Indian Music Revolution - Latest News, Reviews, Interviews, Gigs, Downloads

IMR: BANDISH has long history with enormous variations in the line-up from the past; could you give us a short description about the band formation for our readers?
Deepak(Bandish): (Honestly speaking BANDISH has only undergone changes in terms of vocalists rest of the line- up has been same since 2006)
Chris Powell : Drummer (Founder), Desmond Powell : Guitars, Deepak Nair : Vocals, Adil Manuel : Guitars, Brennon Denfer : Bass, Rohit Kumar : Percussions & Ulrich Gomes : Keyboards.

IMR: Describe to our readers what makes BANDISH unique or stand out from other Indian bands? What would you say are the basic challenges and tribulations that mostly bands in India face, in trying to get known and established beyond the country's borders?
Deepak(Bandish): Well for starters this is perhaps one of the most experienced and professional line-ups in the country. Each member has had a minimum of at least 15 years of Rock ‘N’ Roll experience and when such talent comes together its prone to be a force to reckon with over and above that we are a bunch of good friends who believe in staying humble and rooted while reaching for the stars!
The basic challenges can range from something as simple as “Rock” not being our country’s main affair. Well things surely have improved post ROCK ON(movie) and as paradoxical as this may sound…guess the biggest challenge is Bollywood…lol! Well we sincerely do not have a parallel Pop or Rock industry sooner or later the best of bands break up as members slowly move to Mumbai one by one to realize their “bollywood dreams”, if u look into the history of some fantastic Indian bands you`ll know that most of the guys are right now shuffling studio jobs and waiting for that one big break in Mumbai only and only because just playing rock music couldn’t pay their bills!

IMR: What do you hope fans will take away from listening to the latest release rather than enjoying the various musical genres?
Deepak(Bandish): I guess the beauty of the entire album is that alongside touching the various genres..the band has made sure that there’s a song for everybody in this album so the versatility may be appealing to some, if nothing then the fact that this album features about 12 numero uno musicians from KK to Pete to Brennon should be treat enough!

IMR: Why is the latest album a self-titled album, any specific reason?
Deepak(Bandish): The albums named after the song BANDISH and not the band name since the coincidence worked, we decided to make it a self titled one.

IMR: What about the recording sessions of the album? Did you guys have a decent budget to record the material?
Deepak(Bandish): We had a pretty neat budget to record the songs.
Each and every track was laid out in Mumbai and the entire band moved to Mumbai for a few weeks.
The albums been mixed by one of Bollywoods top engineers and everything from the music video (BANDISH) to the mastering of the audio CD was done using extremely high budgets.

IMR: What is the reason behind introducing KK, Krishna and the well-known internationally acclaimed percussionist Pete Lockett on this album?
Deepak(Bandish): KK and Chris have been good pals over the years and this was good friends coming together to do a song; Krishna on the other hand was invited to sing the Sufi tracks on the CD as the then BANDISH vocalist had been asked to leave…my entry to the band happened very much towards the finishing stages of the album and since I had to quickly fit in and gig extensively Chris was in no mood to put any kind of extra pressure on me.

IMR: Of all the albums released by BANDISH till date, do you have any favorite track. Why?
Deepak(Bandish): My favorite track so far is definitely I BELIEVE it’s the only English track ever written by BANDISH and is on the latest album. I simply love the song and I personally believe that it brings out the best in BANDISH.

IMR: Now that BANDISH has a three album deal with the UNIVERSAL MUSIC, do you guys think you will be able to continue on the same lines what the band has done over the years?
Deepak(Bandish): We in fact hope to tighten things a bit more and sincerely hope to function a lot more effectively…one motto definitely is to increase the number of originals in a live concert over and above these BANDISH hopes to do a world tour and that surely will demand a lot of time and hard work!

IMR: What were the shows to support the release of the latest album? Any memories that you would like to tell our readers?
Deepak(Bandish): The shows will start in august…we have a tie up with Hard Rock café..wherein BANDISH will be playing in all the HRC`s across India and launch the CD.

IMR: What do you think about metal webzines/magazines that support underground music? Do you still support and read zine’s?
Deepak(Bandish): I am super glad that there’s so much of buzz due to the net and all that for the new bands and musicians in our times we surely had no internet to download music and lyrics and chord charts! We were ear guys and had to rely on ripped and passed around metal magazines! It’s really cool that stuff like this can actually build and strengthen the sweet little Rock and Metal community we have!
I surly read whatever comes my way from blogs to zine’s…bring em on!

IMR: Thanks for the interview! Good luck with all your future endeavors. I would like to extend my praise for your latest offering. The last words are all yours!
Deepak(Bandish): Thanks again for this excellent opportunity to blah!
Hope all the kids and young rockers out there don’t forget their roots that desi bands and rockers need to stick to their mother tongue. This country is yet to see the big shows, the future is bright but the lag is huge….miles to go before we sleep.