[VoxSpace Selects] 15 Indian Bands That Every Music Lover Needs To Include In Their Playlist Already

Indian music has in the recent times, forayed beyond the obvious Bollywood numbers and how? Enter, alternative rock bands which have slowly but very surely created their own niche following over the Metros and tier 1 cities. With the advent of online music hosting platforms such as YouTube, SoundCloud, Reverbnation and events like SunBurn and Sensation coming to India with their gigs, it has been imperative that these Indian Bands ( following in no particular order) have become the literal RockStars of the nation’s billion-plus music lovers. Let’s look at some of the best bands out there :

Parikrama

Parikrama is a rock and roll band from Delhi. They have several live performances and original numbers to their name. The band was officially formed on 17 June 1991 in Delhi. ” But It Rained ” a single by the band went on to feature in 2014 listing of “25 Greatest Indian Rock Songs of the last 25 Years” by Rolling Stones India.

Members: Nitin Malik – lead vocals, Sonam Sherpa – lead guitars, Saurabh Choudhary – guitar, Subir Malik – organist, synthesizers, Gaurav Balani – bass guitar, Srijan Mahajan – drums

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is an Indian rock band formed in New Delhi in 1990, who is widely recognized as the pioneers of the fusion rock genre in India. The musical style of the band can be at best classified as jazz fusion and fusion music. It is an experimental genre, fusing raga(traditional Indian tunes) with rock music, guitars and drums, sometimes using Indian folk songs. In its 2014 listing of “25 Greatest Indian Rock Songs of the last 25 Years”, “Rolling Stone India” featured two songs, Ma Rewa and Kandisa from the album, Kandisa (2000).

Members: Nikhil Rao, Amit Kilam, Rahul Ram, Himanshu Joshi, Tuheen Chakraborty ( Past members: Susmit Sen, Asheem Chakravarty, Indrajit Dutta, Shaleen Sharma, Anirban Roy, R C Joshi, Sawan Dutta )

Raghu Dixit Project

Raghupathi Dwarakanath Dixit is an internationally reputed Indian singer-songwriter, producer, and film score composer who is the frontman for the Raghu Dixit Project, a multilingual folk music band. Dixit’s music is an amalgamation of Indian ethnic music and styles from different parts of the world. His songs include Mysore se aayi, Mumbai, Antaragni, Hey Bhagwan, Har Saans Mein, Gudugudiya, Khidki. Dixit has produced music for contemporary dance and theatre productions including the Indian contemporary dance group Nritarutya.

Members: Raghu Dixit, Gaurav Vaz, Joman Joseph, LN Sharma, Nitesh Nataraj, Bryden Lewis, Parth Chandiramani
Achyuth Jaigopal

Tetseo Sisters 

Tetseo Sisters are a musical act of four sisters from Nagaland, a state in North-East India. They are devoted to the art and tradition of the vocal folk music of the state. The Tetseo sisters grew up in Kohima, the capital of Nagaland, and belong to the Chakhesang Naga tribe, one of the major Naga tribes. They sing in Chokri, the dialect of the region around Phek. Some notable appearances include- the North East Trade Opportunities Summit in Bangkok, Thailand in 2008 and the Handshake Concerts in Bangkok in 2012, Yangon, Myanmar in 2014,  and Kunming, Yunnan, PRC in November 2015;  Queen Baton’s Rally for the Commonwealth Games 2010 at Touphema, Nagaland and HRH Prince Andrew’s visit to Kohima commemorating the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II on 1 May 2012.

Members: Mütsevelü (Mercy), Azine Tetseo (Azi), Kuvelü Tetseo (Kuku) and Alüne Tetseo (Lulu)

Swarathma

Swarathma is a Bangalore (India) based Indian Folk/fusion band. Swarathma has released two full-length studio albums, the self-titled Swarathma (2009) and Topiwalleh (2012) as well as several singles and music videos. They were featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine’s India edition as well on their list of 25 Hottest Indian Bands. They swept the annual Jack Daniels Indian Rock Awards 2009, winning Band, Song and Album of the Year. They have toured Morocco, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore and are one of India’s biggest folk rock bands.

