Rocket Feature : Dischordian

1. What’s the origin of the name 'Dischordian'?
It was supposed to be a temporary name that Mel (Split) gave the project. It came from Discordianism, a joke disguised as a religion or maybe a religion disguised as a joke, which I had discovered around the time that I decided to go solo.

2. Who are the members of Dischordian?
The line-up has changed several times since I started Dischordian. I started out completely solo, then got Aviv (Split) on guitars, and later I decided to turn it into a 3-piece band. Right now it's me on rhythm guitar, lap steel, harmonica, and vocals, Agnnelo on trumpet and percussion, and Howard on guitar and backing vocals. We recently added a fourth member on a semi-regular basis - Nigel, on melodica, saxophone, and backing vocals. And Aviv's kind of a permanent back-up.

3. What genre of music do you consider your music to be? Who are your major influences?
I think genre labels tend to be either too limited or too vague. Also, it makes more sense for an outsider to describe someone's music, rather than the musicians themselves. I end up describing our music differently every time I'm asked. I guess it's folk with a strong punk and blues influence.

4. How long have you guys known each other?
I've known Howard and Agnnelo for years and years, but not too well till we started jamming together. Howard and I had a common friend in college, and Agnnelo played trumpet in the parish choir, back when I was a good little choirboy.

5. What are your favorite and least favorite venues? Any upcoming shows?
My favourite is probably the Blue Frog. The place looks lovely and sounds like a dream. Unlike certain venues I know, they've also never behaved like they're doing you a favour by letting you play there. Sure, they're expensive, but they're good to the musicians, and they're good to their patrons. We also played at the Hanging Gardens bandstand recently, and I think that's now one of my favourites. Outdoor gigs always have a lovely, relaxed vibe.

6. Who writes your songs? What are the main themes of your songs?
I write all the songs in Dischordian, except for one which was written with Aviv and another that I kind of wrote with Nikhil D'souza years ago in a band called Mr John's Banned. The themes... love and hate and death, I guess, as trite as that might sound. But it's possible to take a simple theme like that and do something beautiful and fresh with it, and I hope that's what I've achieved. Songs about love don't have to go, "I love you, please love me".

7. Could you briefly describe the music-making process?
Well... there's no fixed process that all the music goes through. Some songs have been written in 15 minutes, others have been written in bits and pieces over several months. Sometimes songs begin with a thematic idea, at other times with a melody, and sometimes with the need to get something off your chest. With most songs, I have a very clear idea of what I want it to sound like finally, but sometimes I've just played a song to the band, and taken it from there, with people adding their own parts.

8. What’s your ultimate aim for your band?
To keep making music that is beautiful and affects people deeply, I guess that's the only "ultimate" aim.

9. How can fans gain access to your music?
Right now there's a whole bunch of rough demos online. Right from the start, I wanted to keep Dischordian's music as intimate and unaffected as possible, so whenever I wrote a song and thought I was really done with it, and it was ready to be heard, I'd put up a rough demo recorded on my laptop. I've also put up a few rough mixes of the album tracks we recorded at the end of last year, but I've left all the demos up too. Apart from that, we're hoping to get the album out soon.

10. Any last words?
Nope. Or actually, yes... call up Jairam Ramesh and ask him to do something about the Dhamra port and the turtles there. The number is 011 2436 1727.


Listen to Dischordian on Facebook

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Rocket Feature : The Circus

1.Hey Arsh, Thanks for the interview. So, how has the scene been treating you?
The scene’s been treating the band pretty ok, comes with its shares of highs and lows, so you’ve got a couple of great gigs, then a bad one, then none at all, then another couple of gigs, so it’s a bit of a frustratingly enjoyable rollercoaster really, where we oscillate from being really happy to really not so happy and wanting more.

2. Alright so first for those who don't know, tell us how the circus came together and why the name the circus?

The Circus came together in sometime spring 2007, when Abhinav had just joined the band after Anshul, Abhishek and me were left with no bass player after the breakup of our previous band (which sucked balls incidentally) and started jamming on random material. The first three months were spent just jamming out random parts till we reached some sort of a sound , and in july 2007 after we were a little more certain of ourselves we played our first gig, which incidentally sucked like everyone’s first gig.

