Tell us about Live Banned – the beginning. How did it all Start?
Amrit: To cut a long story short, Dheeru planted the seed of thought in my head after wrapping up a recording session for my solo album and I said we should call it ‘Live Banned’. The rest was Geography. The idea was to do something different with Indian film music and other western genres. We did some farming and the seed developed into a plant when Dhruv was brought in and then a full grown tree after Siddhart joined the band. We had some niggles in terms of the line-up. The tree started bearing fruits when the line-up was complete (when Raveesh took up bass duties) and we played our first show last June. Now we are in full bloom irrespective of the season.
Your music is very different from most popular bands. How would you describe it? What drives you be different?
Amrit: We wanted to do something unique with the sound we had in mind and not try to perform, sing and dress like other international bands. Our medleys have an interesting mix of South Indian music and rhythm patterns, Bollywood, ultra popular rock and metal songs, girl bands, boy bands and everything else in between. We are NOT a cover band. Sometimes it’s parody and most times it’s all about the entertainment. For lack of a better genre, we call it ‘Awesome’ and ‘Mass music’. Our originals have all these elements as well. They are nothing like you’ve heard before. Heavily South Indian that would also sell in the North of India.
Dheeru: We had quite a bit of difficulty trying to figure out a name for our genre of music, because no amount of description in words was enough to describe what we are and what we do. Having said that, we specialise in satire song writing, and musical mash-ups with many twists. The originals talk about all kinds of ridiculous things that happen around us in our daily lives, and these are our twisted takes on such things. Regarding our mash-ups, it doesn’t matter what I say. Just come and watch our show or listen to the clips on Reverbnation. So coming to give our genre our name, we call it “awesome”, although we are toying with the idea of calling it “indian mass”!
Dhruv: I think the main thing has to do with the fact that all our biggest inspirations are non musical. We love other musicians and bands, but we have our own sound. We don’t draw inspiration from any genre or style. It’s just the Live Banned sound. How it happened, well, we can’t start giving out secrets can we? J
Your music video “The Auto Tune” is by far one of the most entertaining videos we have seen in recent times. Tell us about the whole experience of ideating and producing it.
Amrit: We are glad we’ve entertained you and all the people who’ve watched the video. Thanks! After having travelled in autos for a decade almost every day, I had enough experiences with the men in khaki to write a book on them. ‘The Auto Tune’ just happened in one of the random jam sessions and writing this song was easy after all that I have been through. A lot of planning went in to the making of the video though. The storyboard, screenplay and direction were all handled by Live Banned. We were lucky to have friends like Midhun and Prashant who helped us with the camera work and post-production respectively. The idea of the video was to show the pain of commuters getting ripped off every day through a central character that gets frustrated and finally decides to buy an auto rickshaw. We knew it was important to make a video to have maximum reach, as listeners have turned into viewers. We wanted to keep it as funny and quirky as possible and stay true to what we are on stage and our facebook page. The whole experience has been one hell of an auto ride. Literally.
If today you weren’t musicians, what would each of you be doing?
Dheeru: Amrit would be showing off his vocal skills in the bathroom while producing conferences at the same time.
Siddhart would be making cutting chai. I would be Siddhart’s customer.
Dhruv would be hitting on any female by saying, “Hey baby! My office is in UB city” with the thought that baby and city rhyme.
Raveesh would be editing “special” movies and smoking electric cigarettes.
Dhruv: Well I am doing something else other than music. I have a day job in an investment firm, but if music wasn’t my release, hmm.. well tough to say, it’s the only field I’ve ever had any concrete interest in.
What is most important to you when you are on stage?
Amrit: The most important thing is our headgear. We cannot play without it. That is our external substance and there is substance abuse. On a more serious note, the most important thing is seeing the audience smile, laugh, dance, getting entertained and asking for more. In addition to good sound J
Dheeru: the following are the most important things in order:
1. The Crowd: when its packed, only then do we play. Otherwise we will waste time by checking sound for 4 or 5 hours and posing.
2. Our Wigs: Without the wigs we are regular boring people.
3. Dhruvs guitar tuning: very crucial for Dhruv’s own safety. He will be severely injured if he neglects this.
4. After 2 minutes on stage, we forget about 1 2 and 3 and just go crazy!
Besides The Auto Tune, tell us about a couple more of your songs and what inspired you to write them.
Amrit: The focus will now shift to ‘Fast fast’, a song that talks about how people in India are fascinated with fasting and hunger strikes for getting what they want. We take serious issues which are not political alone and present it in true Live Banned style. The latest original ‘Death Dance’ is about celebrating death and dance. It’s all about Tappangutthu baby! You need to learn to head bang and do the tapang moves at the same time which needs a lot of practice. We are planning to release some DIY and instructional videos for the benefit of the audience.
Tell us about the gear you use on stage.
Amrit: We are always in top gear. There is no slowing down. Some instruments I have seen on stage and the jam room are vocal chords, Washburn and Ibanez guitars, Korg and Line 6 processors, Korg Triton keyboard, Behringer Midi controller, Roland V-drums and a laptop loaded with Ableton Live 8 for those massive drum sounds.
Dhruv: I’m a very simple guitar, digital processor guy. Nothing complex. I use Washburn and Ibanez guitars.
What can we expect from Live Banned in the coming months?
Amrit: More quirkiness, madness, new originals, new costumes, merchandise, experiments, music videos and mayhem. We are also planning to do a 5 city ‘Auto Tour’ covering Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi and Mumbai. May be Manipal as well.
Dhruv: You can expect us to continue taking our live act to another level. We take pride in being a complete live experience.
Do you have any message for your fans?
Amrit: Buy an auto fast (or a fast auto) and put the death dance. But just don’t forget to PUT IT!
Just in case any of our readers don’t know, where can we find you and your music online?
Amrit: You can find us in any of the milkshake and juice shops in and around Jayanagar and Koramangala. We are also planning to make some guest appearances in some top clubs to socialize with the A-listers and making ‘local’ very cool. You can also find us in interviews like this every week and hopefully on music television channels soon. We are also social media evangelists, so catch us on our facebook page – www.facebook.com/livebanned and twitter (@livebanned). ‘The Auto Tune’ will soon be available for streaming on reverbnation – www.reverbnation.com/livebanned and soundcloud – www.souncloud.com/livebanned . For more videos, keep checking our youtube channel – www.youtube.com/LiveBanned
