Neolithic Silence is a Thrash Metal band from Bangalore. Having recently qualified in the South Zone finals of Wacken Metal Battle and Jayanth being endorsed by Orange amps, our correspondent, Amrutha Ananth, talks to the band about their thrashing, their upcoming EP and other general stuff:
Eight Octaves: What does it take to bring together a thrash metal band?
Anthony: Lots of practice, spending on gear especially consumables like sticks, spending on jams. Soundproofing or tolerant neighbours is a must.
Narayan: Loads of anger, fast as blazes guitarists, a double bass drummer who aspires to outplay Dave Lombardo and a thesaurus. J
Jayanth: Like-minded people firstly. Since the time I started the band along with my college buddy Pranay, I think I’ve played with 10+ musicians in this band. The line-ups are never stable and it is impossible to take the band through one year without a change. When the current line up got together, there was no convincing needed. We’ve stuck together, fought, composed, recorded, practiced, drank together enough to know that at every performance we are going to deliver the same amount of energy, accuracy and power that fans are now discovering. Apart from the personnel, you need to have kick ass gear. Finally a lot of time to compose and be consistent!
Eight Octaves: As a metal band coming from India, are there any barriers you face that any other band belonging to other genres wouldn’t?
Anthony: I don’t think all those genres can be clubbed as one, and metal as the other. I’m sure they have their own barriers to varying degrees. Metal just has a small audience, which probably makes it difficult to sell the music and play in as many places.
Narayan: Yes. We do not find harpists to jam with. Seriously, no! If, as a band, you’re really, really good and you have a brilliant manager, people will buy your music and come to your gigs, no matter what.
Jayanth: It is most disheartening that a lot of venues despise metal. Whilst saying that, we do enjoy every opportunity that we make or those that are given to us. A lot of times we do spend a lot of money for gig in terms of preparation and at the gig as well. A trend shift is most certainly needed in this regard. Most of us still let this go by simply because we love the band, the music and we love to be on stage.
Eight Octaves: How do you plan your stage performances? Few tips on gear placements?
Anthony: For the drummer: always carry cymbal stands, at least for local shows. Set up cymbals and stands before the gig.
Narayan: Plan a stage performance? Other than tossing a coin to decide whose turn it is to wear the one pink tutu we own as a band, not much else. Guitarists go on either side, put the drummer in the centre, make sure you don’t have a drum platform, so no one can see him and ask the bass player to stand wherever there might be place left.
Jayanth: Personally, there a lot of this starts back home before I leave for the venue. I have plan the transport of my newly acquired Orange Rockerverb 100 MKII and PPC412AD. This forms the bulk of my setup and also weighs a 100+ kilos. My guitars are usually cleaned up and readied the previous day along with all the accessories that needs to be taken along. At the venue, I make sure I speak to the Engineer behind the board and have everything that we need. As the front man of the band, these things need to be sorted well before I go on stage however small the show or venue might be. The band never takes more than 10 minutes to setup and sound check. To sum it all up, the band really needs to get to the venue to play.
Eight Octaves: What are your favourite thrash metal bands and why? If you were to evolve thrash metal, how would you do so?
Anthony: Testament, Slayer! Because they slap you in the face! One tight slap!
Narayan: Slayer! Because they’re Slayer! You cannot listen to or watch Slayer without grinning like a special needs school boy while violently trying to unhinge your neck from your torso. If I were to evolve thrash metal, I’d probably come up with secret prosthetic limbs to enable faster, heavier playing. Upwards of 300 bpm and such
Jayanth: Slayer, Exodus, Testament, Sepultura, Kreator, this list might never end. As Narayan rightly said, speed and accuracy would do a lot of good to Thrash metal.
Eight Octaves: What is Neolithic Silence’ plan of action for 2013?
Narayan: Release EP, play a butt load of gigs, write and record full-length
Jayanth: Release EP, plan and execute a promotional tour in India. We’ve already begun writing our next album which we should be recording at the end of this year.
Eight Octaves: Outside India, What band interests you? Have they influenced your music in any way?
Naryan: There’s Havok, Fear Factory, Sadus, etc. Nope, I just like listening to them
Jayanth: Dark Tranquillity influenced me in a lot of areas – Ideology, Playing and sound. Then there are bands like Nevermore, Soilwork, Overkill who I can never stop listening to. I also spend time listing to some bands who do not particularly fall under the banner of metal like Rush, PT, DT, Racer X. They all influence my playing in their own ways, but not the music I write.
Eight Octaves: How do you conceive of a song: do you start with a riff, an abstract idea, an emotion, or a structure?
Narayan: Jayanth is in charge of conceiving. A song generally starts out as his baby, the rest of us wet-nanny it until it’s a strapping young lad/lass.
Anthony: So far riffs have been brought to the jam room, and we worked out the structures and added bass and drum parts there, along with solos, etc.
Jayanth: All the music so far has been written over the last 5 years or so. I come up with an idea or a song concept and write riffs around that. Lyrics come last as always for me. These riffs are then baked in the jam room with the rest of them adding their own material. The song gets its structure there.
Eight Octaves: What is your opinion about having ‘Music Unions’? Do such platforms help in anyway?
Narayan: What is a music union? If you mean jamming with musicians from other styles of music, yes, they help. By the end of most such endeavours, you either have a deep respect and appreciation for another form of music, and are therefore a better musician and person overall, or are so pissed off with the exercise that you are eternally grateful to be doing what you do to start with and will never leave your band!
Eight Octaves: Share one memorable ‘thrashing’ stage performance close to your heart.
Narayan: All our gigs so far have been memorable. But I’d like to play a lot more before I select a favourite performance,
Anthony: More than one actually. BMC headlining, Wacken metal battle south finals Jayanth: I think both the BMC gigs were superb. Sharing stage with Sujay from Bhoomi was something I’ll never forget. I love some of the earlier gigs from the early lineups like BVB College Hubli. I’d never imagined that a 1000 strong crowd in a remote place would respond well to us. The recent gigs at ION have given us a lot of appreciation as well.