The name “the circus” came about just before our first gig when i was sick of thinking of what band name we should keep for us, so i just sent in the name “the circus” to the event organizer and got posters made out of it, and since then it just stuck, more out of sheer frustrated coincidence than persistent deep thought.

3.Your album 'From Space' has been in the pipeline for a really long time. Any plans on disclosing the release date?

“From Space” was finished as a recording product almost a year ago, and since then due to circumstances which were generally in the realm of the unfortunate it got pushed further and further down the date lane, and its almost a year later and the album still isn’t out.

But on a brighter note, the launch is expected to be quite big, the packaging and the cd looks fantastic, and It’s a lot better product now than what it was let’s say six months ago, so as a product it should come out in great shape.
As for the release date we had planned early april but realised that everyone’s exams would be on so the date got further pushed down, I’m afraid of sounding like the boy who cried wolf here but the album should be out in the first half of may, and I’m hoping enough people turn up for the launch even after such a long delay in the proceedings.

4.You guys are signed onto Grey and Saurian. How has working with them been?

Grey and Saurian has probably been the best thing to have happened to us in the last one year, the management has constantly pushed us into becoming better as musicians, has constantly brainstormed with us and looked out after the best interests of the band. They’ve gotten us shows, figured out our PR and networking, and helped us understand the logistics of being in a band and trying to get an album out, I have seen Shashwat , Ashwin , Anupam and Keshav working their asses off and i hope us as a band haven’t disappointed them in our delivery towards their work.So all in all it’s been a great experience working with them and I hope this partnership continues into bigger things in the future.

5.The circus has been experimental with their sound. What do you keep in mind or how do you go about writing the guitar parts? What all have you drawn influences from?

Well, we haven’t really tried to be experimental as far as our sound goes, we just naturally enjoy whatever lies inside the halo of the weird,eccentric and slightly nonsensical. Our jams generally end up being long pieces where tangents are drawn to every piece of music we create so as to reach an odd perplexing conclusion which surprises even us at times. That generally keeps things fresh, and since we don’t really like to confine ourselves to a sound or style it helps us reach out into the realm of the strange and grab hold of an odd yet tasty musical recipe from there.

As far as my guitar parts go, I generally try to be a subservient to the song, where my parts are made exactly for the song in mind without trying to be too flashy or masturbatory with the guitar parts, I generally also have a large bank of effects and a lot of songs are made around these effects,most of which are skewed at absurdly unbalanced parameters, and new patches generally lead to new songs in our scenario. If something we make sounds a little strange then it is generally kept as a part of a song.

As far as influences i think contradictions, randomness, radiohead, the mars volta, grapes, are some of the leading influences in our sound, although i don’t think we sound like any of the aforementioned bands or fruits in question.

6.You guys entered launchpad. Any 'behind the scenes' memory that you would like to share with us?

Launchpad was a lot of fun and not even one tenth as bitchy as it was made out to be. Well, most of the times we were not on camera we were sitting around chilling with the other band members and producers.

One moment I still remember from the launchpad season is that of the Demonstealer running behind our drummer with a guitar in his hand, serenading him while our drummer ate chholas and kept running. There were a lot of fun moments which were shared and a lot of them involved doing and smoking things which we weren’t supposed to, so let’s just remember the Demonstealer running and be done with it.

7.Are you happy with where the band has reached till now?

I am happy with where the band has reached till now but i think we aren’t even one-fifth of where we would like to be, right now shows abroad, at least three more albums,a lot more shows and doing this professionally with a decent standard of living is what we’re aiming for at the minimum, from there lets see where the road takes us. Hopefully, it involves a lot of music and a lot of partying while we’re at it.

8.As a band, do you feel you've progressed well?

I think we’ve progressed well in the sense that we’ve written a lot of songs, have become tighter and tighter with our shows, learnt from our mistakes and gone a step ahead into where we want to be as a band.

