By Nawaz Yasin Islam
Shillong, the un-debatable name for being the hotbed of rock music in India, was witness to a terrifying six-member wrecking crew assaulting the audience with a punch of ‘real metal’.
Bhayanak Maut, the famed Indian metal band offering an assorted mix of metal, death metal and hardcore music came to blow the Shillong audience all the way from Mumbai.
This was not the first time Shillong witnessed a Bhayanak performance as they rocked the State earlier back in November 2008 in the largest and loudest Great Indian Rock event that witnessed numerous ‘killers’ slaying with their performance.
October 6 will surely go down as another ‘in-yer-face’ event as ‘The Harley Rock Riders’, an event to promote Indian rock bands in the country was held for the first time in Shillong. Amidst the booming engines of the worlds renowned manly machines, the ‘Harley Davidson’, there were some destructive symphonies in the offing.
The run up to destruction was more like the calm before an inevitable storm.
The evening started with Street Stories belting out some popular numbers. This band from Shillong comprising of Pezo (guitar, vocals), Riko (bass, vocals) and Matsram(drums) stood impressive with their fast, hard-edged music and stripped-down instrumentation that surely inspired many who witnessed it all live. Next in line were the Guwahati based alternate rockers, Lucid Recesswho has an equal fan base in Shillong. With the crowd swaying to ‘Painstaking obsessions’, the trio comprising of Amitabh (vocals, bass), Siddharth (guitars, vocals) and Partha (drums) won heads and hearts like they aim for!
The solemn symphonies made way for annihilation and carnage that followed with one of Indian metal scene’s biggest acts stomping on stage…Bhayanak Maut. Open jaws and throbbing heartbeats waited in anticipation in front of the expected avalanche of raw, unedited and insanely powerful music that can rightfully be labeled as ‘Symphony of Destruction’!
The classic line-up of this band that can beat the living daylights of everyone in their path stood with a presence that will linger for a long time. Vinay and Sunny roaring out at their own levels added the depth of vocals to their musical destruction. Venky has the responsibility of wielding the axe along with Aditya who gave guitars their rightful respect. Slaying leather for the band was Rahul who along with Vinay and Venky remains the core members of the band since 2003. With their regular bassist Swapnil unavailable to slap the strings, Bhayanak Maut made good use of a perfect replacement in the form of Sidharth Kadadi, a masterpiece in himself from the Bombay based band Zygnema.
Their arsenal of powerful tracks and the twin vocal assault tore through the head banging worshippers. The towering stage presence of Vinay mashed with the impactful roar of Sunny was the undeniable highlight of the evening that rocked this city.
With music that doesn’t get more direct than a silver sword ripping through the exposed heart, Bhayanak Maut took the audience by surprise with their ferocious intensity the moment Venky stummed the ‘stringed-weapon’. With merciless drumming to accompany the powerfully tight riffs, the gut wrenching vocals and brutal technicality sure dislocated spines in the ‘head bangers ball’ on the other side of the barricade.
Vinay surely stood as India’s answer to Randy Blythe and the wolfpack as a whole was India’s Messuggah!
The perfect Shillong moshpit thanks to Vinay coming down with directives and the scene was all set to be torn right though the centre. The earth shattering symphonies were nothing short of a nuclear warhead opening in front of your face! From ‘Ranti Nasha’ to a track from their third album, ‘I am man’, the power packed stellar performance left no scope for mercy.
I for sure missed the all time invigorating ‘Boiled… Unwound… Filatured’. (This is one song I could listen all day long). Bhayanak Maut bid adieu to this song in 2008 here in Shillong, never to perform live again.
Torn shirts, confused faces and unsteady bodies (Bhayanak Maut indeed!) were all that remained as the jolt that struck Metal worshippers of Shillong started fading.
This warrior lot comprising of surprising down-to-earth souls provided an opportunity for a more humble backstage discussion. The excerpts:
N: Simple start…how is it like to be here?
BM:Well this our fourth visit to the North East and our second time in Shillong. The weather, food ambience, everything is so chilled out here, nothing to complain…its plain awesome! Wish we could stay longer but a Jaipur show makes sure we don’t!
N: Small but lively crowd…the expected audience?
BM: More fanatical crowd! Shillong is known for their metal and we love this crazy audience. Metal is here to stay. There was a guy cleaning our bathrooms with Pantera booming in his phone! Its awesome! The fan mail and requests to play here has been in our favour. Wish we could play more..
N: What do you have to say about Shillong’s Rock scenario?
