Rock till you drop

Ideal ambience: Bangalore provides a great platform for many budding musicians

Metrolife spoke to people in different rock bands to find out how the music scene here is. Fidel D’Souza, along with his friends Jerome Mascarenhas, Bharath, Chester Pereira, Sudhakar Prabhu started ‘Bourbon Street’, a jam band which plays rock as well as fusion.

Originally from different cities like Mangalore, Chennai and Mumbai, the band members opine that the City gives one the necessary freedom to experiment with the kind of music one plays.  

Says Fidel, “Compared to cities like Mumbai, Bangalore is very supportive to new artistes. We have far many opportunities here than most places. Even Mangalore, from where I hail, doesn’t support music the way Bangalore does. This is the reason we wanted to set up our band here.”  

There are several platforms the City offers to budding musicians to showcase their talents, be it the small coffee shops or the bigger restaurants which play live music and even art theatres. Says Ronald Robinson, a bass guitarist in the band ‘Foreplay’, “When you start a new band, all you have to concentrate on is making good music. If you do, then the rest will follow. There are a lot of places here that give a platform for young musicians to play their music and this way one can naturally grow in the music scene.”

But as Sandeep, lead guitarist of the band ‘Welwet Rose’ says, “It is very important for us to market ourselves too be it through word of mouth or online through Facebook, YouTube, Reverbnation etc.”

Music in Bangalore is heading towards commercialisation. Floyd Santimano, a musician (keyboardist) from Goa says, “This could be a hurdle for a lot of upcoming artistes, specially those who are inclined to non-commercial music.” But he adds, “There are a lot of studios set up and some workshops conducted in the City for upcoming bands to get their demo music recorded. This encourages a lot of aspiring artistes.”

Nevertheless, many feel the City has still a long way to go before it completely embraces rock music. As Sudhakar says, “We have a lot of good musicians here. But as I feel, we do not get a big enough platform here as there are gazillion restrictions. Also, the audience for rock music is very limited. So these are the two challenges the bands have to face.”

But compared to a few years ago, the situation is definitely improving. Sandeep adds, “Nowadays, rock is much more accepted than before. So we have a good scope for growth. Bangalore is known as the ‘Rock Capital’ for a reason.”