Once “From space” is out we’re probably back in the studio recording our second album for which the tracks have already been written and I’m looking forward to the album being released and the next album being tracked this year the most as of now.

Alright this is the Random questions section -

Top 5 dishes –

Shwaramas ,kababs, Abhishek Bhatia, chicken and wine, wine?

Current CD's that your spinning –

From Space, Alice in chains-black gives way to blue, Digitalism-Idealism

Summers or Winters-

Summers

Grapes or Oranges –

Orange grapes and Purple oranges

Another Vertigo Rush or Indigo Children –

AVR

Favorite movie of all time –

Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind(?)

Last words for fans?

Hello, if you’re out there please buy our CD (whenever) it comes out and we hope to see you at our shows.

Interview - Eshaan Sood

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Rocket Feature : Demonstealer

Greetings, from Indian Rocket, How’s life treating the Demonstealer?

Life is good but extremely hectic, I’m busy packing the 275 pre-orders for DR’s new album, I’m waking up early every morning to go to the post office and ship them. The band is practicing everyday for the album launch tour and besides all this I’m also producing 3 bands at the moment in the studio. So yeah life is good.

Your new album 'The Return To Darkness’ has been appreciated by fans and critics. Did you expect this or has it taken you by surprise?
I’m always a bit sceptical about getting good reviews mainly because I always feel there is a huge change in the band’s sound which fans may not appreciate or its just paranoia in general. Also if you have lower expectations you feel a lot better when they are surpassed. So yes I’m surprise and extremely happy with the response to the album from everyone.

Alex Webster said your sound Is killer. How do you feel about that?
I feel fucking great! Its always great when musicians you look upto think your work is good and Alex is a brilliant musician who we all look upto so we are on top of the world.

For all your fans, who are too lazy to interpret the songs for the story of the darkness trilogy, would you give a synopsis?

If they are too lazy to do that it’s probably because they downloaded the album I’m pretty sure anyone who spends his hard earned money on buying a bands album will at least read the lyrics once and I think that itself will give them an idea. But for the readers who may have never heard our music the previous 2 albums talk about how the world was engulfed by darkness and evil forces and the protagonist tries to leave earth after he has lost everything but when he reaches the point of no return he starts to question himself and if he is doing the right thing by abandoning the world that needs him. That is where beyond the darkness leaves the story. The Return to darkness is pretty much about how he comes back and saves the world

Any chance of a re-release of the debut album ' The Demonstealer' ?
It is on the cards and I have been pro actively working on it as well. The idea was to re-record all the old songs with the new sound and lineup and I had even worked on the rough tracks but lost everything on my hard drive last year (without backup) so once I get some free time I will start working on this as well. I felt it be fittingly called ‘Prelude To Darkness’ since it is what has lead up to ‘A Darkness Descends’ and the DR legacy.

What are your views on Booze, Weed and smoking?

I’m very anti smoking because I’ve seen people close to me suffer as a result so I really think it’s the worst thing in the world and I hate being around smoke. I’m really not into getting high by drugs of any kind; I find that music is the only thing I really need. As for booze, its fine in moderation.

You are also known for your cooking skills. How did you develop a liking for cooking?
I love food and therefore cooking comes naturally to me, everyone in my family can cook, my grandfather was a great cook and I’d like to think a little of his skill rubbed off on me.

Where do you plan to see your Bands Workshop, DR and RD in the next 10 Years?
Well with DR I am expecting regular tours abroad, worldwide releases through major labels of our album and just generally making it my life. Workshop will have more albums, more gigs, more fun!!!

And Reptilian Death will maybe actually have a line-up and I’ll get to play drums on stage. If not I’ll just release an album everything I feel ‘the unrelenting surge of vengeance’ no pun intended

Any new releases via DSR this year?

DSR is looking for bands to release but after the DR album only the new RD and Workshop albums are planned but there is no definite release date, hopefully we’ll sign some good bands and release their albums too.

Last words for your fans?

Buy the new album! Watch our video and enjoy the music!

Cheers & Stay Demonic!

