Eight Octaves: Welcome back for another round of interview, in a span of just about a month. What are your plans for April Fool’s day?
HK : Déjà vu or have you actually contacted us for another interview in less than a month? You just don’t get it do you. If you want to be cool…stay away from Workshop. You should interview Large Ulcer or Randy Blynkth 182. There, now that I’ve let off some steam, what was your question again? I’ll pretend like this was an audio interview and I couldn’t just read the question.
DS: For us everyday is April Fool’s day. It’s like why do you have mothers day? Why don’t you just love your mother and be nice to her everyday. Same way. We are against all this commercialization of humor and pranks. We will be taking the Maha Ghatikopar Sena Party workers to cater road and blacken the faces of all those defecating on Indian culture.
Eight Octaves:Is Riju still the official cheerleader for Workshop, when you play live? Or do you have a new cheerleader?
HK: Still good ole Riju. His costume has changed though. Now he wears a frilly white frock, which he believes, is actually a lab coat. Little does he know that it was taken right off the sets of that high school musical “Dr.Pinkus Puffins”. It’s even got some blood stains on it. He thinks it implies brutality but what it actually implies is that he likes his meat rare and has some really bad table manners. The mask helps him filter the stench of the blood on his coat. Enough about Riju, let’s talk about our new cheerleader, KapdeGahl. She’s this black metal Marathi dudette who needs to be told to put her clothes on. If you’re not Maharashtrian you won’t get this joke. Don’t judge okay.
DS: Hamza has a drum tech called Ob-zen. He is our cheerleader. Honestly we tried to have a Murga mascot and more recently a dragon mascot but we’re unable to find either a murga or dragon willing to come for our shows and dance on stage.
Eight Octaves: What material are your clothes made up of? They never seem to look old. Is it some kind of a special detergent soap you guys are using or is it the magic of Dhobi Ghat?
HK : Silicone. No not that kinda of silicone. This is naturo-ultramino-lysergic-pentaquark silicone that can be fabricated only on KarwaChauth in the year of the frog in a very specific bylanein Chandivli. Let’s not even go into details cause I’ll have to strain my creativity too much. It was developed by Balaratnamchandrashekharmuttuswaminarayanankullimattur S. Never seem to look old? Are you kidding? Mine looked old when I bought it…err I mean got it fabricated. (Insert old workshop image and new image). What would you call a maharashtrian laundry man? Dhobi Ghat. Dear Raj, I can crack this joke because I’m from Ratnagiri. I grow mangoes. No really I do.
DS: Surf O Matic Front Load is what I use. Unless my washing machine is called Dhobi Ghat we are not using any kind of magic. The material is whatever Hamza stated above.
Eight Octaves: The album got some really nice reviews; the music videos had some really good amount of dislikes. How mixed are your feelings regarding all that is going on related to the band?
HK : Mixed is a word used to describe transgenders and fresh lime sodas, not for feelings towards Workshop. We’re all extremely moronic, beyond the scope of the remotest ounce of intelligence. According to us, Workshop’s music and intelligence can be compared to Tool’s. They have song a called Pushit, we have PudheySarka. See! Anyway, point being, we can’t make smart music (or so we have you believe). Don’t hate us for it. Did your teacher hate you for being dumb? She did…wait wrong example. We’re proud of what we do. We have fun doing it. We won’t castrate you if you don’t watch our videos. And we most certainly will not stop doing what we do because some dude worships Sahil’s demonic image and feels let down when Sahil acts whacked out. NEWSFLASH that’s the real him!!! You think he growls when he picks up the phone or orders a steak? Besides, youtube stats suggested that people who dislike videos are generally people who suffer from micro phallic syndrome. The bottom line is, love us or hate us, we’ll keep at it.
DS: My feelings are like a woman going through menopause. It’s all hot flashes and nausea. Truth be told it was quite shocking but I realize now that we’re hitting a nerve with people. Next I want to kick them in the balls.
Eight Octaves:Censor Board gave you an early Holi gift by calling your videos “Vulgar” and causing some complications. Does that mean that they are probably jealous because your videos got more hits than Ragini MMS 2 trailer will ever get?
HK : I’m beginning to feel that this questionnaire was created by a Workshop member, pranking the rest of us. That’s a compliment btw. So we’ve got some inside info. Apparently, it was “Vaghle”, the signature of the reviewing officer, which because of his illegible handwriting, we mistook for “Vulgar”. There is nothing wrong with showing a person scratching his OWN butt. And yes they are jealous causeGajanandDighe made it big and GajanandVaghle is still reviewing videos sitting in a dingy room without a fan.
