Mumbai-based thrash and death metal band Devoid headline the first Resurrection Dubai mini-festival on on Friday. The band's manager, Roydon Bangera, talks about the modern Indian metal scene and what it's like to keep a band together - complete with day jobs - for 10 years.
Are you looking forward to Resurrection Dubai?
This is our first time in the Middle East, we’re expecting a crowd of around 300 people. We’ve heard a lot of good things about the Dubai scene from our friends in Nervecell.
What have we got to look forward to?
We'll be playing an hour-long set, mixing material from our first album [2010's A God's Lie] with our new EP, The Invasion, and there will be some covers for our fans – but they're a surprise.
What’s The Invasion about?
It’s a whole concept about aliens invading the earth, and what happens afterwards. You’ll have to read the lyrics.
Interesting. Later this year Devoid celebrates 10 years as a band. How does that feel?
It’s really awesome to play a genre that’s not really supported, in India or worldwide, by the mainstream radio and TV. We’ve achieved a lot – going from small college concerts to two releases and headlining big festivals – but there’s still a lot more to do.
Do you think you’ll last another 10 years?
Stopping is not on the cards – we all have day jobs, but we continue to do this because we care about what we do.
What do you all do when you’re not rocking out, then?
Arun Iyer, our vocalist, is a sound engineer and mixer, he’s produced all our releases. Our guitarist Sanju Aguiar is a full time musician, he teaches students and mentors kids in the guitar. He also plays a lot of outside projects in Bollywood, because that’s where the money is. Shubham Kumar, our drummer, is a sales manager, and our bassist Abhishek Kamdar works for a videographer, doing lots of music videos, and manages a jam room where we rehearse. I’m a brand manager for a firm in India.
How did you all meet?
Four of us lived in the same colony where all our parents used to work, and we found this one thing that united us all, and we took it from there.
How hard is it to keep a band together for 10 years? There must be fights?
Basically it’s all about our love for the music, and when you work on a song you leave all anger and aggression outside and pull together. Everyone brings something to the table.
What’s the most rock n’ roll thing you’ve done?
There’s this misconception that all metal bands are very extreme. We’re very humble, we don’t do anything like that. Except, of course, for all the crowd surfing.
How is the rock and metal scene in India today?
In terms of international bands, it’s really great, a lot of promoters are bringing some really big names, and there’s more festivals all the time. In terms of venues, we face the same problems as the Middle East – electronic music dominates. Venues want DJs because it’s so much cheaper to book one guy than five guys in a band.
And what about the local scene?
The local scene is really strong, we have a lot of bands who are really, really successful and play big festivals internationally. Every day you see a new band cropping up and it’s really great to see.
What about the Middle Eastern scene?
From what I’ve been told by friends, promoters and bands, the scene is really great. I’ve heard about all the bands who are playing with us at The Music Room, and been in touch with them all for a long time. It’s great that Resurrection Dubai can bring us all together, all these cultures in one place, there could be no better place to do it than Dubai. I really want to thank the promoters for making it happen, hopefully there can be many more events like this in the future.
rgarratt@thenational.ae
