The iconic comeback of India’s biggest music festival Independence Rock held re-christened as Mahindra Independence Rock, a.k.a. Mahindra I-Rock had announced the country-wide digital band hunt in the month of September and received responses from over 100 bands across the length and breath of the country for its presentation of emerging artists through ‘Tomorrow’s Headliners’.

The top 3 amongst them moved to the final round, from which Bombay Bandook was selected as the Band Hunt Winner. Bombay Bandook, the winning band selected by an esteemed panel of judges each bringing a unique perspective to the contest - Hrishikesh Kannan (National Brand Head for Radio One India), the legendary vocalist for Brahma, Devraj Sanyal (now MD and CEO of Universal Music Group, India & South Asia) and Vinay Venkatesh, the former vocalist for Bhayanak Maut, a band discovered on the I-Rock stage. Bombay Bandook got a chance to perform with rock icons like Pentagram, Zero, Bloodywood, Thaikkudam Bridge on the Mahindra I-Rock stage at Mumbai’s Bayview Lawns (Princess Dock, Mazgaon) on the 5^th and 6^th of November 2022.

The high-octane opening act by Bombay Bandook, broke ground for the powerhouse performances that followed both days.

Verus Ferreira met up with Sannidh Shah, Founder of Bombay Bandook to find out the path to their winning streak and what the future holds for them.

How does it feel to be winners?

It feels extremely good. We were honestly very pleasantly surprised when the final three were announced with us in the mix. We never doubt the audience loving our set but getting acknowledged by people who have seen, and have been part of the scene for decades before us is pretty special.

Who were the other bands competing and who do you think was your biggest opponent?

For sure it would be Sceptr3 and White Vinyl. With the lads at Sceptr3, seeing them keep thrash and heavy metal alive in a landscape where metal is back in the underground is really special. Whereas the boys at White Vinyl have a 2000s meets modern rock sound, which again you don’t hear so often these days, especially in India. It’s really cool to be finalists besides these two stellar acts.

How did you ensure that Bombay Bandook would win the title?

Well for starters we literally followed every rule and instruction laid out by the organizer. Technicality aside, we’ve always maintained that we have absolute faith in our music, like we really enjoy what we make and we believe that the music we make is good. Therefore, the rest of it was just a case of the judges listening to us. 

Do you think there were other bands that also had a chance to win?

From what we understand, everyone had a fair chance to enter and win the contest. We say this, while all participating bands and in general other acts in the scene are pretty cool in their own right, there is no one that sounds like us (here it might be argued that from one song to another very often we don’t sound like ourselves), which I believe sets us apart from our competition. 

What memories do you have of I Rock during your childhood days?

I-Rock was one of those festivals that we’ve been hearing about since we were in school. All our favourite indie scene regulars have been a part of it, so to be able to do the same is really cool. And winning the contest made that possible, giving us the opportunity to grow our audience even more. So, we couldn’t have been more excited to be the opening act on the evening of its return.

Tell us the members in the band and the role each plays? What is your songwriting process?

Thank you so much. In all there are six of us. I am in charge of vocals, there’s Brijesh Joshi and Avneesh Gadgil on guitars, Parth Malhotra on drums, Amarjeet Prabhudesai on keys and Jagravi Rao on bass. While arrangement is a very combined effort, I com up with the main compositional melody, Brijesh writes the lyrics, production is normally handled by Jagravi or Avneesh. We've had Anindo Bose (Shadow & Light, Advaita) on mixing/mastering duties since 2018 as well.

The band was formed in 2014. How did each band member join in and what’s the story behind the name? 

Though the band was formed while we were in college competing for college festivals (Malhar, Mood Indigo, etc). Amarjeet joined us in 2017 and Avneesh in 2018, Parth is the most recent member having just joined us this year. While the name Bombay Bandook doesn’t really have a special meaning, it was literally a last minute ideation for a competition we were participating in. So for the sake of this interview and at the risk of sounding a tad bit campy, let’s just say that Bombay Bandook is a music pistol and six of us are bullets of the said pistol. Doesn't that sound cool now?

Do you guys have other professional jobs besides taking up music as a career?

Some of us are part of that 9 to 5 grind while some of us freelance, though all of it is part of the music industry itself. 

Can you tell us about the sound of the band? Who are your musical influences?

Am Indian Fusion band that's not planning to do something out of the box, but create a new one. As we mentioned earlier the sound of the band is unique, to an extent that it even sets us apart from the Indian Classical and Hindi ecosystem itself. We pride ourselves in the fact that each song of ours is different; while one song touches upon the heavy guitar walls of metal, there’s another that harkens upon the bass lines and grooves of dance music and our latest release, Saawan takes inspiration from the UK underground genres of garage and drum ‘n bass while colouring everything in Hindustani Classical. As far as influences are concerned we have to mention our ‘seniors’ in the fusion scene in India, acts like Advaita, Agam, Avial, Indian Ocean, set the stage for us. 

Has there been any lineup changes down the years?

There have been a few. Life happens to everyone, it’s one of the growing pains of a young band, and even though we are very happy with the current lineup of the group, we still dearly love everyone who has played with us before. 

What do your songs usually speak of?

That’s a difficult question to answer. We simply write and go with the song where it takes us. While Brijesh writes the lyrics to my melodies with feelings of that moment, we’ve found that the audience more often than not finds their own parallels and meanings in the music, and honestly that’s the way we like it best. Art, at the end of the day, is subjective, and if it invokes a certain feeling in you when you ‘consume’ it, that’s your truth.  

You have some fab music videos, how do these ideas stem to make such classic videos?

Why, thank you again. Videos are a combined effort between us and like we like to call them, the seventh and eighth members of the band our friends Ritvik Tyagi and Rhea Talati. It’s always a case of making them listen to the song, hearing what they have to say, and leaving it to them to come up with compelling visuals. 

What are your plans for 2023?

We are working on a bunch of new music, so hopefully you’ll see new releases from us fairly regularly. Outside of that we want to play in more cities and towns, we are working that as well, so when we do, come hear us play, it’ll be fun. 

Interviewed by Verus Ferreira