The Demonstealer

Demonstealer Records : www.demonstealerrecords.com
Demonstealer's Blog : www.demonstealer.blogspot.com

Interview by Eshaan Sood

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Rocket Feature : ALBATROSS

Albatross is the solo project of Riju Dasgupta, featuring some of the best musicians from around the scene. The music is thrash/horror/power/epic metal.

Indian Rocket: What’s the origin of the name "Albatross”?

Riju: Well, the project was started to fuse my two loves- storytelling and metal. Yes, I was a geeky little kid who looked forward to English class in school. The Albatross is actually a seabird, most notably present in the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge called 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. If you are an Iron Maiden fan, you probably also know that there's a song by the same name. Later on, when Biprorsee Das, who's the current vocalist of the band and I wanted to start a traditional power metal band, my brother suggested this name. That project never took off, but I loved the name so much I wanted to start my own project based on this name. This time it's not straightforward power metal though.

Indian Rocket: Who all are involved with this project?

Riju: It started out as a solo project with just me writing the songs, with different musicians playing on every song. But eventually I wanted to standardise the lineup as I wanted to take the project live.

Raj: Albatross is a brainchild of Riju Dasgupta who also plays the bass guitar. Me and Jimmy Alexander, who is a MTV Rock On finalist are on the guitars, Biprorshee Das (ex- Joy and the Ice Creams, Zohak) on vocals and Jay Thacker (Colossus) on the drums complete the current live lineup of the band.

Indian Rocket: What's the genre of this project ?

Riju: Haha...I'd like to borrow a page from my friend Sahil's book, and call it Albatross metal(like Demonic metal). It's got elements of power metal, thrash, heavy, death, doom and black metal. One easy term to describe it would be horror metal, since every song is metal and tells a horror story. Because every song is so mood oriented, every song can have a variety of genres. For example The Dining Table starts off as a thrash metal song, building into a power metal song, with a doom interlude and outro, with some inherent blues influences.

Indian Rocket: What are your influences ?

Riju: King Diamond, was and remains to this day my biggest inspiration. It's inspiring...the effort he puts into telling a story through a song. Other influences are of course Mercyful Fate, Wolf, Manowar, Helloween, Iced Earth, Pyramaze, Force of Evil, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Megadeth and Metallica.

For my songwriting influences, Stephen King, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, Michael Slade, Dean R. Koontz, old folktales, urban legends and spook stories.

Raj: Progressive rock and metal bands like Tool, Meshuggah, Sikth, Porcupine Tree, Opeth, Textures, Hacride and the like. Other bands like Karnivool, A Perfect Circle, Alter Bridge, Creed, Blackfield, Incubus, Funeral for a friend, Clutch, Anathema, Isis, Pink Floyd, Death Cab For Cutie, Stonesour, NIN, Unearth, Death, Judas Priest, Post 1980's Black Sabbath, Dio, Van Halen, Skid Row and new Megadeth. I like listening to loads of stuff not included above like hip hop, black metal, Neo Jazz, Romantic Western composers such as Vivaldi, Paganini, Rossini, Wagner etc.

Biprorshee: Definitely Iron Maiden. Maiden is the sole reason why I love singing in a band. From a vocalist's perspective, it will have to be Freddie Mercury, Bruce Dickinson, Ronnie James Dio, Sebastian Bach and Jon Bon Jovi (very necessarily in that order). These guys in every sense inspire me to sing myself hoarse. And whatever people may say, do not believe a word when they tell you I ape Dave Mustaine. :P

Jay: Dream Theater, Lamb of God, Porcupine Tree, Opeth, Pink Floyd, also drummers like Portnoy, Adler, Martin Lopez, Chad Smith, Gino Banks, Jai Raokavi, Rahul Hariharan and Hamza Kazi.

Jimmy: My influences vary. I try to input all that I have heard in what I play. Some of my influences are Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Megadeth, Black Sabbath, Randy Rhoads, Dio, George Lynch, Van Halen, etc... My indian influences are Zero and MotherJane.

Indian Rocket: What inspired u to start this project?

