Interview: menwhopause

New Delhi alternative rock act menwhopause have been a fixture of India’s rock scene for nearly a decade; steadily making their way up the Indian rock food chain. Their debut album Home (2006) made it to our list of the Top 25 Albums Of The Decade, and album highlight ‘Father Monologue’ also featured on our list of the Top 25 Songs Of The Decade.

Post a recent promotional gig at Landmark Bookstore, Mumbai we caught up with the band to know more about how well their sophomore album Easy (review here) has been received, their upcoming tour of north-east India, the band’s penchant for performing at unusual venues, their gig at the Tihar Jail in October, and the absence of vocalist Sarabjit Chadha.

Below are excerpts from the interview, conducted in the stuffy, crowded and loud smoking room at TGIF, Mumbai.

At the outset, how did you land a gig at Landmark Bookstore?
Anup Kutty: Apparently, we’re number one on their music sales chart. It’s somewhat like a promo thing – we played at the stores in Chennai and Bangalore in May and it worked out quite well.

A bookstore is rather awkward venue for a band to play, but you guys seem to have a penchant for such places.
Anup: The Chennai thing was awkward – we played in a mall bookstore. We’ve never played in a mall earlier and well, it turned out to be good despite it being a Chennai mall. There were lots of random people and everybody stuck around till the end. (Some kvlt news about that in The Hindu, here.)

How has the response to such gigs been?
Anup: It’s been rather interesting. When our record label, EMI, told us about Landmark, all of us were like fucking skeptical and scared. I mean, seriously. But, when we did that gig we were reassured. It does make a big difference. After the response to that gig, the Landmark guys came to Delhi to meet us and we planned to do gigs in Mumbai and Pune. What’s good about such gigs is we end up reaching out to more people.

I saw a concerned parent asking you guys if you conducted guitar classes.
Randeep Singh: (laughs) Yeah, that’s true. Very random people turn up man.

We’ve not seen Sarabjit Chadha (vocalist) for a while. What’s keeping him out of action?
Anup: He has some family committments.

Do you think the success of the album is because of the evolution of the sound of the band?
Anup: (thinks for a while) The deal is, if we don’t play in places such as these, we’ll never get the sales. So, it’s a good thing.
Randeep: Abbe, wait man… Thhand ho rahi hai (it’s getting cold).
Anup: Pass the cigarette, man.

I remember the Pune album launch gig at High Spirits (photos here) when you called the local audience “lame”. What happened there?
Anup: Yeah, Randeep called them lame. They were all just sitting around.
Randeep: And then I kept the microphone away (laughs). But, I remember saying that.

A section of the crowd and some journalists seemed miffed about that.
Randeep: What were we to do, man? It’s okay. But, Sarabjit (vocalist) was there for the gig, you know. He was unwell, though. He was singing along to some of the songs from the sound console. Nobody knew that.

There was some talk of you guys playing a gig at Tihar Jail in October. Rumor? Truth?
Anup: No, no. No rumors, we are playing for sure.
Randeep: We are playing.

How did that come about? Tell us more about it.
Anup: Yeah, it’s a first for us.
Randeep: Though, it’s not a first for an Indian band. Agnee (erstwhile Agni) did play there. Maybe, a very long time ago.

(At this point, Randeep, IP Singh and Anup start screaming, all wanting to make individual contributions to the discussion at hand. Transcribing this interview has not been easy.)

IP Singh: At that point of time, apparently, one of the prisoners got up and played the guitar as well.
Anup: Anyway, so I went to the prison because I wanted to see it. So, I got access to it… over there (at Tihar Jail), the DG is really cool. He took our CD, heard it and a week later we got a written confirmation saying, yeah, it’s happening.

So, you’re going to play to high-profile prisoners like Kalmadi and the lot?
Randeep: (laughs) Why not man?
Anup: I hope there’s a VIP section, man. Like, a special gig.
IP: Someone actually posted on Facebook, you know, about our track ‘Can’t We Be Dreaming’ and if we could get Kalmadi to sing along (ref his claims of dementia) and if Kanimozhi could join us on our track ‘Father Monologue’ (ref Karunanidhi). So that’s the plan.

But, what’s really the plan for this gig?
Anup: On a serious note, Randeep and I went there. What we’re really planning to do is, you know, we met some of the people, so we want to play to the adolescent section in the prison.
Randeep: The 18-25 year olds.

So, it’s going to be more of an interactive sessions bordering on workshop territory?
Anup: Definitely. Lots of activities and stuff. Otherwise, it’ll be a very random thing. You see, us playing to them, it’s going to be pointless.

I’m sure there’s no real ulterior motive to this gig at the prison, but how do you think it’s going to affect the image of the band, doing something of the sort?
Randeep: We’ll probably end up in the jail as well (laughs).
Anup: The idea is, you know, if it works out… to get more musicians involved and keep this going. The jail authorities are really keen on the workshops happening and if something like a choir can result from this…
IP: They have something called TJ, which is like the Tihar Jail brand.
Anup: That works on merchandise, handcrafted stuff so to integrate something there. So, the jail authorities were like, if handicrafts can be made and promoted under the brand, so can music. It’s just reaching out to as many people as we can.

Do you plan to document this in any way?
Anup: Yes, definitely. In fact, lots of people have been asking us about this.
Randeep: Yes, something can be worked out for sure.

You guys seem pretty happy with the response to the album Easy. Any more tours planned?
Randeep: Starting September 23, we kickstart again from New Delhi. Then September 24 we play in Kolkata. Then Dimapur, Kohima Itanagar, Gangtok and Guwahati.
Warier (manager): Yeah, now we just need to figure how to get there.
Randeep: Don’t worry, that’s also worked out.
Anup: Maybe choppers, you know.
IP: No man, jeep se jayenge.
Randeep: We’ve chalked out enough time on our hands to travel, you know. The roads are really bad; so one day of travel and one day of playing and so on and so forth. We’ll be out for a good 20 days.

More from menwhopause as we hear it.

Note: I got drenched in the rain, struggled to get transport to the venue (given it was a transport strike that day) and caught a cold post the gig considering it was an air-conditioned venue. It’s been over three weeks now; the cold refuses to go away.