Time to get rocking...

They were the pioneers of Indian rock. Although there were rock bands before them, Indus Creed was the first band to get Indian rock noticed internationally. Actually, going back even further in time, they were not even called Indus Creed.

They were Rock Machine, the name that rocked every single show in India. This was a time in the eighties when the shows were simply called rock shows. Those were the innocent times when music reigned supreme. Clean, real and from the heart. No gimmicks, no glam, just clear, clean, hardcore rock.

Rock Machine was the most sought after band and performed covers from bands such as White Snake, Thin Lizzy, UFO, The Who, Deep Purple, Van Halen, Rush and a whole lot of other rock anthems and hits. They were the first band that brought in professionalism to Indian rock. Their stage performance was legendary and high voltage. No major concert was considered big without a headlining act from Rock Machine.

The original band came together in 1984 with Ian Santamaria (vocals), Aftab Currim (rhythm guitar), Suresh Bhadricha (drums), Mahesh Tinaikar and Mark Selwyn. A few concerts later, changes were affected to the line-up. Jayesh Gandhi replaced Currim on the guitar, Mark Menezes replaced Suresh Bhadricha, and Uday Benegal took over from Santamaria as lead vocalist. A few months later, Zubin Balaporia was brought in, adding keyboard to the line-up.

Opening act

The trend in the 80s was ‘covers only’ and original music was looked down upon, perhaps because of the quality of original music or simply because the audience was not interested in unfamiliar tracks. Seeking to break that trend, Rock Machine started including original music in their performances.

In 1988, the band released their first album, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Renegade’. Hailed as the first original rock album by an Indian band, it went on to become hugely popular. Following the success of their debut album, the band released their second album, simply called ‘Second Coming’. The track, Pretty Child, from this well-produced album, catapulted the band into super group status.

The advent of MTV in the early 90s could not have come at a better time for the band. The band’s first music video, ‘Top of the Rock’, aired on MTV Asia and was put on heavy rotation due to enthusiastic viewer responses.

By 1993, the band was looking to break into the international rock scene and so they reinvented their music and called themselves Indus Creed. In the same year, their video of Pretty Child was released. The response was unprecedented.

The video went on massive rotation almost immediately after the release. The surreal and extremely creative black-and-white film captured the imagination of a whole generation. Indus Creed went on to win an Asia-wide MTV Video Music Award. The same year, MTV ranked Pretty Child the 9th best video of the year, competing with international artistes such as Madonna and Michael Jackson.

In 1994, Indus Creed released their first album under their new name. The self-titled album was recorded in Los Angeles. They released two videos, ‘Trapped’ and ‘Sleep’, and promoted them extensively on MTV and Channel V. The band toured heavily across India and began exploring other regions like the UK and the Middle East. In 1996, Guns N’ Roses’ guitarist Slash played on stage with Indus Creed at MTV’s relaunch as MTV India in Bangalore.

Making the shift

This was to become, strangely, a slow end game for Indus Creed as the Indian version of the music channels started focusing on Bollywood and vernacular music and moved away from western music and rock.

Says vocalist and composer Uday Benegal, “By the time we hit 1997, we were pretty disillusioned by the music scene in India. The music channels on TV had gone almost totally Bollywood by then. The Hindi option to that — Hindi pop — was a worse option and a direction record companies were trying to push us in. We decided to part as friends rather than let general disgruntlement turn to individual angst and inevitably an implosion. Jayesh Gandhi and I decided to move to New York and start an Indo rock and funk band called Alms for Shanti.”

In 2008, Benegal came back to Mumbai, where he and former band member Mahesh Tinaikar teamed up to create an acoustic side project, Whirling Kalapas. In 2010, Benegal and Tinaikar regrouped with another former bandmate, Zubin Balaporia, to re-form Indus Creed. With the recruitment of bass player Rushad Mistry and drummer Jai Row Kavi, the new Indus Creed was complete.

The newly formed Indus Creed was officially launched in 2010 when they headlined Harley Davidson’s Harley Rock Riders concert at Hard Rock Cafe Mumbai. In December the same year, the band went on the Reboot Tour, headlining concerts and festivals across India. In June 2011, the band was finally inducted into the Indian Recording Arts Academy’s Hall of Fame.

This year, the band released ‘Evolve’, its first album in over 15 years. The album has the same hallmark sound that Indus Creed is renowned for, with good lyrics, clean sound, great guitar riffs, good  instrumentalisation and smooth transition from harmonious to hardcore, which make for some very enjoyable tracks. Although the band is promoting Fireflies as the lead track, Dissolve is a great track that can carry this album forward. Other tracks on the album include Take it harder, Goodbye and No Disgrace.

Indus Creed was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone India’s February 2012 issue. The band has just finished their promotional tour and will be releasing the video for Fireflies on music channels shortly. The promotional tour will also kick off soon. The band hopes to make a difference with their latest offering where they will be competing for mindspace with the very bands that were started on inspiration from Indus Creed.