Kolkata – The City of Joy always had a rich cultural history. But when it comes to Metal music, it is often regarded as one of the least Metal cities in India. Mr.Prasanna Singh, one of the associating members of Kolkata’s biggest Underground Metal gig – The Pit and an avid metalhead from the city, takes out some time to answer a few questions about the past, present and future of the Kolkata Metal Scene:
Eight Octaves: Let’s start off with the most obvious question; you have been associated with the Kolkata Metal scene for quite some time now, so take us through the starting years and what it took to build a stable fan base of the genre?
Prasanna: When I was in school/college, metal was not a popular form of music. It was also a time when internet/music downloads/cable-satellite TV were still in their nascent stages, so the toolswhich we currently use to popularize and promote bands/music (things which we take for granted these days) were not available to us. It was thus,hard to find music of international metal acts anywhere – CDs/cassettes were not always available in the market. Trying to locate like-minded metal-freaks in the city was also a huge task.
The few metal bands that existed in Kolkata,as well as their fans, would only get to meet at college band competitions. And most of these bands were directionless in their approach towards music. They did not have any role-models or senior musicians to look upto for advice or guidance, since, as we all know, there weren’t any senior musicians in our city who were interested in metal – not then, not now. Metal acts back thennevergot the opportunity to perform at the local pubs or concert venues, thus paying gigs were out of the question. So in a nutshell, the young metal bands were young college kids who were groping around in the dark trying to feel their way around a long winding road, not really knowing which direction to take. It was no surprise that, despite their huge passion and enthusiasm for the genre, by the time they completed graduation, these young musicians would shift to some other form of music OR leave music all together and go all corporate.
With the advent of the social network however (Orkut/Facebook) things started to change for the better. In fact not with just the social networking medium – the internet as a whole has changed the metal scene (as wellas the general music scene) for thebetter. Bands started to exploit the power of the internet by connecting with fans both in and around the city and across the country, interacting with members of other bands (not necessarily based in Kolkata), uploading their music and making it available for people to listen to and to provide critique… in fact promotion of bands and metal as a whole was (and still is today) taking place big time via the internet, and this has helped to mould the metal scene in Kolkata tremendously, and it will continue to be an important tool in the years to come.
So this basically was how metal in Kolkata began in the early days. It still took a few more years for the stable fan-base to build-up to a respectful size however.
In a city which is dominated by classic rock/blues and jazz, there have beenmany times when the young generation has wanted a change in scenery. The aggression in metal?The “I-give-a-f**k” attitude? The piercings/tattoos associated with most metal musicians? The black tees with metal band logos? I know not – but suddenly in around circa 2005, the metal sub-genre started to become a trend in Kolkata. It was probably the closest form of music to punk and anti-establishment that the young Kolkatan could get their hands on. And so from out of nowhere there arose this huge gigantic legion of “metal lovers” in the city and across the suburbs. It was absolutely crazy. From a handful of people attending a metal gig, over-night there were armies of young adults swarming into venues head-banging their way to kingdom come, while wearing their trendy black-metal tees and flashing the devil’s horns like it was the latest fashion statement. I will not harbour on the negative aspects of this sudden blind following, but without a doubt this rapid love for metal pushed it into the limelight.Metal became, for want of a better phrase, “FlavorOf The Season”.
Trends come and go, and people move on to newer, shinier things – so to in music. Metal is currently notin the limelight anymore, however this “trend” phase did manage to bring metal to the Kolkata masses, and also an awareness of this genre. Andall said and done, we can be grateful for the fact that metal is still a very popular form of music in this city and that there is still a sizable number of people willing to support our city’s scene and the various bands that are a part of it.
In the above context, it would be criminal not to mention 2 parallel music movements in our city which helped to encourage the young metal musician in our city and which also indirectly acted as a catalyst for the Kolkata metal scene. The 1st one wasthe emergence of the new-wave of Bangla bands, where vernacular metal bands from theNaktala Metal scene helped to bring metal music to the forefront and to the earsof a huge group of listeners who previously had been unaware of the power of metal music. The 2nd one was the surge of original music by a brave handful of city bands (all of whom were non-metal musicians) who had bucked the age old of trend of playing solely covers.This encouraged many young musicians to think out of the box, to compose their own music AND to do their own thing.
