You found yourself establishing an indie sound at a time when India was absolutely not warm to non-Bollywood or non-classical sounds . How did you curate a sound that managed to distinguish itself in a less than welcoming scene ?
Distinguishing yourself is easy when too many people haven ’ t really heard this sound , especially because they haven ’ t been welcoming . Our sound was what our sound was . We didn ’ t do anything at all to make it more friendly to the audiences . We do believe it was Sony Music ’ s ( then Sony BMG ) conviction even more than ours as they were the ones who put their money behind our creative ideas and actually saw to it that our songs reached the audience in as big a manner as possible . We were just being honest with our music and that really worked .
The Indie music scene has obviously expanded now , but popularity inevitably has its pitfalls . What would you say are the problems in this newly recognised circle right now ?
That ’ s very well put , “ Popularity inevitably has its pitfalls ”! And very true . The problems , honestly , are the same as in the music industry all the time . The difference now is that money doesn ’ t play a big part in releases , with online release being easy and music production being possible entirely at home . Quality takes a hit though . The constant endeavour is to stand out , but the clutter is too much because of the very same reason : Internet . So , while releasing your music is easy , gettting it heard ( or seen on a video ) isn ’ t . With this situation , we actually think the gap has widened between a big player and a small player . The more there are small players , ( and today , every musician is a small player at the very least ) the more the gap will widen as the people who have built bases for either their labels or themselves as artistes will benefit more from it . The trick is to never forget that being indie doesn ’ t mean being poor . Therefore , not investing correctly in a release ( right from making sure the song itself stands out , to the video being good , to it being marketed on mass media as well as the internet ) is just sabotaging your own product and adding a little more clutter of also rans .. and in such a clutter it becomes easy for the big labels and the big artists to stand out even on the internet . It ’ s quite simple : Quality can ’ t be replaced and neither can sound investment in marketing .
You have navigated college gigs better than most other bands . Is it still as vibrant , or does the widening acceptance of indie music mean musicians are taking to other stages ?
College gigs are always the most vibrant gigs ever . The size of the crowd is always large ( small colleges will be 2,000 at least and sometimes up to 15,000 people as well ) The energy is always outstanding and when you go perform there , you know that you ’ re only performing because a very large percentage of the people there really wanted you and only you to come perform . They sing back your songs , they participate , and they inspire you to create better music . In fact , the whole experience , right from the time we land at the city and meet the college kids at the airport to the tiime
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