The iconic comeback of India’s biggest music festival Independence Rock re-christened as Mahindra Independence Rock, a.k.a. Mahindra I-Rock produced a new band after its country wide digital band hunt. The outcome was Bombay Bandook that would take over the rock scene as emerging artists through ‘Tomorrow’s Headliners’.
Bombay Bandook comprises of Sannidh Shah on vocals, Brijesh Joshi and Avneesh Gadgil on guitars, Parth Malhotra on drums, Amarjeet Prabhudesai on keys and Jagravi Rao on bass. The six man army got a chance to perform a powerhouse set of their songs on the Mahindra I-Rock stage.
Excerpts from the interview:
The band was formed in 2014. How did each band member join in and what’s the story behind the name?
Though the band was formed while we were in college competing for college festivals (Malhar, Mood Indigo, Amarjeet joined us in 2017 and Avneesh in 2018. Parth is the most recent member having just joined us this year. While the name Bombay Bandook doesn’t really have a special meaning, it was literally a last minute ideation for a competition we were participating in. So for the sake of this interview and at the risk of sounding a tad bit campy, let’s just say that Bombay Bandook is a music pistol and six of us are bullets of the said pistol. Doesn't that sound cool now?
Tell us about the sound of the band and your music influences?
In one sentence – we are an Indian Fusion band that's not planning to do something out of the box, but create a new box. As we mentioned earlier the sound of the band is unique, to an extent that it even sets us apart from the Indian Classical and Hindi ecosystem itself. We pride ourselves in the fact that each song of ours is different; while one song touches upon the heavy guitar walls of metal, there’s another that harkens upon the bass lines and grooves of dance music and our latest release, Saawan takes inspiration from the UK underground genres of garage and drum ‘n bass while colouring everything in Hindustani Classical. As far as influences are concerned we have to mention our ‘seniors’ in the fusion scene in India, acts like Advaita, Agam, Avial, Indian Ocean, set the stage for us.
What is your songwriting process?
While arrangement is a very combined effort, I come up with the main compositional melody, Brijesh writes the lyrics, production is normally handled by Jagravi or Avneesh. We've had Anindo Bose (Shadow & Light, Advaita) on mixing/mastering duties since 2018 as well.
What do your songs usually speak of?
That’s a difficult question to answer. We simply write and go with the song where it takes us. While Brijesh writes the lyrics to my melodies with feelings of that moment, we’ve found that the audience more often than not finds their own parallels and meanings in the music, and honestly that’s the way we like it best. Art, at the end of the day, is subjective, and if it invokes a certain feeling in you when you ‘consume’ it, that’s your truth.
You have some fab music videos, how do these ideas stem to make such classic videos?
Why, thank you again. Videos are a combined effort between us and as we like to call them, the seventh and eighth members of the band, our friends Ritvik Tyagi and Rhea Talati. It’s always a case of making them listen to the song, hearing what they have to say, and leaving it to them to come up with compelling visuals.
What are your plans for 2023?
We have developed a bit of a reputation in our fan base of, well, to put it nicely, not releasing new music regularly. But when we do, it means business and is all heart. We are working on a bunch of new music, so hopefully you’ll see new releases from us fairly regularly. Outside of that we want to play in more cities and towns, so when we do, come hear us play, it’ll be fun.
How does it feel to be winners?
It feels extremely good. We were honestly very pleasantly surprised when the final three were announced with us in the mix. We never doubt the audience loving our set but getting acknowledged by people who have seen, and have been part of the scene for decades before us is pretty special.
How did you ensure that Bombay Bandook would win the title?
Well for starters we literally followed every rule and instruction laid out by the organizer. Technicality aside, we’ve always maintained that we have absolute faith in our music, like we really enjoy what we make and we believe that the music we make is good. Therefore, the rest of it was just a case of the judges listening to us.
What memories do you have of I Rock during your childhood days?
I-Rock was one of those festivals that we’ve been hearing about since we were in school. All our favourite indie scene regulars have been a part of it, so to be able to do the same is really cool. And winning the contest made that possible, giving us the opportunity to grow our audience even more. So, we couldn’t have been more excited to be the opening act on the evening of its return.
