Getting all the gnarly details on this nu-metal export from Hyderabad!
Gnarl definitely rings a bell. I remember reading up about them in The Hindu’s supplement a while ago. One of the veritable acts frm Hyderabad, their debut came out sometime 2005. Now every Friday when we coax you to come Score with some live indie, we back our gentle persuasions with A/V evidence.
But all YouTube spurted out was Gnarls Barkley when we tried it this time round. The frustration got to me and I gave lead singer Tamar Chaterjee a ring!
Hi! WHY is it so hard to find your music online?!
The first album came out with Sony BMG and we can’t put any of that stuff up! We do have two videos which are still airing on Vh1 (When & Path) but we had to take them off YouTube due to copyright issues. Now, we’re in the process of recording our second album. All that stuff will be back up as a remastered album in a few months. So yeah, it’s going to take a while but a total of say 24 songs should be up all at once!
OHHHH like that. Cool. So why ‘Gnarl’??
The name has a lot to do with how are songs are written. It means twisted; a lot of our songs aren’t what they come across as being on one level.. There’s always another meaning. We may come off as a very heavy/negative looking band but all our songs have a positive message at the base! At the end of the day it’s inspirational – that’s the motive behind writing songs.
Wow, not that twisted. Hmm. Which bands were you listening to while growing your hair so long, brooding in your basements and pondering over ‘the sound of Gnarl’?
No band that has grown up in India in these past ten years can NOT sight Metallica as one of their influences. At least when we were growing up, the whole 90s grunge phase with Pearl Jam & Nirvana was on and that influenced us to some extent. Our sound is mellow, We started off heavy. Our first album is a lot heavier than what we play today. I wouldn’t say commercial really but since there is a lot of melody infused with the heavy guitars and the drums, I would say it appeals to a larger audience than say, a thrash or heavy metal tag would invite.
According to you, 2011-12 metchul is defined by…
Since the music has mellowed, I haven’t reallllly been following the metal scene (ohnohedidn’t!) but one of my favourite bands at the moment is Muse (approve!). And thats sort of what we are all listening to right now. If it comes to metal, I’d definitely cite Slipknot as one of the bands that have constantly reinvented themselves; they started off really, really heavy.. Course they always had melody.. but over the years they have matured with every album. I happened to see them last year! That was a pretty cool experience. Their live shows are really, really amazng. I think thats as metal as it gets; in the current modern scene at least.
Business down south. What can we expect at Score Night?
We’re going to do maybe a 70-30 split between own comps and covers. We will play some System of a Down, Muse for sure, Korn – another band we’ve grown up listening to. Oh and also Rage Against The Machine! But the focus for us has always been on the own comps.
Take me through your Gnarl-y roots, won’t you?
Gnarl started with me (Tamar Chaterjee) on vocals & guitars, Vikram Aditya on bass and Solomon Benjamin on drums way back in 2003. I was in bands before that (Limp Bizkitty stuff, he says). 2005, Taj Khan replaced Benjamin and Ram Reddy joined us 2 years ago.
Hyderabad. A judgemental ‘Hmmmm…’
The scene here is pretty much like most cities – its there, but its small. (Hyd redemption! whattey). WE’re sort out of ‘out of the scene’ in the sense that we don’t play at colleges n fests anymore. The focus is more on own comps..
But but but college fests means more groupies & fanfare?
In 2005 & 2006, we did the whole college circuit scene. But we realized that this was only making us move slowly; sort of keeping us from doing what we really want to do. You don’t want to upset event organizers so we figured its better we are a little choosy about gigs rather than taking up whatever we get.
They’ve chosen to come to your city, Chennaiites! Show em what you got by turning up in decent numbers and with your metchul faces! We know a lot of you are Liquid Measure fans are going to pack the place. This is a shoutout to you guys ESPECIALLY! Support the national metal scene at Score Night, Star Rock 8pm onwards. RSVP HERE!
