OK..so this is how I am breaking the news. I took an interview with Demonstealer …yes..the same music extraordinaire whose Demonic Resurrection and solo albums have inflicted sonic assaults on the Indian Rock scene. This was an email interview…so no cross asking..no interfering…no arguing..honest replies from a man with honest music (especially the part about Radiohead 🙂 ).. I thought of using his real name..but Demonstealer sounds cooler..
Enjoy..
First of all, thanks for agreeing to this interview. And I am sure there are many among here who would like to know more about the band than what they see live. So first thing first. How did it all started?
Demonstealer: My pleasure. Well there is a long winding tale but I’ll keep to the point. Demonic Resurrection was my brainchild and I already had the name and I wanted to play the music that I was writing live (which was in around 1999/2000), so after much searching and even thoughts of going on stage with my PC as my band I met an old school friend of mine Prashant (Now Exhumation/Scribe) who joined me and along with him came Aditya & Yash (Both from Exhumation as well) and we sort of pieced together the 1st semblance of a line. A friend of mine Farhad filled the keyboardist slot and we played our 1st gig sans a bass player in April 2000. Even though we released our 1st effort after just 9months the 1st year of the band was filled with lineup changes till we finally settled on Nikita(Keys/Backing Vocals), Aditya (Bass), Yash (Drums) and myself (Vocals/Guitar). This lineup recorded the official release of the album Demonstealer in 2001. However the band fell apart sometime around 2002. So I found new members and resurrected the band in 2003. The lineup was Mephisto(Keys), Husain(Bass), Jp(Drums) and myself(Vocals/Guitars). This lineup recorded and released ‘A Darkness Descends’ after which Pradeep joined us as a lead guitarist. Once again trouble with the lineup continued when Jp left the band in 2006 and we started gigging with sessions drummers. We released an EP with me playing the drums in 2007 after which Viru joined DR as a drummer and Pradeep left the band only to be replaced by Daniel and this is the lineup that is recording the new album. So thats the whole story.
Every band has a different way of composing. Some write the lyrics first and give proper soundtrack to it. Some try to jam first. And then when they feel its sounding good, they try to capture the feelings in words. How does Demonic Resurrection come up with the songs?
Demonstealer: Demonic Resurrection has never had a standard formula for writing songs but mostly I come up with riffs and ideas and then we jam on them. Sometimes Mephisto will write a song and bring it to the jam room and we will jam on it and re-structure it and everyone will add their parts to it.. But mostly we do work on the music 1st and then I write lyrics over that, however there are cases where I’ve worked the other way around.
There is this feeling that these are heady times for Indian Rock. New bands are coming up, and the number of gigs have increased too. Whats your view on the current rock scene in the country?
Demonstealer: Well the scene overall is changing and growing, its hugely different and better than it was about 10 years ago when I got into it. But its only a matter of time that every genre has its own niche scene. Right now Metal is still piggy back riding on the local rock scene and with clubs like Blue Frog coming up they promote only a certain genre of independent music which segregates the scene but thats not always a bad thing. There are a lot more gigs happening which is great for bands so yeah the scene is growing and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
The greatest thing about the best bands is that they impress people from different genres. I mean bands like Radiohead, Prodigy or even White stripes get the same respect from alternative and metal fans. I personally is an Alternative guy. And your songs still impresses me. A lot. So how do you manage to do it? Is there a conscious effort to cross over?
Demonstealer: Actually to be very honest none of the above bands you mentioned impress me at all 😛 but yeah I do get what you mean, there is no conscious effort to make the music accessible or anything. I just writing the music I want to write and I guess its great to know that people like it even if they are not metal fans.
Almost everyone knows the ordeals which an Indian Band has to face compare to other mainstream artists. But since you are a veteran, you must have an inside view on this troubles. Whats your take?
Demonstealer: Well one has to deal with all the troubles otherwise there is no chance of success. I think this applies to all fields of life and as they say ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’. For Indian bands there are loads of problems right from venues to finances to parental pressure to marketing the music etc but a lot of improvements have happened over the years and even when these problems are gone there will be a fresh set of them to overcome. So I guess its all about sticking to your guns and working hard.
How do you think Indian Bands can finally break into the mainstream? Is there a way at all?
Demonstealer: There are plenty of Indian bands into the mainstream. All depends on what you mean by mainstream. Awareness and good marketing backed by solid music is what will eventually work.
About your solo project. I absolutely loved “And chaos will reign”. So why you decided to compose these songs alone rather than doing them with Demonic Resurrection?
Demonstealer: Doing a solo project is something I’ve always wanted to do and since I realized I had no solo album just solo songs I said lets do an album and so I went ahead and did it. Its also good beacuse its my own space and I get to do exactly what I want so it was a fun thing that I did. Most of the songs are good but I dont know how well they’d fit into the DR catalogue. I have plenty more music in me for DR anyway. 🙂
I read in Rave magazine, that Demonstealer Records is basically a heaven for metal bands. But they are also open to bands from other genre. Is it true?
Demonstealer: Honestly people have a distorted image of the label. To begin with its just me running the whole thing. Having said that I guess we are the only label for extreme metal so bands would want to be on it and while I like other genre’s of music I wont sign any on DSR except my own because honestly there are enough labels for other genres but there is nothing for metal bands.
Finally..whats in the offing from Demonic Resurrection and Demonstealer?
Demonstealer: Demonic Resurrection is busy recording album #3 titled Returning To Darkness which should be out by May or June. I was hoping to do another Demonstealer album in June as well and release it on the 19th which is the same date I released last years album which happens to be my birthday so hopefully I can do that as well.
Thanks again for this interview. I hope your fans will have better idea now of Demonstealer. And best of luck for the upcoming Opeth concert.
Demonstealer: Thanks for the interview!
experiments and results 
FUCK YOU PUNE
Tags: black lips, Live, personal comment
What the fuck were they thinking? Any foreign band play in the country and expect a Megadeth or Iron Maiden…fucking grow up….
The Black Lips with enough Indie credentials played in Pune..at the Campus Rock Idols..and they were pelted with plastic bottles…How immature can that be?
And we are claiming that we are opening up to new sounds…no we dont…no we fucking dont…
We are open to new bands playing the old fucked up, unoriginal sound…not to new bands playing new sounds…
Fuck You Pune!!!!…keep listening to whatever you want..keep wearing fucking tee shirts of painted skulls with a good amount of blood or a venomous snake….and may be we wil again get complete assholes like Wyclef Jean and Jay Sean performing at the Hard Rock Cafe of the city..cos if its some other band…your fucked up ears wont understand that…
Wannabes and show offs galore…