MUMBAI: MTV India's getting back to music in a big way. Its latest 'reality hunt' Kurkure Desi Beats Rock On is currently in the auditions stage.

The gratification for winners is a music video, an album under the T-Series label, a lot of promotions and airtime on MTV, and the oppurtunity to perform in New York or New Jersey and compete with bands from 15 countries on the international platform called Doritos Kurkure desi Beats 'Be heard'. Here, the winning band has a chance to win a 20,000 USD.

Rock On is the 'making' of a band, and that is what makes it different feels MTV India & Senior Vice President Creative & Content General Manager Ashish Patil, " I don't think it has been tried before. We have heard single talent hunts, we have seen dance shows, but I don't think we have ever seen the 'making' of a band - here people will see musicians playing different instruments come together besides just the singers."

The talent hunt will create a band of 10 members which will include both musicians and singers, who will be later mentored by music personalities like Kailash Kher, Ram Sampath and VJ Nikhil Chinnappa. The way judges will play a role is also very different, says Patil. "These people are not playing bad asses, saying you suck or you are rotten, they are actually going to mentor once the band is in place - that's their role in this entire talent hunt process."

Having said that, it's always been observed that bands or single talents who are products of reality show are hardly able to carve a niche for themselves in their respective fields once the show is over. Can a reality show really make an iconic band? Patil says, "At one level I think you are putting too much pressure by saying if we can make a iconic band out of a talent hunt, I think, let's just get to the part where we make a great band. What we are doing here is not necessarily find the next Aerosmith, but create a band who can potentially 'become' the next Aerosmith, over the next 10 years," he adds 

The musicians auditioning here donot have the condition to play only their original music either, "We are creating new sounds, but we may not necessarily create original sound. You may have heard the same song before, but represented as never heard before. We are also trying to make this very mainstream. For us Rock is the new Gharana," he adds. There have been intresting results as far as the experimentations that musicians have been doing, says Patil," I have heard people play a gujrathi version of sweet child o mine, and let me tell you it sounds crazy."  

The auditions, now on its last legs, has seen some intresting mix of talent coming from various pockets around the country. Each city had its own flavour, says Patil. "The talent in Kolkata was incredible, there were no airs, no frills, Bangalore was very eclectic - we had a few beat boxers, and a 54 year old saxophone player - we had some intresting jams happening in Banglore as well. Mumbai gives you a lot of people with 'rockstar' vibes, which is also great because we are looking for a complete package we are not looking for a playback singer."

Channel [V] too had the band hunt reality show 'Launchpad' recently, on being asked if their new offering was a way to compete, Patil says, "The fundamental difference in this show would be that it will be fun to watch. We are not even competeing with them, frankly… this is the making of a band .. and not a band competition … we are creating a whole inew sound over here," he accentuates 

Sponsors for the show are Kurkure Desi Beats, Wrangler, Rolling Stone, The Times of India, PVR , IBN 7, SPINZ MEN and Dixcy Scott.