Eight Octaves: In a recent interaction with you, you said that the scene in Kolkata is not booming. It reached its pinnacle and now it’s sort of waning and falling into pieces. Can you shed some light on the situation?
Prasanna: The rise and decline of metal in Kolkata is but natural. But when I use the term decline, I do NOT necessarily mean that metal in Kolkata is on the verge of extinction. However the boom which we had observed some 3 years back is slowly on the wane. And this is basically due to bands dying out after reaching the end oftheir life-cycle,with no new bands stepping up to fill the void left by them.
A typical band life-cycle (metal or otherwise) in this city starts when the members are in college. From there they tend to stick around for 3-4 years (give take 1-2) – and during their final year/months they reach a level of immense maturity and potential. Unfortunately,instead of this acting as their launch-pad for further success, mostbands fall into the great Indian job trap, whereby band members either take up a job due to family pressure (and other reasons) OR are forced to leave the city to pursue higher studies/relocate due to new job commitments – thus bringing the life of their band to a drastic full-stop. During this phase most bands use the word “hiatus” or “hibernation” or “temporarily on leave” and other such fancy terms to describe their current state. However any one with open eyes and ears knows that these bands will never rise to the fore-front again. Some do try to actually reform and come back into the circle of life, but I have no names to give you of any band that has succeededin this till date.
There have been some very promising bands in the Kolkata circuit which unfortunately (for reasons I will not go into) do not exist today. Or to use a more diplomatic term, are currently “inactive”. It probably isn’t very wise to name these bands, but I’ll go ahead and do so just the same (with no disrespect to them and their members): The Hobos, Crystal And the Witches, Inhuman, Sinful Oath, Cicatrixx, the Naktala Metal Pally trio of Atmahatya, Amavasya and Nitric Dreams – plus a whole group of junior bands that haveeither recently disbanded or are going through line-up-changes and are thus busy playing hide ‘n seek instead of music: NoyzeAkademi, What Escapes Me, Burnout Syndrome, Dark Ritualz, Age Of Chaos, Distorted Thought Pattern… the former and the latter lists are endless and as you can see, there are some pretty impressive names here. We could probably host a sell-out gig with some of these bands if they were still around…
And who do we currently have in the circuit to fill up this void? Well there are quite a few promising bands around for sure – but the numbers are not quite enough to make this scene a Boomtown.
So yes, in all honesty, we have a good promising scene – but as of now it has lost a bit of steam and is slowing down. There is no reason however to be all doom and gloom just yet, because things should surelychange in the next few years.
Eight Octaves: Before putting up a gig, you obviously need to approach a venue. How do the pubs/clubs respond when asked to host a Metal gig?
Prasanna: Of all the gigs I’ve been witness too, the ones held at Palace Grounds, Bangalore were the best. Great open air venue with ample space around, plus excellent central location in the heart of the city… You can’t beat it. And that would be the ideal venue for any metal gig. Unfortunately in Kolkata, we really do not have anything even close to a Palace Grounds where we could host similar gigs. And the open grounds that are available are financially out of the reachfor most metal event organisers, including The Pit group. And so we are forced to look at alternatives like pubs/clubs/theatre halls. None of these are ideal venues as you well know. Plus the stigma and negativity that is associated with a metal concert totally puts most pub/club owners on the defensive. So it is extremely difficult to get them to agree to rent out their venue for a metal gig. No wonder we have to sugar-coat our dealings with them by promising to hire bouncers and to prohibit the smoking of weed/tobacco and to not allow any moshing during the event so that their venue does not suffer any damage during the proceedings. Sometimes even the sugar-coating fails to convince these people and we are stone-walled in our attempts to make them even hear us out.
Eight Octaves: Now coming to The Pit. The seventh edition of The Pit was in my opinion a great one. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Can you share something about the formative years of the event? How was the crowd response? What kind of difficulties did you face back then?
