Hold on,” says Taru Dalmia, changing the song on his record player. The needle hits the vinyl, making that anxious blub sound. “Can we speak a little later?” he asks, both of us well aware that later is always a euphemism for never. We’re at Bandstand, a pub in Aurobindo Market, neighbour to the Hauz Khas Village in New Delhi. It’s a special listening session of the new Ska Vengers album, XX , which released on July 1.
Dalmia, who shares vocal duties with Samara Chopra in the band, is understandably occupied: the evening features a documentary screening, a play-through of the album, as well as DJ sets by him (as Delhi Sultanate) and Stefan Kaye, who plays the keyboards in the band. Oh, and drinks on the house.
In support of the album, they’re scheduled to play a handful of gigs in the country (including one at AntiSocial, Mumbai on July 14), before heading out to tour the U.K. The band, for what it’s worth, seems to be just on the cusp of something big. “I have to be back when the song gets over,” says Dalmia, “so we can talk for the next seven minutes.”
XX is the second full-length by the Ska Vengers, an album written in scattered bits over the past three years. The nine songs on it, while undeniably suffused in the traditions of reggae and ska, also display frequent departures from the self-contained confines of the genre. From time to time, bursts of full-blown rock ’n’ roll psychedelia, jazz, even punk, add a cadenced sense of movement to the flow of the record. Tony Guinard, who’s getting a quiet drink in the outside section at Bandstand, tells me how it’s not really a ska record as such. Along with Kaye and the drummer, Nikhil Vasudevan, Guinard is also a part of the experimental group the Jass B’stards, so he attributes the shift in sound to a natural progression. It’s also partly by design, since the band didn’t want to limit itself to a predetermined sound. As Chaitanya Bhalla, the guitar player and newest entrant to the line-up, says: “It’s expansive.”
Registering protest
The album is also very politically charged, with a clear left-leaning ideology coming through in the words. On ‘Double X’, Dalmia sings: “In twenty-twelve the defence budget raised by one point seven four lakh crore/ That don’t spell peace, that spells war”. ‘011’ questions state-sanctioned surveillance and big business, while ‘Jail Mein’ seemingly attacks the persecution against the intellectual classes: “FTII lockdown/ Hyderabad lockdown/ JNU lockdown/ Knowledge is lock down,” it says. In the past, they’ve released a video for a song called ‘Modi, A Message to You’ (a cover of ‘A Message to You Rudy’ by the Specials), an animated short film featuring some fairly scathing words directed at the Prime Minister.
This sense of protest and rebellion in the music is largely directed by Dalmia, as well as Chopra, who’ve both been vocal about the socio-political concerns that drive them as individuals and artists. “There’s no ‘agenda’,” says Chopra. “Traditionally, reggae is called ‘reality music’. Its stuff you don’t read about, stuff you don’t see on your TV screens. It’s the word on the street.” She acknowledges that they’re privileged in comparison to the origins of the sound and ideology, since reggae came from the ghettos of Jamaica, and she’s clear that there’s no grandstanding or self-righteousness in the words they write. “We’re singing about what’s in front of us. We’re living in what we consider dangerous times in the country: times where creative expression is very seriously under threat. Where writers, artists, intellectuals, scientists, historians are under threat. So then, what is the role of the artists in society if not to enlighten in some way about what’s going on? We’re not entertainers only.”
As ‘El Cumbanchero/Red Fort Rock’ (I think) plays in the back, with its extended trumpet solo by Kishore Sodha, who’s been a part of R.D. Burman’s orchestra in the past, Dalmia explains how it’s essential to speak out. While he’s well aware of his privileged status in India, he thinks back to the time he’s spent in the U.S. and Europe, and the oppression he witnessed and experienced. “Even colonialism, at the time it was happening, was legal. Exploitation, violence, war… what we have today seems normal to us. It’s been legimitised. But once you see it, you feel uncomfortable. Look at India: look at how many people are engineers and the pressure they face. Even middle class people are under tremendous pressure to be successful, to have jobs. The Adivasis and Dalits, they’ve experienced oppression and annihilation. They’re told: ‘Your way of living is not valuable.’ You start asking, where is the value in the long run? You look for something meaningful.”
