Indian rock

Indian rock is a music genre in India that may incorporate elements of Indian music with rock music, and is often topically India-centric. While India is more often known for its classical music, filmi, Bollywood music, Indi-pop, and Bhangra, the Indian rock scene has also produced numerous bands and artists.

Early history

India, in the 1950s and 1960s, had a record industry in the Gramophone Company of India, and LPs, EPs, and 45rpm records were freely available, including those of rock and roll acts from the US and Britain, but also of contemporary pioneering Indian rock bands. The president of the firm, Bhaskar Menon was the leading promoter of Western pop music in India. Later in 1970, Polydor, the German Label, began an India-based branch that distributed rock music locally.
Of these mid-1960s to early 70s beat groups, as they were then termed, some of the most notable were the Mystiks from Bombay, the Beat-X from Madras, and The Cavaliers, Calcutta-16, and The Flintstones from Calcutta, who composed and played both early British Invasion influenced songs, and post-Sgt. Pepper hard rock. During this period from Delhi there were The Thunderbirds, and WAFWOT These bands played regularly on the Indian university and college music circuits, and some had successful EP and LP releases. Also notable from this period was the female R&B singer, Usha Iyer, now Usha Uthup, who had successful covers of "Jambalaya" and The Kingston Trio song, "Greenback Dollar". A notable compilation LP titled "Simla Beat '70" was released during this period, from a contest of the same name. The winning bands recorded their versions of Western hard rock of the time. This tradition of covering Western rock would continue until the 1980s when it was more common to compose original songs.
The rock n' roll scene was also closely followed by Junior Statesman, a magazine started in 1965 contemporaneously with Rolling Stone magazine in the US and NME in the UK.
Like Western rock bands at the time, Indian bands also began fusing rock with traditional Indian music from the mid-1960s onwards. A notable example of this is in the Cavaliers' 1967 hit "Love is A Mango," which incorporates sitar accompaniment alongside Beatlesque songwriting. However, filmi songs, those produced specifically for popular Bollywood films, often overshadowed the country's budding rock scene, which otherwise contrasted from that within the film industry. Some of the more well known filmi songs from Bollywood films include Mohammed Rafi's "Jaan Pehechan Ho" in Gumnaam, Kishore Kumar's "O Saathi Re" in Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, and Asha Bhosle songs such as "Dum Maro Dum" in Hare Rama Hare Krishna, "Ae Naujawan Hai Sab" in Apradh, and "Yeh Mera Dil Pyar Ka Diwana" in Don.

Indian influence on Western music

In the 1960s, renowned Western acts such as The Yardbirds, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors and The Byrds were notably influenced by Indian classical music as a way of reinforcing the psychedelia in their music. While jazz musicians, notably John Coltrane, had ventured into Indian music and spiritualism, the influence of Indian classical music on 1960s rock began in earnest with George Harrison's Ravi Shankar inspired raga rock song "Norwegian Wood " in 1965 and The Beatles' very public sojourn with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at his ashram in Rishikesh in 1968, following the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. Raga rock led to the development of psychedelic rock, which in turn laid the foundations for heavy metal music.
The Indian rock scene would later give rise to one of the world's most famous rock stars, Freddie Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara. One of his formative musical influences was the Bollywood singer Lata Mangeshkar. He began his music career as a teenager in Bombay with the rock band, The Hectics, which was founded in 1958 and often performed cover versions of Western rock and roll artists such as Little Richard and Cliff Richard. After leaving the band in 1962, he moved to England, where he later led the rock band Queen, which went on to become one of the world's most famous rock bands.
The Indian rock scene also gave rise to one of the pioneers of disco music, Biddu, who originally began his career in an Indian rock band called The Trojans. It was India's first English-speaking band, and found success producing cover versions of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Trini Lopez, and other Western hits of the day, in the clubs of Bangalore, Calcutta, and Bombay. After the band broke up, he moved in 1967 to England, where he later found breakthrough success after producing "Kung Fu Fighting" for Carl Douglas.

