DILLI Belly of local strains

Striking all the right chords with the Indian youth, these guys from Delhi known as The Local Train, have successfully emerged as one of the country’s best live rock acts. Their edgy approach to music, creating their own style called “Hindie” — an explosive combination of Indie music with a desi soul has amassed a number of followers at gigs and cultural festivals, all over India. In a candid chat with Bengaluru Chronicle, when they were in the city for a performance, The Local Train opened up about their music, upcoming album and their remarkable journey so far. 

These guys can only call their music, a mish-mash of everything. Ramit Mehra who plays the bass guitar says, “We’re simple rock and roll. We’re a guitar-driven band at the end of the day. We’re really a mish-mash of sounds, having grown up in the 90s and the last decade, we listened to all sorts of music from across the world. That shaped our personalities also as musicians. As a band, we are just two albums down and we keep experimenting with our sound.” The band was formed in 2008 and debuted their first album in 2015 called Aalas Ke Pedh, from which the song Aaoge Tum Kabhi was picked to be one of the soundtracks in the popular Bollywood movie Angry Indian Goddesses. Paras Thakur, the lead guitarist, explains, “In our first album we were in a more rock-pop element. For our upcoming second album Vaaqif, we have been experimenting with new sounds, structures and writing. You could say we’re a modern day, rock and roll band.”

To name their list of influences would be quite a task but bands like Aerosmith, Porcupine Tree, Foo Fighters as well as artistes like Led Zeppelin and a whole bunch of others bands have been inspirational to them. These guys are currently looking forward to dropping their second album, the songs of which they have been playing live as they tour the cities. The first single from Vaaqif called Khudi was released on YouTube in June and garnered half a million views. Speaking of the response to their new album, Raman Negi, the lead vocalist says, “We wanted to take our new songs across the country and play it for our fans. The response to the new songs has been amazing and we had four sold out shows this time!”

When it comes to writing their own music, Ramit says that they have no established rules but they do always jam together. “It is a very dynamic process and there are no set rules, because we all live together in Delhi. It all starts from a riff or a fun idea that we like. If we like something we all go to the jam room and play together. We always jam together and start from them when it comes to writing,” he quips.  A vein of hope runs through Vaaqif as Sahil Sarin, the band’s drummer says, “We are really happy with what we’ve made. We want to take the music and play it at as many places as possible in the country. We want to release the songs with videos, so there is a lot of visual content that we have planned, on the schedule as well. The common medley is to be hopeful in our music.”