Riju: I realised I'm never gonna write that book of horror stories I always dreamed of writing. It was then that I heard the King Diamond concept album 'Abigail' and I was blown away by how he fused storytelling and metal. Once while travelling to work, I suddenly imagined a doll looking at the moon and singing a sad tune in a chilling, haunting voice. And that's how Gigi was born. And the rest is geography :P

Biprorshee: Riju is a buddy turned rock idol to me. More often than not, we agree to agree on the kind of music the world should listen to. And when he asked to come aboard, I did not have to think twice. I knew all I had to do was sing. The rest of the headaches belonged to Riju. The kind of insane dope I'm getting to pen my autobiography someday from the 'Albatross experiences' is my remuneration.

Indian Rocket: Can u describe the song writing process?

Riju: It starts with me racking my brains for a decent horror story.

Raj: The song writing process begins with Riju who conceptualizes each track and writes the lyrics. Then Riju and I usually have a few guitar and bass jams at my home studio to flesh out the structure of the song and all the guitar and bass parts. Once this is done we write the drum track with the help of Jay and melodies and harmonies with Jimmy and finally the vocals with Bipro.

Riju: It ends with us sending the track to our manager Ashwin Sharma in Delhi. Post his go-ahead, we release the song.

Indian Rocket: What advice do you have for people who want to form their own bands?

Riju: As long as you're convinced about the music, don't listen to others who say its crap. Don't think like a guitarist or bassist or vocalist or drummer, think in the context of the whole band.

Raj: Believe in your creativity. Spend time to acquire originality in your sound, look, theme, genre etc. instead of playing covers or originals which sound like covers. Persevere and make sure that you are comfortable with your instrument atleast up to the level that your band requires.

Biprorshee: Does anybody need any advice these days? Making music has become so much easier than ever before. But yes, the biggest problem is not the music part of it but staying together. From my own experiences, all I can say is that ensure that your bandmates are on the same wavelength as you are even if they aren't really Petruccis, Menzas or Wootens on their instruments. STICK TOGETHER! Have more beers and laughs initially than jam sessions. :P

Indian Rocket: Where can we find your music?

Riju: You can check us out on www.soundclick.com/albatrossindia

There are 2 songs uploaded, the Dining Table which deals with a man who plans to have dinner and ends up becoming dinner himself and Gigi, a doll who in the quest for life enters into a deal with the devil.

Indian Rocket: Any last words ??

Riju: Thanks for everyone out there who's believed in Albatross from the start. We're gonna take the stage soon...so get ready for some bone crushing metal.

Biprorshee: Am I dying already? Anyway then, Dinner WAS you and you gave me an upset tummy!

To contact Albatross,

Riju Dasgupta: rdore2000@gmail.com

www.soundclick.com/albatrossindia

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An Interview with Junkyard Groove

When did Junkyard Groove start?
JYG started in the year of 2005. I think May and we played our first gig in June, a competition which we lost because we abused too much. We got a consolation prize of 2nd place. We normally keep JYG's birthday on the same day as Craig’s, which is on June 20th.

How did you guys come up with the name?

Siddharth and me came up with the name even before Craig and x drummer jerry joined. We where walking around his house thinking of a name and I was hell bent on junkyard Tribe and suddenly Sid said groove. It just sounded good. Therefore Junkyard Groove :)

What was the original inspiration for starting JYG?

I had stopped playing music for a year and a half so did Craig. I was seeing bands that where not all that great getting hyped (x band mates). That’s when I decided fuck this I need to get back into the scene and form a band that I will love playing with and a band of friends that just love music with their lives. That’s when I reached out to Sid, Craig and Jerry…. unfortunately Jerry left the band. This has made the bond between Sid, Craig and me much more stronger because we realized we couldn’t take things for granted. (At least this is what I think)

Why did JYG decide to keep “Nicer in a minute” for free download?

