“We played at a festival in Morocco (Festival Awtar in Benguerir, outside Marrakech) this year and it was the first time we had ever played with choreographed dancers all around,” muses Swarathma lead guitarist Varun Murali a few hours before the band’s show at Mumbai’s Hard Rock Café last week and adds, “They said they wanted a more vibrant and energetic feel from the Indian representatives at the show.”
Around 23 hectic months since Swarathma left a massive impact on Sutasi (Asian music hunt in Singapore), ending up as finalists among nearly 4,500 entries received from 20 Asian countries, the band is set to perform at the pre-launch segment of Nokia Music Connects in India, a music conference that focuses on the music industry in India. The band’s two-year-long roller coaster that culminates in this show has seen performances in Hong Kong, the aforementioned Moroccan festival, two full UK tours, the birth of the Action Replay initiative (more on that later), crazy collaborations with other bands and artistes and most recently, the band’s very own iPhone application or simply, app.
“A number of international bands like Coldplay for instance, have their own iPhone apps, which are a cool way for fans to follow the band. No other Indian band has an iPhone app and since most of us enjoy digging into technology, we thought about getting one made for Swarathma,” says Varun. At present, the app gives the user access to all of the band’s YouTube videos, a Google Maps guide to where the band will be playing and most bizarrely, a percussion shaker.
Please explain. “The shaker is devised for our song Pyaasi in which we utilise that particular sound a lot. The idea of putting a shaker in the app is so that when the song is playing, you can use your iPhone as a shaker and play along to the song,” clarifies the axeman. Goodbye Guitar Hero. Shaker Hero, anyone? As for expansion plans, the band has a Swarathma game in the pipelines for the app as well.
The Action Replay initiative, says Varun, came about because most of the band’s members are passionate about different social causes. “As such, we realised that after we play a really well-paying show, we should follow it up with a free show to give back to society. We would hire all the equipment ourselves, set it up ourselves (plugged show, not unplugged) and perform,” he says, adding that the first such show was in Kolkata for people who had been saved from the human trafficking trade. “We’ve done similar shows at a school for the blind in Pune, for poverty-stricken people in Nainital and at a leprosy centre in Bengaluru. In fact, the leprosy centre’s land was going to be taken away by the government, but after we performed, the place got some attention and the court will be looking at the matter once again,” beams Varun.
After working with British producer John Leckie — a man suffering from no lack of world renown — Swarathma has collaborated with a slew of bands, artistes and even a beatboxer. The list goes from Australian band Old Man River through beatboxer Shlomo, all the way to Shubha Mudgal. “Collaboration is one way of pushing music and your own sound forward. It’s a major exchange of ideas, especially for me, as a guitarist. If I collaborate with X artiste today, I’ll end up playing something completely different stuff afterwards, compared to what I did yesterday after collaborating with Y artiste,” gushes Varun. When asked about the most interesting collaboration so far, he’s quick to say, “Shubha Mudgal. Definitely. She was incredibly down to earth and put down 10 different takes and asked us to use whatever we wanted. For a major artiste like her, I was expecting a major ego to accompany her, but there was nothing of the sort. We’d love to play live on stage with her at some point.” As inevitably happens when speaking to a band or even a member of the band, the topic of conversation predictably slips into the realm of the next album. This interview is no different. “We’ve written a few songs and have been trying them out at different shows. Overall, the feel of the forthcoming record is a lot more open with everyone playing a lot more than last time around,” says Varun, adding, “Last time, the whole experience was new — the studio was a completely new idea, for instance. But now, we know exactly what sound we want and so the process is a lot more professional.” While no expected release date has been pencilled in as yet, Varun does let slip that there could be a few collaborations on the coming record, before excitedly saying, “There wasn’t much guitar on the last album, but the next one has a hell of a lot more.”
It’s nearly time for HRC to throw open its doors for the punters and it seems like the right time to get some wisdom from Jishnu Dasgupta, bassist and onstage chatterbox. “Music and the live act cannot be separated. As we have grown musically, our songs have slowly been adapted and so too, has the live act,” says Jishnu, when asked about a grouse levelled by a few fans that the live show isn’t as energetic as it used to be. “We’re also trying out new things to augment the live show, like at Bengaluru, we had a big screen put up and an SMS code was given to audience members,” says the bassist and adds, “This was way quicker than Twitter and for the duration of the show, fans could keep texting and it would appear behind us as we were playing.”
As a final question when asked if the fans’ choice of favourite songs has changed at live shows, Jishnu replies, “Ee Bhoomi religiously gets the biggest pop at every show because of its bouncy energetic feel.” Best not to miss that one then.