Members: Vasu Dixit (vocals and rhythm guitar), Pavan Kumar KJ (percussion and vocals), Varun Murali (guitar and vocals), Sanjeev Nayak (violin and backing vocals) and Jishnu Dasgupta (bass guitar and vocals)

SoulMate

Soulmate is a blues rock band from Shillong, Meghalaya, India. One of the members of the band, Tipriti is considered as one of the finest female singers to have emerged from North East India and the other, Wallang is considered one of the most respected blues guitarists of India. Soulmate gained nationwide recognition and popularity within jazz and blues circles in India after they became the only blues band to represent the country at the 23rd International Blues Challenge organized by The Blues Foundation of America, in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, in February 2007 and 2010. They were semi-finalists and performed at the Rum Boogie Café (Blues Club of The Year, 2007) and Ground Zero(2010) alongside 150 other bands and musicians from all over the world.

Members: Tipriti ‘TIPS’ Kharbangar And Rudy Wallang

Bhayanak Maut

Bhayanak Maut is an Indian Metal band from Mumbai. The band’s name was inspired by a B-Grade Hindi horror movie of the same name, which translates to “Horrific Death”. Having been on the Indian rock scene for close to nine years, Bhayanak Maut (or BM for short) as it is known as among its fans has played at college fests such as Oasis-BITS Pilani, RAIT Horizons, IIT Chennai – Saarang (Finalists), NLS Strawberry Fields Bangalore, and Goa’s Waves Festival. In 2007 they reached the finals of Garnier Fructis presents Channel V Launchpad live at Hard Rock Café, held at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. In November 2008, Bhayanak Maut played on stage at the Great Indian Rock (GIR) show at Mumbai alongside Satyricon and Sahg, and received good reviews for their performance in GIR Shillong too.

Members: Sunneith Revankar, Rahul Hariharan, Venkatraman (Baba), Aditya Nair (Amidtsya), Ishaan Krishna
Vinay Venkatesh

Kailasa

Kailasa is an Indian fusion band, founded by Kailash Kher. The name of the band is taken from an accented pronunciation of Kailash’s own name as well as Mount Kailash, the abode of Hindu God Shiva. Along with guitars, drums and keyboards, the band incorporates classical Indian instruments and sometimes traditional lyrics into their songs to infuse folk and a Sufi hue.

Members: Kailash Kher — Lead Vocals, Paresh Kamath — Lead guitar, Keyboards, Backing Vocals, Naresh Kamath — Bass guitar, Keyboards, Backing Vocals, Kurt Peters — Drums, Sanket Athale — Indian & Western Percussions, Backing Vocals, Jose Neil Gomes – Saxophone, Violin, Acoustic Guitar, Flute, Sameer Chiplunkar – Keyboard, Jovian Soans – Audio Engineer, Tapas Roy – Mandolin, Dulcimer

Kryptos

Kryptos is a heavy metal band from Bangalore, India, formed in 1998 by Nolan Lewis (vocals/guitars) and Ganesh K. (bassist). They have long been considered to be one of the true spearheads of the Indian metal revolution upholding the old school metal ethos laid down by the 80’s NWOBHM/Thrash movements. Kryptos landed the supporting slot for Iron Maiden at Rock ‘N India 2009 in their home town Bangalore, playing to almost 17,000 fans at the Palace Grounds at second edition of the festival.

Members : Nolan Lewis, Rohit Chaturvedi, Ganesh Krishnaswamy And Anthony Hoover

Avial (Band)

Avial are an Indian alternative rock band formed in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India in 2003, and known for their Malayalam lyrics. Avial had their first breakthrough with the 2003 single “Nada Nada”. They are known for pioneering what they call “Alternative Malayali rock”, which is the style of combining Malayalam lyrics and rock music. Their eponymous album got them six out of seven Jack Daniels Rock Awards and Footprints Young Achiever’s Award in 2008.