We where signed to a label Creative Kingdom who kind of fucked us over and we where deciding what to do as a band. In this time we decided to give the people who love us who and have been waiting for 2 yrs for an album. So the free E.P. Our fans come first :)

Tell us something about your debut album “11:11”
The album 11:11 and E.P have been a strange journey because some of the songs were written by me a very long time ago as in the basic skeleton of songs like Say Goodbye, please don't wake me up, Folk you, Save me and Feel like a knife. As we got older as a band there where others, which the whole band wrote together, which include Rock and Roll, Its ok, Hold, Been so long, Twinkle, Thank you, Imagine and Let you go.

Here is what each song means to me :)
Imagine: This is a about a person in my life who lived in a messed up world but never showed it. Only when I really got to know her, I found out unbelievable things in her life. People always look at you from the outside and think they know it all.

Rock and Roll: The lyrics explain its self :). It’s just about love for music and party

Been so long: The music was kind of finished but not the lyrics. I finished the song only when we went to Dubai. It questions where home is because we are wanders searching for a place where we feel wanted. This is true for all people.

Folk You: This is basically a stupid fun love song, which I think will fit perfect in a Bollywood or Kollywood movie. LOL! The chorus was inspired by a Malayalam fisherman's song :)

Its ok: Lyrically, The song is about two people who wanted different things from each other. Musically, I love playing the song live because it’s a crowd fav.

Twinkle: This is another stupid love song basically when you’re in love and drunk at the same time. Sid and me wrote it when we were drunk one night and in love (not with each other please note)

Let you go: I think this song took the longest time to write musically. Lyrically, when I wrote the song, it really did not apply in my life at time. But it took a whole new meaning when a person I was in love with left me. Every time I sing that song I think of her.

Thank you: This song is about being thankful the things you have.

Feel Like a knife: Its an upbeat song about high sprits (not alcohol although we love it… LOL!! )

Hold: This is a song we always end our set with. It’s about keeping things that are close to you safe as in relationships in our lives.

How does the song writing process go about?
It all begins with a fight. We have to go through 6 songs we don't like till we get one we all like. There is no fixed pattern in the way we write. By the way, the album is up for free download: http://www.gimmesound.com/JunkyardGroove/
Every time you download we get paid!!

Tell us one of the funniest JYG moments ever?

Here are some:

Craig was on his bike with his wife and this guy kept staring at him on the road (Craig kind of got freaked). After a little more stalking, the guy slowed down next too him and said “I’m listening to you on my Ipod”.

The other day Sid had gone had gone kite flying with his friends to the beach and met this bunch of school kids. They asked him what he does and he said he plays for JYG. They began laughing and said “Yeah right and I am Tom Cruise”.

As usual when my weekend comes, I need my drink (Whiskey) and the wine shops had closed. There is this after hour bootleg shop that I know so went there to pick up my stock for the night. Suddenly this guy comes out of the dark and asks me “can I take a picture with you?” I was kind of zapped and asked him “you know me from?” he said “you don’t know me but I’m a fan and know JYG”

This one is a bit of an old story. The band had just started out I think we where a year old and we had just headlined NLS and was on a high. The next day we went out to eat lunch and 2 guys saw us with our guitars and asked us which band we play for? So we said JYG. Then the guy pulls out his phone and he had all our demos on his phone. They then went on to offer us weed and booze. LOL!!

It always zaps me how much reach music actually has. The songs we write are very personal and make us happy. But once we put it out there for people to listen, you realize you are not alone.

What are your views about online distribution of music?
I think its great but music is becoming free. That is why we realized we need to do things differently so we decided to excrement with our distribution method and joined http://www.gimmesound.com where the artists gets paid for every download. The money is shared by the site with the artists 50/50 from add revenue. Our Cd's are still on sale because our hardcore fans like the physical Cd. We do door to door cash on delivery: http://junkyardgroove.net.

Where was the best gig you guys played?
IIT Chennai and Desert Rock festival Dubai

What would you guys like to tell your fans?
Thank you so much for the support because without you we are nothing. You guys come first. Please do download our music free. We get paid for every download. Spread the love!!

*A special thanks to Ameeth Thomas & Junkyard Groove for doing this Interview on such short notice. Thank you Junkyard groove for the music!

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