“Did you know that long before starting up Bombay Vikings and working on Bollywood music, Neeraj Shridhar was a part of Electric Plant, one of Delhi’s biggest bands in the late 1970s/early 1980s? Or that years before Indian Ocean, bassist Rahul Ram was a member of the band White Fang?,” asked filmmaker/professor/Unfinished Biz (UBiz) and White Fang (80s rock band) guitarist Amitanshu Das somewhat rhetorically and after a pensive pause, added, “That is what ReRock is all about.”
A couple of days before the third edition of Airtel ReRock (held on January 8 at the Garden of Five Senses, Delhi), Amitanshu took some time out between frenetic jam sessions to elaborate on why a group of businessmen, entrepreneurs, professors, chartered accountants, equestrian wear exporters etc. were coming together to rock out a few decades since they hung up their drumsticks, guitars and microphones.
“The Indian rock music scene in the 70s and 80s is almost completely forgotten today. Just like Neeraj and Rahul, there were dozens of others, whose rock history is virtually unknown. The purpose of ReRock — abbreviated from Reunion Rock — in many ways, is to document the musical history of a seminal movement, whose flag bearers were bands like Collegium, Electric Plant, Applied For etc. The aim is to honour bands like these who put their heart and soul into playing the music they loved, without any hope of making a buck,” said Amitanshu, one of the biggest driving forces behind ReRock and added, “The musicians in these bands are the guys who were our heroes, because we saw them struggle and how they knew there was no money in it, but did it anyway because they loved it. I idolised these people and not Mark Knopfler or Eric Clapton etc.” The 2011 installment of ReRock featured Nirvana, Applied For, UBiz (a two-year-old band featuring members of Applied For, Collegium and White Fang) and for the first time, the ReRock Remix Band, comprising various musicians — old friends and rivals alike — jamming and playing the songs they used to perform back in the day.
The ReRock creator added, “In those days, there was absolutely no scope for original music. Bands had no option, but to play covers if they wanted to perform live. College rock shows, corporate shows and intercollegiate festivals were some of the only platforms for live shows.” Desmond Powell, Nirvana — a Delhi band that formed in 1985, two years before Kurt Cobain’s crew — and Bandish guitarist chipped in, “And the colleges that booked these bands were places like Lady Shri Ram College, Jesus and Mary College, St. Stephen’s College and a handful of others.”
And that’s not all. “At non-college shows like the ones in hotels, promoters would actually have a predetermined list of songs that they wanted the performing band to cover. These would range from The Beatles through to Deep Purple and Dire Straits. If you could play those songs well, you got the gig. If you didn’t know those songs or couldn’t play them, then obviously the promoter would look elsewhere,” said Desmond as Amitanshu piped up jokingly, “As a matter of fact, Dire Straits probably owes a lot of royalties to Electric Plant for introducing so many people to their music.”
Bands today, Desmond and Amitanshu believe, have it a lot easier in some ways and a lot harder in others than bands of their era. It is an undeniable fact that today’s rock bands (and indeed artistes from other genres) do get a much more organised platform at their disposal — including, but not restricted to a variety of music companies, better facilities and technology, more venues and the chance to perform alongside international acts. But as a result, the scene has also become a lot more competitive and the pressure on bands to break new ground and innovate is more so now than ever before.
Speaking of technology and innovation, one of the most interesting little stories about the effort that went into preparing for ReRock, is about how UBiz wrote and jammed on new songs in the past few months. “I live in Philadelphia, bassist Anirban Roy lives in Los Angeles, lead vocalist Tony George lives in London, while drummer Abhinav Dhar, keyboardist Vinayak Gupta and guitarist Obed Zeme live in Delhi. Obviously, there was no way we could jam or write music in person,” said Amitanshu and added, “So, at a given time every week, we decided to use Skype to have teleconferenced jam sessions.” Naturally, the technology isn’t at a stage yet where drums can be heard clearly and separately on software like Skype, so the sessions were simple and scaled down.
“What would happen is that we would only trade guitar parts on Skype, play those parts, jam around them, rework them etc. Of course, it was impossible to use drums but what was encouraging was that despite being on opposite ends of the globe, there was no lag between the sound and video and we were able to play in perfect sync,” said Amitanshu and added, “Despite all that, when we started playing together in person, we realised just how rusty we were as a unit and it was only after numerous more sessions that we began to sound tight together. We began to sound like a band again.”
While Delhi certainly has a rich history of rock, what about ReRock-ing (to coin a phrase) rock bands from past decades in other parts of India?
“We definitely want to spread ReRock into a larger form of documenting the history of rock music in India and are constantly looking for collaborators all over India. For now though, we are planning to build a website with everything about these bands from the past ranging from their music to unknown facts about them and what their members are upto today. Keep watching this space,” said Amitanshu with a smile, as he headed for another jam session to fine tune their material before the show.