Prasanna: Well The Pit started out as an associative effort by a few metal bands in Kolkata along with their well-wishers to create a platform for themselves and other upcoming metal acts in the city. Circa 2007-2008 there were no metal shows happening in Kolkata, thus none of the existing bands were getting the opportunity to play live anywhere in and around the city. So as a last ditch effort, these bands put aside their differences, got together and put together a plan which totally revolutionizedthe Kolkata metal music circuit. The Pit v.1 was thus born, and it was a D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) show – probably one of the 1st of its kind in the city. It happened in February 2009 and featured 6 bands. The venue for the inaugural Pit was the Tapan Theatre and it was organized under the banner of the Rash Behari Extreme Metal Society. It was a free entry event and the entire cost of the event was borne by the performing bands and their friends. It was held on a week-day so the turn-out was just about decent, but it was enough to encourage the PIT guys to go ahead for another version of the PIT. And so the story goes.
Through the years, the crowd response has increased ten-fold and so has this event’s popularity. Difficulties? Well they pretty much remain the same, the most critical onebeing a paucity of funds. The organisers have tried to make each version of The Pit bigger than the previous one, but this has not always been possible, since a lack of funds has proven to be a huge deterrent to the growth of the event as a whole. Another problem is the lack of PR and media coverage – a metal event of any sort is something that our local media is simply not willing to cover, so unfortunately without any sort ofprint, radio or TV media coverage, no one in the outside world (apart from the metal faithful in Kolkata) are even aware of the existence of The Pit. Major sponsors are thus reluctant to lend us a helping hand. And so The Pit hence pretty much remains a D.I.Y. undergroundevent, even after 7 successful versions. I honestly do not see any change in this status quo even when we get ready for The Pit v.8 in the near future.
Eight Octaves: One thing I really appreciate about The Pit is that the genre biasness does not exist. You just have to be a band playing Metal; the sub-genre you play does not have any use except being printed on the flyers and passes. But the current trend in India is to bash genres at every possible chance you get. What are your views on that?
Prasanna: I would like to take this opportunity here to put rest to the allegation that The Pit are genre biased and are SOLELY supportive to mainstream sub-genres like core and djent. This is anything but the truth – our objective has been to always give an opportunity to young Kolkata metal acts whom we, in The Pit core committee, think are the most promising. This is obviously a subjective judgement, and our selection of bands may not always leave everyone happy. But there is not much we can do if, say for example,there are only 8 slots available for a particular version of The Pit, but 20 are bands clamouring for a chance to showcase themselves… in such a situation The Pit core committeetries to make a fair, neutral and unbiased judgement in choosingthe best amongst the 20 available bands and leave the rest to those selected to vindicate their choice by giving a kick-ass performance on the day of The Pit. And sure, if a particular band is left out then comments are made and a million controversy theories get cooked up. It is not in our power to stop wagging tongues and I guess the best thing to do is to ignore the negativity around us and just get on with the job at hand.
In the last 3-4 years (until 2012) there were just a handful of death metal bands and practically NO thrash or black metal bands of any kind in the city. As per our observation the mainstream metal bands of the city had the most promise – which is why the 4th to 6th editions of The Pit predominately showcased these bands. And because of this a lot of people have been under the impression that the sole objective of The Pit was to promote mainstream metal and to ignore the traditional forms of metal. In fact I have been personally asked during this period WHY The Pit did not feature black or thrash metal bands. Well the simple answer is – if there are no musicians/bands playing such musicthen how can we feature such a non-existent band at our event? Such bands do NOT grow on trees you know. And that was basically it – no sarcasm, no sugar-coating, nothing. The Pit is there to promote bands, but we aren’t there to make or break them. And as you have seen at The Pit v.7 wewere happy to this time be able to showcasebands from various sub-genres.So I hope the negative views of a few people in the circuit are finally put to rest.Whatever genre you play, be it death/ black/ thrash/progressive/metal-core/death-core/djent/goth/symphonic/whatever (yes even nu-metal!!!), The Pitis with you.