1980s and 1990s

While the orientalist trend of the 60s and 70s was by the 80s and 90s largely over, India itself continued to produce bands in various styles of rock music, from soft rock and roll and pop rock, to hard rock and metal. In the early 1980s, however, rock was largely overshadowed by disco, which dominated Indian pop music up until the mid-1980s.
With the arrival of MTV, tastes rapidly changed, encouraging bands to harden their style and focus more on underground styles such as death metal, alternative metal, and progressive rock. The 1990s saw the rise of a much larger following of various harder styles for this reason. Bands that had formed in the 80s, such as Rock Machine -...altered their style with the influx of newer techniques and influences from the west. Notable suburban metal-blues bands with 1960s and 1970s metal influences included IIT Powaii based Axecalibre, fronted by Oliver Pinto, Prashant Nair and covered flamboyant guitar-based blues and hardcore metal including ballads. Contemporaries of the time were Easy Meat from Pune and Bands such as Holocaust, Morgue, Dorian Platonic from Guwahati, Assam, Grassroots Revival, Postmark, The Cannibals, Phoenix, Phynyx and Drixian Empire/Dark Crusader from Manipur.
Others formed in the 1990s with harder styles influenced by the growing split between popular rock, such as Britpop, alternative styles, such as punk, and metal styles, such as thrash. The Indian subgenre of fusion, which encourages a similar blend of ancient Indian musical traditions with rock music to raga rock, was also carried forward, and is perhaps the most unusual Indian style of rock. It was during this time that Palash Sen's Euphoria surfaced in the Indian scene as a straight ahead English rock band. The band later started writing in Hindi, and gave birth to what is now known as "Hindi Rock". Euphoria went on to become India's most popular, successful and commercially accepted Independent act. Other fusion bands like Indian Ocean and Mrigya also grew in popularity. As in decades before, university campuses and campus rock shows continued to be the driving force behind determining what kind of band would succeed and what kind of music young people liked.

2000s

The current Indian rock scene has a larger following than ever and may soon become recognized in the international arena, as various South American and Japanese bands have become. Recent entries into the rock music scene are increasingly becoming comparable in their production quality to Western bands, and have been compared favorably to other internationally recognized acts. Now digital technology is making it easier than ever for these bands to distribute and sell their music. Some British bands of South Asian origin, such as Swami have, like their hip-hop counterparts, tried to enter the Indian market in addition to maintaining the traditional fanbase of non-resident Indians in United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Others, such as Rudra, have emerged from Indian communities in other Asian countries. Progress is certain for the Indian rock scene with the advent of entities that support this genre. Rock Street Journal and Rolling Stone India are the two major publications that have been promoting Indian rock bands. The scene has also been transformed by the online medium, and the subsequent rise of a number of online portals promoting Indian rock, most notably the indie music website NH7, Headbangers India, IndianMusicMug, Unholy Maunder, IndianMusicRevolution, Metalbase India, Indian Metal Scene, and Metal Spree.

Sub-genres

Raga rock

In the West, some groups, such as The Beatles, traveled to India and incorporated aspects of Indian music, especially classical instruments such as the sitar, into their music, often as a way of conjuring psychedelic 'Eastern' feelings. The term for this was raga rock, and examples of it are The Beatles "Love You To", "The Inner Light","Across the Universe","Norwegian Wood ", "Tomorrow Never Knows", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Within You Without You"; The Rolling Stones' "Paint it, Black"; The Kinks' "Fancy"; The Doors' "The End" and The Byrds' "Eight Miles High". A number of prolific Indian classical musicians such as Ravi Shankar aligned themselves with this trend, collaborating with Western artists. Indian bands themselves mainly covered early rock songs by pioneers of rock and roll in the United Kingdom and America, and only achieved recognition in popular culture by supporting film scores and Indian pop.

Indian fusion

An Indian subgenre of rock exists that focuses on blending traditional Indian styles of music with rock music. The term for non-Indian bands using Indian instrumentals and vocal in rock is raga rock. However, Indian fusion also encompasses attempts by Indian pop musicians and film composers to incorporate rock music into their work, starting in the 1970s with film scores like those of the Amitabh Bachchan classics. The Brown Indian Band features accomplished Indian classical musicians in concert with jazz virtuosos. More recently the multi-cultural British band Botown have taken elements of Bollywood and fused them with soul and funk to great success. The New Delhi Based Band 'Ojapali' is also doing many experiments with Electronica Fusion music and Folk music of the Assam Region.
The Kochi-based band Motherjane typifies bands producing this genre of music. Motherjane guitarist Baiju Dharmajan is a pioneer of introducing the guitar music style known as carnatic shredding. Bangalore based carnatic rock band Agam and fusion rock outfit Divine Raaga, Kaav, Veenar are other examples of mature songmakers in the country.
Karnatriix is another band which has defined a new genre of fusion music labelled 'New-age World music'. Their ever-evolving sound today registers as ideally in sync with the 21st century's pan-cultural landscape. The name 'KARNATRIIX' which is a word play, meaning 'Aural Trickery', openly defines their music. Mellifluous melodies and sophisticated phrases deep-rooted in Blues music with an Indian Classical touch, combined with raw percussion and electronically produced subtle beats, voices and effects, form the core essence of the Karnatriix's musical nature. Indian Guitarist Kapil Srivastava composed Rock and Raga Fusion music in his Indian Guitaroo Volume 1.