Another Vertigo Rush - The Interview

6.Why again are vocals not given too much importance? What has the response been like when it came to your music?

Akshat: The band always had a lot of music, plain large sounding layered, ambience laden music pouring out. Plus we like to take the listener with us through our songs which rise and fall, like I said before, analogous to life in general. We feel it isn’t essential to put a word to every emotion and instead let the music define that space for you. It’s also better that way because that still leaves it more open ended as a listener. You can make your own inference and attach an emotion that is relative to you when listening to a plain piece of music. Hence the emphasis is more on music. That’s always been the intention.

Akhil: Our egos are too big to deal with a proper vocalist. Vocals are a part of the music and not at the forefront in AVR primarily because that’s what comes naturally to us. We aren’t trying to make songs in the traditional sense of the word, we aim at creating an experience. Plus Viraj is a guitar player first and then a singer so we’ve always tried to push ourselves instrumentally.
Going instrumental has been a temporary experiment due to the enforced absence of Viraj. It’s a new experience trying to hold an audience and write instrumental music but we have no idea what’s in store once the full line-up is ready in a couple of months.

7. Your favourite Indian Metal act would be….?

Akshat: Scribe

8. Keshav —  — People are absolutely NUTS about your work. Briefly tell me about why you do what you do, what’s your biggest challenge as a guitarist, what’s your take on improvising on stage as opposed to rehearsed parts and your experience with AVR so far.

Keshav: First off, that’s really cool for you to say, thanks a lot! Well, I’m a huge fan of ambient and layered music, and I absolutely love any metal that’s groovy, so my songs are a blending of both those elements. I don’t bother too much with technicalities, as much as it may sound otherwise. As long as a song has a cool melody and is groovy, it’s all good.

My biggest challenge is to keep my music as interesting as possible, to be able to hold the listener’s attention throughout, and to have *my* own sonic imprint on it. Most importantly, of course, it should make you want to snap your neck off.

As for the whole improvisation vs rehearsed parts debate, my knowledge of scales and all that jazz is very limited, so I usually make tons of mistakes when improvising, especially on stage. So yeah, rehearsed parts for me, but with the band I’m getting better at improvising for sure.

AVR for me has been a great experience, in that I’ve become a lot more confident about my playing, and the whole process of bouncing ideas off other people and writing songs together has been amazing. The band has a sound that is interesting and there are no fixed limits as to what we should or shouldn’t do musically - it’s just great.

9. Tell me about your Independence-Rock experience. What’s your take on the competition? Has the quality of bands playing deteriorated over the last few years?

Akhil: The Delhi leg was one of the most fun shows we’ve played. Bombay, not so much. The whole point of playing such competitions is the exposure. There’s a huge audience and it’s a big event which is way more important than winning these things, since we never win any competitions.

As for new bands, there’s nothing very exciting coming out these days which is quite sad. The only interesting band I’ve seen of late is Circus, who I love, and they’ve also been around for a while now.

10. Nikhil —  — From playing with Indigo Children to playing with AVR, what’s the transition like? Which band gives you more musical freedom as an artist? If you had to pick, which band would you pick?

Nikhil: As a musician, both bands offer me the freedom I need. In terms of transition there is none because musically both bands give me equal creative freedom. If I had to pick a band I’d pick The Mars Volta.

11. Which one word best defines the band (personality and music)?

Keshav: Psychodelic. That’s psychOdelic. Make sure you print it that way!

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