BM: Shillong is rightfully the ‘Rock Capital’. At least the people here are knowledgeable and they come to check out the band and not just covers. It is humbling when you see that the people know the band and their music and come in with great response. There is also a novelty factor in playing here.
N: Satisfied with the event management?
BM: We have worked with RSJ in two occasions. The first was GIR 2008 and this second one with Harley’s. They surely know how to party when it comes to organizing such killer gigs. Things fell in place pretty well. The bands chosen were great. Big Cheers! to Street Stories, the opening band. We are very impressed by them and of course Lucid Recess…they are always great!
N: How would you describe your type of music? What are your creative influences?
BM: We are basically a metal band with varying elements. All six of us listen to different types of songs. It is hard to finger down one. Many influences as well. Work, job, traffic, pollution… they all add up the long list of influences (Rahul chuckles as Venky tries to elaborate here!). The song structure is more universal. We look at the anger and frustration that builds up due to all this. This angers us and we give it all back in noise!
N: How is the home support coming? Are we doing justice in promoting Indian bands?
BM: See, the problem here is that we look at the West as the pinnacle of what every musician should be. This is stupid because the Indian sound is very fresh and new. The support is building up but now at the peak. The guys at the music industry are realizing this and so we have the regular gigs like NH7 etc. Another fact here is that no Metal band relies on mainstream publicity. Even we started out as an underground thingy and people still subscribed which shows the craze. Its again up to the bands, how they stand up.
N: Tell us something on the journey to being Bhayanak Maut.
BM: The rise has not been sudden. We have been playing since 2003. So for three years till 2005, we were basically playing every show that came in our way ranging from free shows to Rs 3750 a show! We slugged out a lot till our biggest break that was in Channel V launch pad (live TV!! First time). We worked…it paid off!
N: Any particular reason for the changes that came about in the band?
BM: We are gonna turn 10 years old and like any other band, differences come about. When we started in 2003, we were a four-piece line up. There were changes with our vocalist Sriram left, making way for Vinay. The bass line up saw changes with Jaison leaving and Vineet filling in for him. Vineet left in 2010 and Swapnil joined. Thankfully, every inclusion just made our music better.
N: There have been criticisms on the introduction of a second vocalist…your say on that.
BM: The vocalists are supposed to sound like instruments and not just vocalists! For us, the introduction of Sunny worked quite dynamically. Vinay at the low growl and Sunny at the high scream added to the overall effect of the music. Other than the four songs in the Fine Tuned Disaster, we don’t know how many songs they heard but the thirteen songs thereafter have been with two vocalists. A band has to be given a time to evolve and not criticize on the initial line up like you said. To us it boils down to execution and we did just that. We looked beyond seven strings and double bass to incorporate Sunny and he did the best.
N: So when are you planning to come out with your third album?
BM: We hope to start recording by the end of this year. We’ll take our time with this one.
N: What difference can we expect from the other two albums?
BM: There are songs this time. Last time we focused on the riffs and drumming. This album is a concept album. It is gonna be lot more layered and textured (like them!). The filtering process has been more stringent this time unlike the last time where we focused on creating intense music like a huge gust of wind to simply blow the person away. We want to create a memorable track. The music is heavier and faster…a story in itself.
N: Best, worst and most dreaded performance on stage…
BM: The best moment would always be the Lamb of God show in Bangalore and definitely Oslo. For Rahul, the bad moment would be a Delhi show when he had to rip apart that drum set with fever. (Aditya chuckes! For his list is longer). Aditya broke a string in his very first show and in another, halfway into the performance, he found his cable unplugged. (A laugh riot follows!) Aditya’s head banging gave him a vertigo rush and the best moment was him falling down but..but..but..never missing a note
N: Studio sessions, Jam sessions, Live sessions…what gets the hormones working?
BM: Everything…absolutely everything. It’s an entirely different mindset altogether. In the studio, it’s all very serious…everything is chalked out and we have a blue print. Jam sessions are terrific as we can have a lot of permutations and combinations and are open to ideas. Live is a killer in itself. You get to hit out at the crowd directly!
N: Are you guys open to the idea of collaborating with North East rockers?
BM: We are open to ideas dude and that can be a project where we can try out different music types but again, too many people and you won’t have a Bhayanak Maut (a silent death I suppose).
N: Thanks for the time…wish you all the best!
BM: Thanks man…Cheers!
BHAYANAK MAUT IS: Vinay Venkatesh(Vocalist) Sunneith Revankar aka Sunny(2nd Vocalist) Venkatraman aka Venky (Guitars) Rahul Hariharan(Drums) Aditya Nair (Guitars) Swapnil Bhumkar (Bass)