Monadarling.com in conversation with the cult band - Indian Ocean

Don't underestimate the furor Indian Ocean creates. They are simply unadulterated, flowing with energy and innovative. If you have not heard their soulful songs in college, you've really missed some classic anthems, which refuse to age. For over 16 years they have created magic with their 30 odd songs and five albums, singing in many different Indian languages, sometimes in dialects not easily understandable yet contemporary with strong influence of Indian classical, accessible to anyone, anywhere.

Our Editor, Neha Mahajan, had the privilege of meeting the acoustic band at Penn Museum, Pennsylvania on October 3, 2009. Read on to know that what Rahul, Susmit, Amit and Asheem, who do not follow any music industry norms and have been creating powerful and compelling jazzy vibe and rock intensity sound, had to say while they set themselves up for a splendid performance that followed.

Here are a few excertps:

We as fans, perceive your music in a certain way, what is music for you?

It is a very difficult and philosophical question to answer. For me in Hindi it is Sam- Geet, that everybody gets together and sings. People have their own interpretations. But you hardly see people getting together to sing these days, though many prefer doing it all by themselves, solo. We are trying to do it collectively. You might have seen, the chemistry of our band is very different. The composition is different. There is no leader in the band. The way we compose music is out of workshop. We watch TV, we play cricket, we do everything and we make music. It's not like come one guys lets meet tomorrow, we'll make music, it's not like that. It's very spontaneous.

Do you get time at all apart from music, to do other things?

Yes, of course, otherwise it gets so boring. You can't stick to a particular subject all your life. We do just about anything; we play chess, play football, we are always ready to do just about anything. All of us have varied interests, we like listening to Bollywood music, Indian classical and Led Zeppelin.

How do you decide on a particular song?

There are two methods. Nowadays we are doing music for films, for that people come, they tell us the story, its a different ball game all together. Earlier there were no films. Music is actually the most abstract form of art. There should not be any boundaries, however we have tied it up a bit for our comfort, that's another thing, we are all free to experiment. Like some melody comes in somebody's mind and then we sit together, we work on that, we feed each other. It doesn't necessarily be an idea, its simply when you are jamming together, and you just take off from there, it takes the form of music.

We don't make any music particularly for a situation, it's after making a particular song that we feel it fits a certain situation. Many songs have spiritual aspects, it just happens, there is no conscious effort.

There are many bands, and many don't stick along for so long. How do you think your band has managed sticking together for so long?

It's not just about bands falling apart, marriages fall apart after three years (laughs..) Band to bahut door ki baat hai. Marriages are bound by vows, they go around the fire seven times to ensure, the marriage would work.

So what is it that binds you all together?

It is passion for music definitely. We respect each other as musicians. We might probably hate each other as a person, but when we are doing music, we actually respect each other because we know that this guy has the capability of doing something that will interest. And also what we are doing in the music scene. People are reacting to our kind of music. We are getting famous, we are getting money, we are going places, all these things are also important, but its basically passion for music that holds us all together. May be marriage loses that passion. There is absolutely no scope of getting personal differences in way.

Why is your music so unique? Is there any effort in making it this way?

Oh, that's another difficult question. (Hmmm..) May be its in our personality. All four of us come from absolutely different socio-economic background. Everybody has varied interests, so the way we think and perceive things are very different. None of us have a same track thinking process, yet we have a common platform and that is music, so this is why our music gets different hues and colors. Secondly, we are all individual personalities in this band. We didn't ever want to be unique in its true sense, but we really think we all inherit this quality. Otherwise, we would have been in Mumbai by now. We never thought that way. Music is everywhere and everybody is unique. We might all be saying the same things, but the way we say it is different. There was never any effort to be this way, we are naturally inclined towards it. We are a classical tale of four people making good music together and not solo. Our music is from heart and soul and is not technical, may be that's the root. We make music for the four of us. What we like listening to is the music we like to make.

Indian Ocean has also worked with a lot of NGOs and have gone beyond music. Tell us more about it.

We are musicians, no doubt, but that does not mean we eat, breath and live music only. We are normal human beings and we want to be as normal as it can be. We react to social issues the same way you would too, not as a political body. We react as individuals and as a result what happens is we do shows. We've been doing shows for CRY, AID, Two Cents Of Hope, Asha For Education and a lot of other organizations. We feel that there are people doing fantastic and challenging thing. They are feeling for the society, they are feeling for their country. We always keep asking for more, but there are very few who give out of their pockets.