'Bengaluru is a melting pot of creativity'

Two-piece band

For Gaurav Tiwari and Prakash Rawat, the band ‘Diarchy’ is a space for taking music to a different level. Having rock music as their base, the band stands out with its two-piece structure. In a candid chat with Tini Sara Anien, Gaurav talks about the journey of ‘Diarchy’ since its inception.

How did the band come together?
Prakash (vocalist/guitarist) and I (drummer) have been playing music since 2014 when we were a part of another band. However, the idea of a two-piece rock band came about in 2015. We invited other musicians to form the band, but it happened this way due to two reasons. Prakash and I have been friends since a while and we stay closeby, so jamming wasn’t that hard compared to other musicians. We had the freedom to jam anytime and make music. Secondly, there were no other two-piece rock bands in the country and we wanted to grab the chance.

A two-piece rock band is different in concept...
(Smiles) Prakash, with some wizardry, tweaked his guitar, and thankfully we don’t need another guitarists or members. The sound is complete in itself. Our sound is thin — it doesn’t have layers to it — so we cannot churn out songs after songs, but we have been concentrating on that now. We have played at some great venues including The Humming Tree and Indigo Live Music Bar, and festivals like ‘NH7 Weekender’ and ‘Indie March’.

Why the name ‘Diarchy’?
When one hears the name, they are puzzled for a brief moment. But just like ‘anarchy’ and ‘monarchy’, the band just says ‘diarchy’, which means two guys on the top.

Bengaluru is known for its rock music scene. How will ‘Diarchy’ stand apart?
Our music is of a riff-based stoner rock sound. It creates a trippy kind of atmosphere, all created by two men. (Laughs) There have been times when people have come to our show and asked us if our other band members are still on their way or aren’t showing up. But after listening to us, they have told us to keep our recipe intact. People have their own ideas about bands and if they aren’t accompanied by enough members, then at least a laptop is expected to fill in the sounds.

Your inspirations...
Prakash and I, even though best of friends, have varied music interests. While Prakash leans more towards metal, heavy metal and hard rock music, I listen to country music, folk rock and world rock. The common thing is that we both like stoner rock.  While Prakash’s favourites would be ‘Led Zeppelin’,
‘Sabbath’, ‘Pink Floyd’ and ‘Dream Theatre’ along with guitarists like Paul Gilbert and Steve Vai, my favourites include ‘The Black Keys’, ‘The White Stripe’ and ‘Royal Blood’. Now we both listen to ‘Planet of Zeus’ and ‘Colour Haze’.

Tell us about your debut album.
Our debut album is yet to be named, but its theme is anti-establishment, anti-government and anti-system. We aren’t cussing or using foul language in our tracks. This isn’t a conscious effort, just that the tracks happened to be that way.

There are many rock bands with works on anti-system. How will this be different?
There will be one thread keeping all our seven songs together, but that isn’t in terms of storytelling; it will be our sound. Lyrics are not the first thing we want the audience to pay attention to; it’s our music. We do not intend to create a niche audience and we do not want to differentiate ourselves from the others.

Your thoughts about the music scene here...
Bengaluru is a melting pot of creativity. One will never fall short of music venues or bands to follow in the city. It’s encouraging to see our own bands perform on the same stage where international bands have. We have world class music here.