The metal heads

Fresh tunes

It was the need to explore music beyond what could be seen around them that brought artistes Krishna Dass and Isaac James together for an online project, ‘Skypunch’. The ‘bedroom project’, as the duo fondly call it, was created to ponder on their own sounds. In a chat with Tini Sara Anien, the duo narrate their musical journey and elaborate on their online presence.

How did the two of you come together?

Krishna: We used to play in the same band before we realised that we wanted to take music to another level. The two of us came together and voila, ‘Skypunch’ happened!

Why did you decide to do an online project?

Isaac: We wanted to try new things and go beyond boundaries. With our collective knowledge of video editing, vocals and guitars and production work coming together, we thought we could be a complete package; just the both of us.

While most musicians were coming together as bands, not many of them were putting out quality stuff online. When one looks at the scene abroad, many artistes
focus on good videos and the production part.

The tale behind the name...

Krishna: We both read a lot and are fascinated by atmospheric phenomena and cloud formation. ‘Skypunch’ is one  such phenomena.

We were reading something about this and were trying to figure out what we wanted to call ourselves and then the name happened.

Could you elaborate on your music...

Krishna: Our music is not too complex; it is very mellow. It has high-pitched vocals yet one cannot call it just metal. Different people call us different things. We got noticed by an American channel recently and they called us modern ambience metal.

What are your roles in the project?

Krishna: I compose, play the guitars and direct videos while Isaac is the vocalist, does synth work, plays the keyboards and also edits the videos.

How did you get noticed?

Isaac: We were just experimenting with new sounds and we thought about making a video. We didn’t have any long-term plans when we started out. We recorded the song and put it out — it was our first video song, ‘Presence’, but it fetched us more than 90,000 views in a few weeks. The video went viral, in fact. The demographics of the views showed that it had been viewed abroad more than it was seen here. ‘Djent Worldwide TV’ found us and now
we have a collaboration with them.

Who are your biggest influences?

Krishna: Plini, ‘Erra’, ‘Animals As Leaders’ and ‘Novelists’ are our biggest influences. They are all modern progressive artistes and are very inspiring in the way they use different techniques in their works.

How different do you think is metal music abroad?

Krishna: Metal music is evolving abroad. There are many new elements coming in and new sounds that are happening. In India, we are still stuck with the old generation of metal music — the 80s and 90s music. New age metal is going through a noticeable transformation abroad. It is a very happening scene now.

The themes you work on...

Isaac: We have a fascination for lucid dreaming. We quantify dreams; they are a portal to new reality. Our songs are all spiritual but not religious.

What’s next in the pipeline?

Isaac: Our next project is called ‘From Above’, which will be the next transcending event for us. We are planning to make an entire EP, which would include how a person starts off on a spiritual journey.