DS: Truth is they did not say VULGAR they said ‘OBJECTIONABLE VISUALS AND WORDS’. You see it’s probably due to lack of sex. In our country we suppress sex. We suppress everything for that matter. If you don’t have enough money to buy people off you will be suppressed. If you listen to the CD and read the booklet as well you will find some words censored. It’s unfortunate the way things are but we will stand up and shout. We will not finish without a fight, we will not go quietly into the night. We’re going to live on, we’re going to survive. Today we celebrate OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY. And CUT!
Eight Octaves: How did you get so many likes on Facebook and so many views for GajanandDhige? Why didn’t the Intelligence Bureau warn the Censor Board for the vulgarity that was to come? 😀
HK :Haha good point. You see, in Workshop, all of us are jobless. We spend our waking hours creating fake gmail accounts. We use those to create fake facebook accounts. We use those accounts to increase our likes. Apart from that, Sahil personally cooks for Zucherberg and in return he helps us with the likes. His account can infinitely like pages or posts. Normal user : “like”…”unlike”. Marc : “like”… “more like”… “some more like”… “even some more like”… “love” and so on. The IB watched only the first 10 seconds in which there are 3 members chilling with Pritam, that’s not Vulgar. We had our clothes on.
DS: We are a magnet for bable. Bable gets likes. It’s simple. Do the math.
Eight Octaves: On a serious note, can you share the details about what problems do the Censor Board of India have with the videos?
HK : The only serious note I know is the one that Samsung makes. And this is note it. The only problem those buggers had was that the video didn’t feature Katrina or Kareena or Priyankaor Sahilor some other actress thrusting her cleavage into the lens. Hypocrites.
DS: I will upload the rejection letters shortly. I will follow that up with an online petition, a candle march and a hunger strike. Wait for it.
Eight Octaves:How much impact does criticism have on you as a band? Does it make your morals down or do you guys feel stronger than ever to work even harder for what you have been doing?
HK :Haha criticism. We take it very seriously. In fact, every April Fool’s day, we take a survey of our target audience. We pester them with questions like “What do you expect from our next video?”, “Did you find the second line in Blues Motion funny?”, “Do you think Kadam should lose another 20 kgs?”, etc. We then collate that data in an excel sheet. Run a few statistical tests using a software we stole from Nielsen. Print the results on some sheets and proceed to use them as toilet paper, even though we generally use water. The second part of your question reminds me of the climax of “Jo JitaWohSikander”.
DS: Indians invented the number ZERO. That is exactly the number of fucks I give for da h8ers. If you multiply it by 10 you’ll still get ZERO. That’s exactly the same number as I gave before.
Eight Octaves:On stage Workshop is known for their madness, off stage are you all the same fun loving persons too? Or is Workshop a gateway to throw out all the negativity from your lives and enjoy the other aspects of life for some time?
HK : The latter seems more fitting. We’re all suicidal, depressed buggers and we’re always on the look out for a pan-tapri that sells Ashok Super Max Blade so we can slash our wrists. Ashok Super Max Blades are all we use cause they’re so sharp that it makes the experience painless. Wait, doesn’t that defeat the purpose? Anyway, Sahil cries tears of blood regularly, which kinda works during holi. Kadam has tried hanging himself a few times but he used to be unable to lift himself high enough, hence the weight loss. Devesh has tried drinking pee from a rat that was poisoned to death cause direct contact with rat poison is rumoured to be fatal for anyone with an IQ of under 15.And cause it tastes bad if it’s not mixed with pee. Workshop has saved us all. It gives us momentary happiness. Thank you Lord Workshop, I thank thee.
DS: I’m not sure why anyone assumes our lives are filled with negativity. The truth is Workshop is actually a VERY SERIOUS BAND. We write very serious music, we’re good with our instruments and our theme is FUN. Leave your anal plumbing in your anus when listening to Workshop. We have fun on stage and off stage.
Eight Octaves: How’s the post album gigs going on? Any gigs coming up outside of Maharashtra as of now?
HK : For that we’ll have to PudheySarka outa the state.
DS: Democide in Mumbai on 28th April at Sitara Studios.
Eight Octaves: Okay too much seriousness for this month. Let’s wrap it up by revealing who GajanandDhige is in that video please. Pretty please? With a cherry on top, which Sahil can use in his next Headbanger’s Kitchen episode, if he plans to make a dessert 😀
HK: GajanandDijhe is actually Vaghle, the reviewing officer of the Censor Board. Doesn’t this feel like the end of “Fight Club”? Why would he reject his own creative master piece? Well, that mystery shall never be solved. Quite similar to that metaphysical question that involves an apple, a rubber tyre and the only 53rd T-rex tooth that’s available on a Saturday. Goodbye. DS: Phalguni Phatak. Actually it’s Kim Kardashian.
