Just before his band No Mercy’s performance at the recent The Hindu May International Music Fest , we asked the band’s frontman Marty Cintron what was in store for us. “A couple of cartwheels and back flips,” he said with a straight face, before bursting into laughter. However, at the concert, there were no cartwheels — just the band’s hits such as ‘Where Do You Go’, ‘Please Don’t Go’ and ‘Hello How Are You’.
The band had played in Mumbai about a decade ago, and Marty has fond memories of the concert. “We were here for a week and the atmosphere was great. The band was still quite new, but the people liked our style. It’s great to be playing here again after all these years.”
A long innings
No Mercy began its journey way back in 1995, and has released three albums, apart from singles such as ‘Shed My Skin’, which was launched in 2011. “We’re still trying to figure out how we’ve stayed together so long,” laughed Marty. “But I guess it’s all about the music and the combination of elements we use — electric guitar, Spanish guitar.”
As to how the band has evolved over the last 18 years, Marty said the basics were always the same. “We kept our elements the same, but added as the new trends in electronic music came about. But you know, of late, it’s the DJs who are the big stars in the genre. They don’t have as much overhead costs to travel as we do or that much equipment and manpower. A lot of bands from my era are not even heard of and play only on local radio.”
Marty maintained that No Mercy’s success was clearly the response to its music. “We use a lot of sounds with organic instruments and people like this fusion. I’m working with some Columbian and Brazilian ethnic instruments back in Miami, and would love to work on some fusion music with Indian instruments as well. I think some people are doing this, but not en masse. When you hear different people play these instruments, there is more life and it’s not just electronic music.”
