At Turquoise Cottage in the Capital recently, the seven guys of jam band Something Relevant were doing what they do best — playing to a live audience. The band was performing as part ‘Moonwalkers Night', organised by Sony Pix to commemorate the television premiere of Michael Jackson documentary This Is It . Does the band see the King of Pop as an overall influence? “Who doesn't? His music had varied elements, from jazz to blues to rock ‘n' roll. There was even hip hop in ‘Black or White',” says Stuart from Something Relvant, on the phone from Mumbai.
One of the country's most popular jam bands, Something Relevant — comprising Aazin (vocals), Jehangir (drums and percussion), Stuart (bass), Tanmay (guitar), Ryan (tenor, alto saxophone, backing vocals), Luis (keyboard/ backing vocals) and Aalok (percussion, tabla, backing vocals) — released their debut album last December titled, appropriately, Feels Good 2B Live . At once a mix of genres and a carefree independence too.
Promoting the album ranks high on their priority list. “The past couple of years have been a little hard on shows. We're trying to get our music outside Mumbai. We're also shooting a music video for one of our tracks,” Stuart says. The track, “City in a situation”, is a “funk track based on our experience of Mumbai, which can be interpreted for any Indian city.”
Inspirations and subjects can come from anywhere. “Most of our songs come from our experiences, which, hopefully other people have gone through too,” Stuart explains. ‘Eddy on a roll', for instance, came when the bunch went river rafting. “So even when you listen to that song you can sense a certain fluidity.” The song “Horn OK Please”, on the other hand, is inspired from a truck bumper.
Come August, and Something Relevant heads to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival — the band's second international tour, after touring South East Asia last year. “We're quite excited as it would be a completely new audience,” Stuart says.
Friends since their St. Xavier's College days, the band has been playing since 2003, though things took a more concrete form about three years later. The track “Mr. Invisible”, about how an unappreciative audience turns a performer on stage into a part of the background in the din of social chatter, is about every performer's nightmare. Being a jam band, which constantly feeds off the energy and vibe of the audience, do they still feel the performer being invisible in the audience's eyes?
“The song describes the changing situation in India over time. Earlier, in live performances, the audience would only want covers, songs that they already recognised. They were not willing to listen to someone who had something genuine to say… It represents an old era in our musical career,” says Stuart.
Feels Good 2B Live Did studio recording prove a problem when it came to replicating their live sound? “There wasn't a problem as such. We wanted a certain kind of style we weren't getting. When we recorded in the studio we realised we had to do it one after another and that we had to do it together,” Stuart recalls.
A second album, for now, isn't on the cards. “We have 30 to 40 songs which we perform live. We're not really waiting for an album. It's just that once you put them down on a record, you can move on and create new songs.”
Afoot are plans for a “variety show”. This includes collaborating with the Mumbai police band, a 30-piece orchestra, with whom Something Relevant has already performed twice.
There is, according to Stuart, a light difference in the mentality in the Delhi and Mumbai audience. “The Delhi audience is not shy about showing its appreciation. In Mumbai they don't cheer you on as hard as you would want them to, but they sing along.”
There's a prospective venue that they're eyeing too. “We're really curious about Lodhi Gardens,” the bassist says.