Members:  Tony John, Rex Vijayan, Mithun Puthanveetil And Binny Isaac

Agam (The Band)

Agam is a Bangalore-based contemporary Carnatic progressive rock band. Agam received its big break in the year 2007 when it participated in a band hunt called “Ooh la la la,” hosted by the Tamil television channel Sun TV. The competition was judged by the Oscar-winning Indian music composer A. R. Rahman. Rahman was impressed by the band’s potential and adjudged them one of the winners of the contest. Post-2010, Agam started gaining more popularity nationwide and played in several high profile music festivals such as the Chennai Sangamam, the MAD Festival[3] (where they played alongside several distinguished bands such as The Raghu Dixit Project, Indian Ocean, Avial, Motherjane, Soulmate, Swarathma), the Fireflies Festival, Octoberfest, and the Storm Festival.

Members: Harish Sivaramakrishnan (vocals and violin), Ganesh Ram Nagarajan (drums and backing vocals), Swamy Seetharaman (keyboards and lyricist), T Praveen Kumar (lead guitar), Vignesh Lakshminarayanan (bass guitar and backing vocals), Sivakumar Nagarajan (ethnic percussions), and Jagadish Natarajan (rhythm guitar)

SkyHarbour

Skyharbor is an Indian progressive metal band with members from New Delhi and Mumbai, India; and Cleveland, Ohio, US, and are currently signed to Basick Records. Skyharbor plays a style of progressive rock drawing elements of the orchestration of Oceansize and Karnivool and the dream pop influenced alternative metal of the Deftones. There is considerable emphasis given to heavily layered ambient guitars and vocal harmonies.

Members: Eric Emery – vocals, Keshav Dhar – guitar, Devesh Dayal – guitar, Krishna Jhaveri – bass, and Aditya Ashok – drums (2015-present)

Sanam The Band

SANAM’, earlier known as ‘SQS Supastars’ , is an Indian Pop Band based in Mumbai. ‘The SQS Project’ won the platform to reach out to the nation. While they were taking part in the Times Music Supastars contest, Venky, who was based in Bangalore joined in for the finals of the competition and they secured the coveted title. And ‘SQS Supastars’ was finally formed. They were invited to perform at the Youtube Fanfest in the year 2015 and 2016 and their channel was considered as one of the fastest growing youtube channel in India and the first Indie-Pop Band.

Members:  Sanam Puri (lead vocals), Samar Puri (lead Guitar and vocals), Venky S (Bass Guitar and vocals) and Keshav Dhanraj (Drums)

Fossils 

Fossils is a Bengali rock band formed in Kolkata, West Bengal, India in 1998. The group is considered one of the pioneering rock acts in Kolkata’s Bengali music scene. Their music is flavoured by a blend of blues, rock and psychedelia, along with Rupam Islam’s vocal renditions of his characteristic psychoanalytical lyrics. They are noted for their social commentary and advocation of causes such as the welfare of HIV positive people.

Members:  Rupam Islam (lead vocals, acoustic guitar & composer), Deep (guitar, backing vocals & composer), Allan Ao (guitar, backing vocals), Chandramouli (bass, backing vocals), Tanmoy (drums, percussion).

Pentagram

Pentagram is a four piece Indian rock/electronica band started in 1994 in Mumbai, India. Regarded as one of the pioneers of original Indian independent music, the band has received major recognition. Pentagram is fronted by Vishal Dadlani (one half of the film music producing duo Vishal-Shekhar) with Randolph Correia on guitars, Clyde D’souza on guitars, Papal Mane on bass and Shiraz Bhattacharya on drums. All of whom have recently been actively involved in the Bollywood music business. The band also performed at Sympulse, the annual cultural festival of Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies, Pune. In the same year, episodes of Penta TV which featured behind-the-scenes videos of the band’s shows and tours were added to their site. In 2013, they recorded the song Be a Hero, the Star Movies Action theme for Star Movies Action.

Members: Vishal Dadlani – vocals, Papal Mane – bass, Randolph Correia – guitar, Shiraz Bhattacharya – drums