I won’t be able to comment about the other metro cities, but in my humble opinion, the genre-bashing in Kolkata started when 2 schools of metal believed, rightly or wrongly, thatthey hadbeen victimized by each other due to a lack of growth opportunities and due to a clash in their philosophy of metal. For a person like me who openly supports and listens to most metal sub-genres, it was a painful to see this happening. Things also got quite nasty too with a lot of mud-slinging taking place between both parties. Anyway as of now things are a whole lot betterand I am very pleased to see that there is some sort of silent truce between the 2 parties – and in fact both factions have been successfully organising their own events and growing rapidly as well, which shows that they can co-exist in their own independent space, provided no one goes ahead and treads on their respective toes. I am not sure how long this peace will last, and I definitely pray that it is NOT the calm before some raging storm.
The metal scene in Kolkata will always be dominated by the classic rock/ cover-band/ alternative-mainstream rock scenes in this city. The opportunities for the metal musician are limited and growth is also a slow process. So if everyone starts fighting amongst themselves to prove which sub-genre is the king of all metal sub-genres, then we are really doing nothing but shooting ourselves in the foot – and metal in Kolkata might as well just go for a toss. There are far more important things to do in order to improve the metal scene in the city AND genre bashing is definitely not one of them.
Eight Octaves: We have Cattle Decapitation coming down to Darjeeling this year and everyone is stoked about it. Is Kolkata ready to host an event of that scale in the near future? Or are there a few things to be sorted out before venturing into that road?
Prasanna: Event organisers, rightly or wrongly, still feelthat Kolkata is not in the green zone in terms of hosting international metal events of either a medium or largescale. In fact, in the past RSJ has always refused to bring the headliners of the Great Indian Rock eventdown to Kolkata for the eastern leg of their festival. In 2012 NH7 did a great job spreading their event across the country, but unfortunately Kolkata (and the eastern zone) was neglected. And these are just 2 examples… so the obvious question that comes to mind is how come our city isnot considered to be even remotely good enough for events of such magnitude? I do not know the answer to this question. Maybe the rest of the country does not think we have enough metal-lovers in this city who would be interested to attend such shows. And yes, it is somewhat true that we do lack enough paying listeners capable of filling up a venue fora day-long fest of the magnitude of say, a Bangalore Open Airor a Rock In India – especially when the average metal listener of our city is a student who is seldom willing or able to dish out 1000 bucks (or more) for a ticket for any sort of show here.
We all know that Kolkata lacks a really good venue for a proper open air gig. Plus I have heard organisers complaining of the poor infrastructure (sounds, lights, etc.) that are not up to international standards and which would not meet the requirements of most “B” category bands (forget “A” category artistes). And as discussed above, there is the crowd factor –a total unknown quantity. We in Kolkata THINK that we have a huge number of metal-heads ready to attend gigs, but in reality most of these listeners have proven to be arm-chair music listeners and are reluctant to attend concerts, be they paid or free. So trying to make an intelligent guess at how big the turn-out for a metal show in Kolkata might be is an exercise in futility.
I would love someone to bring Cattle Decapitation down to Kolkata. But as I mentioned above, no event organiser would be willing to take such a risk. A loss is a guarantee – and it is simple mathematics really. The cost of hiring a proper venue, sounds, light and hospitality for the band would be huge but there is no guarantee that the money generated from the expected foot-fall would balance out the debit section, especially when you are relying upon just the Kolkata metal-lover to attend. And with a Cattle Decapitation gig lined up in Darjeeling, we could rule out the attendance of the North Bengal metal lover in Kolkata for a show by the same band. So with this sort of formula in mind, you can very well imagine why most event organisers are reluctant to set up camp in the City Of Joy.
But it just takes one well-attended metal gig in Kolkata to prove everyone wrong. So if there are any brave event organisers out there, well, give us a chance. We need just one big-shot organiser to take the plunge, you know? Organise a big event and promote and publicize it so that metal-lovers from not just Kolkata but also North Bengal and the north-eastern states are willing to come down to attend. Or even people from other parts of the country. And then take it on from there. After Joe Satriani’sKolkata tour in 2005 we haven’t had any really big open air concert here, and it’s high time we had one, for God’s sake!
