This band has known to have extensively toured the country and create some memorable gigs, be it at college festivals or at major music festivals. From being ranked as India’s #1 band in 2015 by Sennheiser to getting their song Aaoge Tum Kabhi featured in the Bollywood movie ‘The Angry Indian Goddesses’, The Local Train are touted as the new face of Hindi Rock music in India. The band who were the support acts for Katy Perry, consists of Raman Negi on vocals, Sahil Sarin on drums, Paras Thakur on guitars and Ramit Mehra on bass.

Verus Ferreira spokewith Sahil to know more about thier music, Bollywood, HIndi rock in India and of course their explosive and edgy music videos. 

What’s the story behind the band’s name?

The Local Train just sounded right for the time and place we were in. There's no real story behind the christening of the band. The music came first. We got together and started making songs and recording demos, not really looking to have an outfit ready, but just make songs to the best of our abilities. Only when we had a demo ready did we decide to upload it online. So we started by creating a myspace ID and in threw random ideas out to name the band. A few rejected ideas later we just added The Local Train thinking maybe we'll change the name later. The song we uploaded was 'Choo Lo' and it caught in the college circuit and so did the band name. We've now grown to like it over the years.

There are a lot of bands that are formed during college days. Was your case the same? 

Not really. The four of us met each other for the music. Raman was already working at TCS at that time and he was looking for musicians to work with. He met Ramit in a studio in Chandigarh. They kept in touch for a few months after that. Ramit knew Sahil and they used to play together with other projects as well, so he was the obvoius choice to be a part of the rhythm section. Paras came a little later in 2011 after dropping out of Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh. The music got us together and has kept us together since.

Tell us a bit about yourselves, about your life before the formation of the band.

All four of us were in very different places in our lives before this band got us together. Sahil picked up the drums at a very young age and by the time he was in his early teens he was already playing with a lot of different bands in the circuit. Raman is the eldest in the band had to suffer through an engineering degree and 6 years of work before he decided to take the plunge and focus full time on the band. Ramit was a jack of all trades, playing bass with other projects and dabbling with radio, theatre and whatever else caught his fancy while he was in Chandigarh. Paras joined the band in 2011. He had dropped out of PEC in Chandigarh and was looking forward to attend Musicians Institute, LA before he was enticed to be a part of this project.

‘The Local Train’ is now considered a frontrunner in Hindi rock. How did you manage to get to this position?

We kept things pretty straightforward, Make music to the best of abilities, make good music videos and upload them online. The fans did most of the other work in promoting our music and our live shows. We'll always be grateful to them. Being an independent band we don't have industry support as such and the four of us have been running a tight ship along with our management. It isn't easy as most of the learning is happening on the job and hit and trial is our only option but persistence sure pays.

Do you only do originals or also cover versions of popular songs? 

We got together as a band to make original music from day 1. And that has always been our goal. We've wrapped up two albums in the last few years, 'Aalas Ka Pedh' was our debut album in 2015 and 'Vaaqif' comes out now in 2017. Throughout this process we're trying to figure out our sound and we've experimented with a lot of different creative ideas in our song writing. As a band we want to create our own identity and sound and that what we are known for. Covering songs and artists we like is something we enjoy as well and if a song we like fits our fancy then we try and recreate it in our own way. 

When you compose a song where do you get your ideas from and how does a song evolve?

There's no rules when it comes to creativity. The first few ideas in 'Aalas Ka Pedh' began with Raman penning down scratch ideas. But some songs begin with a guitar riff Paras things up off. Songs change entire direction when a groove idea comes in and changes the pace. Till now we've been a guitar driven band with ideas and melodies formulated on acoustic guitars are taken to the jam room and worked upon. Raman pens down a lot of the lyrics while Paras handles a lot of the arranging work. Things go back and forth between the four of us till we're happy with what we have, or unhappy with what we have and the process begins again. Then we lay down the final tracks and we work with our mixing engineer to build further on our vision sonically. But once again creativity can't have rules. 

Your songs are very lyrical; do you think your music conveys a message along with it?  

All music is ideas that we want to convey through sounds and lyrics. Most of our lyrics are about what we experience in our lives. They are our observations on love, life and everything else that could inspire a song out of us, but music is interpretation and what we sing and write about will resonate differently with each listener and we're glad if someone connects with our music in any way.

You worked on music for ‘Angry Indian Goddesses’ which got you into Bollywood. How did this happen? 

'Angry Indian Goddesses' happened because of a friend of the producer who happened to hear us perform live at IIT Roorkee's annual festival Thomso. He introduced our music to Gaurav Dhingra from Jungle Book Entertainment. We had already released the song 'Aaoge Tum Kabhi' in 2014 and Jungle Book was really keen on having the song as a part of the official soundtrack for AIG ‘Angry Indian Goddesses’. Discussions and negotiations happened over the phone and we flew down to Mumbai for a meeting. They screened the movie for us and we all felt that the song was a good fit for the movie. We were glad to be a part of the release. Since then we've worked further with Jungle Book Entertainment for our music videos as well.

