing up and because of that, it has that beautiful 2000s rock sound captured.
When y’all started in 2019, were you focused on creating cover songs or making original music?
Back in 2019, we were focused more on covers yeah because we had to get a name out there and we did do some cover tracks which were a lot more in line with what the audience demanded at the time. We covered songs like Raabta and Fitoor which in my opinion were good on their terms, but as a band, we were starting, so we still had to figure out what our sound is going to be like. However, we always had original music planned and we were just waiting it out to figure out our sound a little better before we ventured into only making original music.
How was the experience of releasing your very first single “Humne bhi”
Releasing ‘Humne Bhi’ was honestly a dream come true, it’s a beautiful track with a powerful melody and it was our first track so we had a lot of hopes and love for the song. It is nostalgic and vivid because it has that feeling of adolescence and immaturity captured beautifully. It’s a coming-of-age song that was extremely personal and close to what I felt at the time.
How do you maintain the versatility and the experimental twist in your songs? Is it too risky?
Our writing process is made up of very real moments of music taking over and really in a way talking to us. When we sit down to write, one of us starts the song and we sit in the studio just listening to the progress and trying to figure out what direction the music wants to flow in. Mostly it’s just catching up with how our music interacts with us.
Yes, it is risky, and we do realize it. But we believe in expanding the gene pool of our music with varying styles and genres. Because that’s what we are all about, That’s the most defining characteristic of the band in my opinion, that we don’t make one single type of music and you as a listener can expect almost anything from us.
How do you see the future of “Electronic Music” grow in India?
Electronic music is already grown to a point where we cannot just call it ‘electronic music’ anymore. It has a lot of layers to it. Although you can differentiate between the various styles of electronic music to make it easier to understand where it’s all headed. There’s still a lot of places where electronic music can take over in the Indian scene, like Electronic-Folk and ‘Electronic Rock’ which is exactly what we have done in a lot of our previous and upcoming music.
But yeah, as we become more and more technologically advanced electronic music is going to be used more and more with the organic music that we have been making forever. That doesn’t mean that It’ll become more saturated with the electronic elements that we have right now. It’ll be different and will keep on changing as all musical styles do. We had dubstep back 2012 – 2015 very much a part of pop music like the 80s had that classic ‘80s synth’ sound which looking back now is a very retro-futuristic type of music in my opinion. All these styles of music become available to us with the passing of time and the more we can remember, the more we can use to paint our canvases.
Is your band currently working on something? What are your upcoming projects?
Yes, we are working on an eight-track album which is going to have some influences of cinema and theatricals in the sequencing. We have tracks ranging from Rock to disco to house to dance and all of that sit perfectly with each other like very vivid, different pieces of the puzzle. We are aiming to drop the album by August to September 2021 and half of it is already done. We are sure that our fans will love this album as they’ve loved our music in the past. Stay tuned.
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