Eight Octaves: Music scene in India in general is pretty sad. One just cannot think of being a full time musician; something that has resulted in many bands quitting and choosing to pursue higher studies. What can be done to improve the situation?
Prasanna: The structure of our society is such that there is really not much we can do to improve the situation for a full-time musician, especially if he/she wishes to specialize in metal. At the end of the day we all need money to survive.So sooner or later, any musician will be forced to follow the messages coming from his/her stomach rather than those emanating from their heart.Members of most of the established metal bands in India have a back-up plan to supplement their income. And this is a necessary step – you either do this or you sink into oblivion and die. Income from album sales and live shows are how a full-time musician should be ideally supporting himself/herself. But it’s not very easy when a majority of the public is NOT willing to spend money to either buy a band’s original EP/album or to buy a ticket to their live show. Especially the average Kolkatan music lover – and unlike in other metro cities, paying to watch a gig is a concept which is absolutely alien to the miserly Kolkatan. What these people do not understand though is that their reluctance to dish out the moolah is merely bringing these young metal bands closer to extinction. So an attitude change amongst the Kolkata music lover is needed. Apart from that, well, bands really must improve their music and reach such high levels that they get invited for paid shows in other parts of the countries and even abroad.
The Kolkata metal scene is still a toddler in comparison to the ones in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. It will be interesting to see how the currentcrop of senior bands, includingYonsample and Chronic Xorn manage to survive,as most of their members have opted to become full-time metal musicians. The younger generation of metal musicians in the city are looking up to them for guidance, so they really do need to succeed in order to show these youngsters the way.
Eight Octaves: Okay last question for the day, which are the bands to look out for from Kolkata? Any personal favourites?
Woah! This is the most difficult question being asked. In all honesty I enjoy listening to most of the bands that are currently in the circuit but the list would be never-ending if I named them all and also analysed why I like them. So I’ll just mention the following: Chronic Xorn is currently the most senior band in the circuit and they are doing pretty well. Being the most professional band in the Kolkata metal circuit, they have what it takes to survive the long innings, provided they do not go through too many line-up changes, especially with the drummer. Yonsampletoo has the potential to do very well with their brand of modern metal. However their career seems to be moving ahead in fits and spurts, and there are days where they seem to vanish from the face of the earth. They badly need to promote themselves more constructively, and getting their debut album out wouldn’t hurt as well. The same goes for Evil Conscience – they have loads of potential, but their progress has been extremely slow. Line-up changes and delays in bringing out their debut EP are holding the band back, and they need to buck up or unfortunately they will miss the bus.
Apart from these 3 veterans of the Kolkata metal circuit there are a few junior bands out there who are worth a shout. Purgation and Masochistic Autopsy have impressed me a lot in recent times, the former for their sheer dedication to the music they play, and the latter for the huge improvement they have made in the last 1 year. The 2 thrash bands from the old school circuit Mortar and Armament also deserve a mention. It is still early days for them though, considering that they have played just a handful of live gigs – we’ll have to see how far they go. I also enjoyed the modern metal sound of Age Of Chaos and What Escapes Me – unfortunately the future of both bands is far from certain and in all likelihood they will cease to exist in the near future. Intoxicate too, from the modern metal battalion are going in the right direction. They look to have roped in the Xorn guys as mentors, and it is always a wise decision to have seniors around to guide you in times of need. Their new EP was pretty decent and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys core/experimental metal. I would also like to mention Crematory Art, probably the only metal band in the circuit with a female member. Musically, they have loads of room for improvement, but taking the broader picture into perspective, it is nice to see that metal in the city has room for promising female musicians/vocalists too and that not everything is limited to the male gender alone. Apart from the afore-mentioned bands there are many more in the metal circuit. I have personally heard most of these bands live and I enjoy their music. Unfortunately this space is too small to mention each and every one of them, but I wish them all well, and I hope they can survive the long innings and don’t end up like some T20 wannabe. A year from nowwhen the dust has settled, it will be interesting to see where these bands are placed in the Kolkata metal circuit.
