INTERVIEW

Interview with Euphoria band

'The Indian rock scene is heading to nothing'

With Debajyoti Bhaduri aka DJ on the bass guitar, Benjamin Pinto aka Benny on the keyboard, Hitesh Madan aka Rikki on the guitar, Ashwani Verma on the drums, Rakesh Bhardwaj on the dholak, Prashant Trivedi on the tabla and our very own Palash aka Polly as the lead vocalist, the leading commercial Indian band Euphoria has simply more layers to it than seen by the audience. Radioandmusic.com's Aaishwari Chouhan explores these hidden layers in an interview with the band members with Palash as their spokesperson.

Excerpts:

Why the name Euphoria?
We had not many brighter options than Euphoria and so, we thought it was the best.

What does Euphoria mean to all of you guys?
It's life, good fun! We are all brothers here who enjoy each other's company, eat, travel a lot and eventually, make good music. We feel bound together like one family. But all-in-all, it's great to be with each other and be tagged under 'Euphoria.' It is God's gift to all of us and we feel really fortunate.

What is Indian rock culture?
India has no rock culture in the first place. It is really sad to add that the Indian rock scene is also heading to nothing, absolutely nothing! Rock isn't an Indian concept, it is an American concept and so they can do it well. At the most, British can do it! In true terms, American and British bands are the ones who have truly supported the rock culture and taken it forward.

Where is the Indian music scenario heading to?
Recently, I judged an event called RC Live for Radio City where we were hunting for a Hindi rock band in India. I personally feel this is the way to go about in order to see progress in the Indian music scenario as far as bands are concerned. This is what all the bands need to do. They need to start singing stuff which all the Indian people would understand and relate with and sing along because this is true terms in the essence of music.

Hasn't the Bollywood music industry today, in a way, plagued the Indian music scene?
Bollywood is everywhere. It is through Bollywood that we define the Indian music scenario. There is no genre like non-film today. If all the music companies come together and promote all kinds of music be it jazz, rock, classical; basically any style of music; only then will there be a music scene in India, in true terms. Right now it is just film music, a little of non-film and then, there are college bands and all that comprise the Indian music scene but this doesn't make a music movement.

Does one need strong contacts to make a mainstream professional career in music?
No. If that was the case, we wouldn't have existed at all!

Being influential and a highly-loved band, what are you guys doing on an individual level to combat piracy?
We are really happy with piracy and we proudly endorse it. It's simple...the more people hear our music, the more popular we get, the more people will fall in love with our music. So, basically we are happy. The music labels have a problem with it. In fact, one of our band members has a unit in his house where he makes CDs and gives it to everyone. So he is a pirate.

And it's not just us, everyone is doing that! It is so easy to download music, burn a CD and then distribute it! We are all pirates in that way then. CD writing is a piracy, listening to music online is piracy, downloading music in piracy, listening to your ipods/MP3 player is piracy; even if you watch television or listen to a radio you are a pirate. This is basically because no one is buying a CD every time they play/listen to a song. No one is spending money in the whole game of it. No one wants to spend money with easy options available. And if you go to see, the artist is the only one who actually benefits from the whole gimmick of piracy.

Doesn't the Indian crowd need to be a little more educated about music in order to appreciate good music?
I believe Indian masses are very, very educated in music. If the masses wouldn't have been educated, Euphoria wouldn't have happened ten years ago, I believe in this and I am dead sure about this. There wouldn't have been an Indian Ocean; there wouldn't have been a Rugby, Lucky Ali or a Silk Route for that matter. The Indian audience is ready for this kind of music the problem is that there aren't any good composers to make such music and serve it to the audience. Let's not talk about the intelligence of the Indian masses. I think they are the most intelligent of the lot.

Is Euphoria interested in composing for Bollywood?
We are open to composing for anybody. Just recently, we have done a song for Maruti called Desire which is the name of their car to be launched as well.

We have done this song in Hindi, English, Malayalam, Tamil and Bengali simultaneously. We are basically ready to compose for anyone who wants our style and is ready to pay us for it. Manish Jha approached us because he wanted songs of our style. So was the case with Shootout at Lokhandwala. See music is music, which channel it goes to is not a problem. It should be heard and it should be appreciated.

You think the music labels are doing enough to get the best out of non-film music genre?
No, they are not!

Is it possible for a band to survive on just the money they get after an album release or by doing gigs?
We can talk about ourselves. We survive with the money we earn with albums and gigs. We live in good houses; have fat balances in our banks. So we are rich!

What is the importance of a band name to any band?
It is very important so that the right people know who has to land up at the gig to perform. (Laughs)