Warren Mendonsa – The Interview – Part I

By Deepak Gopalakrishnan and Varad Wategaonkar, who remain fans of each others’ surnames

We’ve been devotees of the guitaring of Warren Mendonsa since we heard our first Zero tracks, and put him on the same levels as David Gilmour and Jimmy Page. For us, Cry rubbed shoulders with Eruption, and Anuva’s Sky with Always With Me.

Imagine how thrilled we were then, when we got the chance to interview the legend, who now has his own project in New Zealand called Blackstratblues (more background here).

The interview was more of a freewheeling conversation, and we found it hard to cut down on the text, because it was all so entertaining. So here we’re providing the text of some selected bits, as well as the audio download of the interview (46 minutes, 10.5 MB in 32 kbps MP3 format). As a bonus incentive to download, we’ve not transcribed a lot of the juicy stuff into text ;)

Enough blabber. Here’s the interview. Yenjai!

1) Everybody knows the post-Zero Warren. What happened before that? Where did it all start?

Grew up in Dadar (pumps fist), before I moved to NZ. Dad (Darryl Mendonsa) was a bass player in a band called Savage Encounter, so I always had guitars and amps lying around the house. Around 5, I got my first guitar. I think around 15 was when I started playing seriously. Johan (Pais, bass, Tough on Tobacco, Helga’s Fun Castle)’s been a childhood friend. I used to go to his house, and he had this little drum machine, with which we used to jam. Then around 17 or something, Coutto moved back to Bombay and we had a band called Vicious Circle which played, like, one gig at Razz before Johan moved to the States. His neighbours were Bobby (Girish) and Sonu (Rajeev), I played with them as well – and we formed a band called Zero!

2) Why the name Zero, though?

We were taking part in Mood-I, we didn’t have a name, and Siddharth was depressed that day, and he was like, “I’m nothing but a Zero! This band is nothing but a zero!” So everyone said, “Hey, you guys are Zero” and the name stuck! That was Mood-I ‘98, our first gig, and we were horrible! Played one song, and people said, “Cool, don’t bother playing more!” and we went, “But hey! We have more songs!”

The next gig was at some college next to RAIT, a fest called Srujan or something, someone said one of the bands dropped out, and if we got there quickly, we’d get a chance to play – piled up everything into Rajeev’s little Zen. We were a 5-piece band then, with another guitarist called Karl… He didn’t show up for practice, so we went for the elims without him and realised we were much tighter, there was only one guitarist, there’s less shit to go wrong! So it’s been 4-piece thing since!

3) So… Why New Zealand?

My folks moved to New Zealand, and I didn’t wanna go because I was having too much fun here. But the deal was that I had to move there before 25 so I could qualify as a dependant child on my mom’s residency. So I had to stay there for 2 years to get permanent residency, got my thing, and before you knew it, 5 years passed, and I found a groove over there. But first I hated it, had no one to play with, was just making stuff in the garage… But then yeah, you tend to find your space.

4) So a question a lot of people are asking – are you planning to move back to India anytime?

No… What I wanna do is spend some time here, some time there, get the best of both worlds. I guess anytime I come back here, there’ll be something for me to do.

5) What exactly do you do in NZ?

There’s a recording studio. The guy who owns the place says, come record whatever you want, I’m kind of like the in-house engineer. That and freelance gigs – the odd covers. This time when I go back, I’m going to get the Blackstratblues thing started, going to play a few gigs.

6) What’s changed between Nights in Shining Karma and The New Album?

Kaan hai, sun lo! It’s a huge change - largely subconscious. In NISK the guitar was the voice - the main instrument that led every song. In TNA I’ve pulled it back a little. It’s not a guitar solo album, more like a soundscape album. The guitar was the most prominent instrument of course and always will be since it is my form of expression. But I’ve written lyrics on this album, we had electric sitar, used parlour-sized guitars for a high mandolin-like sound.

NISK was one guitar, one amp. Zorran programmed the drums, and then I played over that and it was recorded in three weeks. In TNA, I had time to write and mull over ideas, select the best… It was more natural. Like, on Ode To a Sunny Day, I had a clicktrack and an acoustic guitar that went first. Drums followed what I’d strummed, followed the dynamic which had already been set – all the other layers also fell in place the way I wanted them to.

7) Can you tell us a little bit about the non-rock work you’ve done?

I’ve recorded two Dance Masti albums – working with Ehsaan and Loy is great fun. The other stuff I played on, the Bollywood work, I haven’t a clue – firstly, I don’t care and second, when I used to play, there were no vocals and they probably moved stuff a lot after I played.

8) Do you follow the current Indie scene in India?

Not really – just caught the a gig a few days back, that’s all really. I’ve never seen Superfuzz and all these bands that came along. Heard Motherjane at I-rock, they sounded very different, obviously evolved a lot over time!

9) Things have gotten better though, audiences are asking for originals…

Bands are PLAYING originals. I’ve always said, don’t play originals apologetically. Like, “Hey guys, we’ve played you so many covers, here’s an original”. Play originals because it’s something you like, and something you wanna get across!

10) How did you come up on the Strat as YOUR guitar? Did you play a whole lot of guitars before settling on it?

I just liked the way it looked! *huge grin*. The all-black Strat I saw on that U2 video, Where The Streets have No Name – it just looked so good! My guitar was gold originally – something that your grandpa would play (Edit joke: Old man sitting on the back porch?). First time I went to Auckland, I got it painted black and it looked beautiful! And everyone who picks it up says it’s so easy to play! On the Strat I can go from the big fat Hendrix-y tone, to a more Clapton, Gary Moore (to whom Blues For Gary is dedicated, by the way) like sound.

Stay Tune for Part II..

Deepak Gopalakrishnan and Varad Wategaonkar are Zero/Warren freaks based in Bombay. One is an Old Man Sitting On a Corporate Porch, the other is Not SSJ College’s Type Of Engineering Student. Reach them at www.twitter.com/chuck_gopal and http://twitter.com/iDADDYDOODLE. Photos taken by the ultra-talented Prateek Dubey.