Would you consider doing more mainstream Bollywood soundtracks now that you have a foothold?

Again, we like being an independent band. We'll continue making new songs and we'd be glad if any future Bollywood project would like our songs to be a part of their release. We aren't looking for active work here as just yet. We've got a long way to go before that. A lot more albums and a lot more live shows.  

Can you tell us something on your 2015 debut album 'Aalas ka Pedh’?

Aalas ka Pedh was released in 2015 after much trials and tribulations! Being an independent band we were still figuring out the ins and outs of composing, recording, mixing and launching an album all by ourselves. Being our debut album we wanted to the do best we could. The first album had 9 songs and we ended up releasing 6 music videos as well. This album taught us a lot along the process, we didn't know how to achieve the final sound we wanted but we still had an idea of what we wanted it to sound like. So a lot of hit and trial in studios and a lot of re-recording sessions took place before we could take out the album according to our satisfaction. The album was mixed by Chris Hesse of The Lighthouse Recording studios in California. Incidentally Chris is also the drummer for the band 'The Hoobastank'. 

In 2015, in "Top 50 Rock Bands of India" held by "Sennheiser India", the band was named as India's No. 1 rock band. Can you tell us something about the event and your way to the top? 

Winning Sennheiser's Top 50 came as a very welcome surprise. We were working on the video shoot for Bandey during those days and we still remember coming back early morning from the shoot, looking at the congratulatory email and then falling off to sleep happily right after. We're grateful to the judges Shankar, Ehsaan. Loy and Salim Sulaiman who thought our music deserved to win the first edition of Top 50. Sennheiser has been very supportive as well and it's been an absolute pleasure to be associated with them over the years.

Your YouTube channel is one of the fastest growing channels’ with a couple of thousand subscribers and nearly 7 million views collectively. How did you manage to gain such a fan following?

Our music has been fairly popular on YouTube and as of now we have close to 80 thousand subscribers and over 9 million plays. YouTube is a great platform to discover music and even with the advent of streaming apps everywhere, YouTube is the still the first choice of many to search and play songs on. We're glad to have connected with such a strong fanbase of ours on online on YouTube and we'd like to give them the entire credit for helping us hit such flattering numbers. We've also really worked hard towards releasing quality music videos and it hasn't been easy.  We've always liked being actively involved in the music videos we produce and for a lot of them we've been involved in the ins and outs of every bit of the video. They help us get our music out better and we're glad people have connected to our music as well as our videos.

You embarked on a nationwide tour to promote your second album, ‘Vaaqif’(January 2018). Can you tell us something about the tour and the album? 

We're really happy with the follow up album. We took it on as a challenge to finish this album this year and it's been a crash course and a revelation of our own strengths and shortcomings. We've come a long way and you'll hear that shift in 'Vaaqif.' The songs are an amalgamation of ideas that we wanted to talk about or that inspired us to write.So while there's a song that talks about hope and overcoming challenging phases in your life, there's others that question authority and about self actualisation. We've explored new sounds as well, so expect some heavy riffs and powerful vocals and we've also try to fit songs in acoustic spaces.We've just tried to write honest music the best we could. The 'Vaaqif Tour was a first for us. Our management did a great job in pulling off what we were sure was gonna be a tough few months. We covered over 20 cities and we weren't expecting fans to show us the love and support they have across all the cities. With 'Vaaqif' we intend to release more music videos as well. We took 'Khudi' as the first video single release from the album and it went on to win the 'Platinum Film of the Year' at The India Film Project 2017 beating over 800 other submissions.

Do you have fans internationally as well, or do you think language becomes a barrier?

While we don't think language is a barrier only for promoters and marketers. We as a band connect with so many musicians even if we don't understand their music. Whether it's Sigur Ros from Iceland or our very own Avial from Kerala, good music connects with you. We've got smatterings of fans everywhere and have been pleasantly surprised to find random interview requests on radios and platforms in international spaces. Of course the numbers aren't worth mentioning yet but that's not our goal. We'll keep focussing on making new music that we want to make and it's only the music that will take us to bigger avenues 

Almost 10 years into the music scene, do you have any memorable moments to share?

It's been nothing short of a roller coaster ride. There's been so many ups and downs that we've gone through over the years but it still doesn't feel like it's been that long. We've been taking everyday as it comes and it still feels like we'd just dropped out of college a few months ago. But the most memorable shows have definitely been the ones that have given us the most trouble. We've played shows with one or the other member sick with Jaundice, Typhoid, Broken Ankles, TB, Viral fevers, bleeding fingers, noses and what not. Ramit has fallen off the stage and hit his head on a rock and knocked himself flat out as well. There even was a time when Raman and our manager Chow crashed their scooter on an island near Bali. They both came back in bandages and with a broken wrist.  Usually with our worries we had our management to take care of us on our shows. But this time even the management needed surgery. But at the end of the day like they say the show must always go on and so must the management.

Last question, what is the story behind the name The Local Train?

Yes, the band name was thought of after we had created and named our first song “Choo lo”.