Unlike most indie bands around (the ones singing in English at least), the Ska Vengers have also bothered to venture out into the so-called real world, performing at JNU in May this year as a show of support, among a host of other gigs where they’ve interacted with crowds not usually seen in a cramped pub. But the majority of the gigs they play are to an audience that’s sort of in a bubble, an unfortunate by-product of playing niche English-language independent music in India. So there’s always the risk of preaching to the converted. It’s a sentiment Guinard agrees with to an extent, but he does feel it has greater value in India, that it makes sense here, and it helps to spread the message.
Chopra, as an artist, has embraced the ‘Each one, teach one’ philosophy. “I think it depends on what you’re doing about it,” she says. “We seek to inform people; we seek to inject [politics] into an environment that is otherwise depoliticised. There’s nothing I can do about what you do with that knowledge. We’re trying to do something about it in our lives, in whatever small way we can. And it begins with informing yourself, because so much is hidden; there are so many lies,” she says.
Beyond the political
As the evening progresses, I sit down to chat with Kaye, who’s holding a drink which has some kind of a fruit in it: it’s dark so it’s hard to tell whether it’s a pineapple wedge, or an orange pod. Or maybe it’s a celery stick. While protest is, of course, an intrinsic part of the Ska Vengers, the band has substance that goes beyond the political message. As Guinard says, “If a band is political but their music is bad, then I won’t give a s**t about them.” They have such a distinct identity, from the suits and hats they wear at all their gigs, regardless of mercury, to their visual aesthetic, how they are on stage, to photo-shoots, music videos, artwork. There’s a refreshing sense of professionalism and purpose to the Ska Vengers. And then there’s the music. Kaye mostly plays the keys, but he’s also played the sitar and, um, the theremin on the album. Further, he functions as sort of the orchestrator of the music. “I arrange most of the music and put it together; it’d probably be fair to say I conceptualise a lot of it as well,” he says when probed. He baulks at any mention of the R-word — ‘revivalist’ — and recalls the origins of the band some six or seven years ago. “With the first album, we were making a statement by doing ska music. It was new to most people here. With this kind of music, you can’t fail. It’s so catchy. It’s like f**king trampoline music; you can’t avoid it.”
What’s new?
Moving past the novelty, XX is a fair reflection of the musical growth within the band. They’re a well-established act in the country, but Kaye reveals a sincere commitment to develop that into something bigger. While the Indian audience plays a role, Kaye — and the band — has his eyes on a greater goal. He wants the band to cross over and make a mark on international audiences. The upcoming tour of the UK, he feels, could act as a catalyst of sorts, and the response to the music — even the existence of a ska band from India — has been positive.
Everyone in the band has a high degree of self-awareness, and they spend considerable time deliberating over concepts of art and perception. The subject of self-image comes up often, and they aren’t afraid to discuss notions of gimmickry or being too ‘calculated’. But reducing it to such flippant binaries wouldn’t be fair; it’s that harmony between integrity to the music and commitment to the art of performance and presentation. Says Guinard: “I can understand how it can be seen as a gimmick. In India, you’ll see bands on stage in their slippers. I don’t feel like I’m wearing a costume. I’m comfortable after a gig; I feel like I went to prom,” Guinard laughs. “I wouldn’t say it’s a gimmick because we have the music to back it up, but that’s not really up to me to say, to be honest.”
Kaye also has a measured approach to this. “We wanted to do something completely incongruous and out-of-the-blue. Everyone used to dress like that in the 60s. When we started off, it was almost uncool to dress up.” (He reserves a special contempt for bands here showing up on stage in their crumpled work-shirts.) Kaye recalls his time in England, where he’s from originally, and how the scene there is competitive and gimmicks have always been a part of a band’s identity. “The way you look is important, even if you look sh*tty. Not giving a f**k about how you look is also part of it. It’s not a uniform; it’s about uniformity,” he says. Explaining the entire aesthetic of the Ska Vengers, Chopra just about sums it up: “We try and decrease the gap between how we feel and what we put up there.”
XXis available on oklisten.com/album/xx for Rs. 120.
The author is a freelance writer
