It's Only Rock n Roll with hosts Phil Blizzard & Russell Mason

From Mumbai to Hollywood - Rock Machine To Indus Creed

• Phil Blizzard + Russell Mason • Season 1 • Episode 4

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A powerboat race, a broken fax, and a last‑minute visa scramble set the stage for a story about identity, reinvention, and the stubborn joy of playing loud. 

In this espisode  Phil Blizzard and Russell Mason  'sits down' with Uday Benegal—frontman of India’s pioneering rock band Indus Creed—to trace the band’s evolution from Rock Machine, the bold name change that reframed their destiny, and the craft behind blending tabla, sarangi, and bansuri into guitar-driven songs without falling into cliché.

The journey flows through sunburnt beach gigs in Dubai, bewildered crowds in the USSR, a UK Womad run, and openers with Europe, Bon Jovi, and Santana. Uday contrasts the tour cultures with insight—how Santana’s crew modeled true professionalism—and shares a delightfully messy onstage cameo with Slash in Bangalore. 

Along the way, we explore the role MTV Asia played in easing a risky rebrand, the practical magic of backline and FOH, and the creative decision-making that kept identity authentic while broadening appeal for global audiences.

There’s a detour to New York, where disillusion with India’s shifting industry pushed Uday toward indie cinema and writing for the Village Voice, before a return home reignited the band with younger players and new energy. We go deep on recording Evolve in Mumbai and landing mix legend Tim Palmer through a thoughtful cold email—a field guide in how independent bands can reach world-class collaborators. Most of all, Uday reflects on the legacy he cherishes: helping shift India’s live circuit from cover-band defaults to original music as the standard. He also teases a gentler solo project produced by a rising young talent, proving reinvention never really ends.

If stories of music branding, cross-cultural production, and life on the road light you up, this one’s for you. Follow the show, share it with a friend who loves rock history with heart, and leave a review to help more curious listeners find us.

It's Only Rock and Roll is a Phil Blizzard Radio Production - for your production email philblizzardmedia@gmail.com

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome along to the podcast. We love it. We've had an amazing start. This is episode number four and number five of Lost Track. I've had so much fun. Today we've well very international. Today we're going to India to catch up with uh well Russell, someone we've both met in our travels when it comes to rock and rock and roll. Who are we talking to this one?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we're going to welcome Uday Benegal, who is the uh frontman of uh the biggest rock band ever in India, Indus Creed, and uh internationally acclaimed as well. Uh, we're gonna go through a lot of things. He's been doing a lot in his career, uh, extensive career. Um, and we'll talk about the band, of course, because that's a big part of it of his uh life. And uh um, and at some stage uh for my sins um and for their for their sins, I think it was more painful for them. I did actually manage them for a few years. So I use that term manage very loosely, which um they kept reminding me of uh frequently. So welcome, buddy.

SPEAKER_00:

Good to see you too, good to meet you again, Phil.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, likewise, likewise, like many, many years. Many years, perhaps you day, you were controlling or managing Russell rather than him managing the band.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I I I don't know there was if there was any management of any kind all the way around, but uh, but I think uh yeah, well, Russell did some funding, so that was that's the manager's job, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Excellent, yeah, sure. Uh Uday, it was the most pleasurable uh thousand dollars I lost, buddy. Good as long as I haven't. Yeah, who cares?

SPEAKER_02:

Phil, over to you, man. Well, I was gonna say, Russell, how did you you two come up? How did you meet uh you and the band and Uday? How did that come about? Uday. Okay, Uday. We're playing tennis. You're fraying the ball around, Russell.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, all right. So we got a we got a call from this yeah, well, this guy, this this Englishman from the Middle East, who wanted to book us, uh book the band for uh uh for a little a little tour of the Middle East. And uh we said, sure, I mean we're happy to go and play anywhere, very honestly. And um so we landed up in uh in Dubai and we met uh the eminent Russell Mason, and uh and we landed up taking this little tour of the Middle East. Uh we played what are you playing? Dubai, Bahrain, um Abu Dhabi and uh Muscat.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, your your memory on that is quite good, but I think you're missing one critical thing. Uh and like all things in life, it probably wouldn't have happened if not for uh a certain Apache Indian who had had a massive hit uh called Arranged Marriage. That's right. I remember yeah, it was a massive hit. It came from nowhere. This guy from Birmingham and he was from the Midlands, wasn't he? Yeah, from the Midlands. And uh we we were uh providing the bands for the Powerboat race. If you remember, Phil, the Powerboat.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right. It was the Powerboard race, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01:

It was on the beach, and uh uh uh all the white people ended up being uh pink at the end of it. And uh anyway, uh we we booked Maxi Priest, which was you know he's a big artist, he's a big artist, you know, still, but he was a big artist then, and Apache Indian who was hot as mustard. I mean, he was he was like as hot as he could be. And we were sitting there uh uh two uh probably 48 hours before the gig, sitting in my office feeling very proud of ourselves, you know, and all of a sudden the fax machine went off because there were faxes in those days, and this thing came through from Birmingham General Hospital. This is to confirm that um the artist known as a patin cannot cannot travel because he's done his back in. And we were like, oh no, what are we gonna do? So anyway, I came up with a bright idea. What about this band in India? You know, their biggest band, you know, the the the Powerboat race, because it was a free concert, was full of on a Friday, expat Indians, and you know, they've got that's got to be a sort of good replacement. Um, anyway, so I got on the phone, I spoke to you guys. I probably spoke to Mark Selwyn or Jaish or someone because they used to take care probably of the business at that stage. I can't remember. But anyway, it was a big rush because you needed visas, you know. And um we managed to get you in, we managed to get your equipment in because in those days you had to pay a bond for the equipment and everything. It was a nightmare. But sure enough, you turned up, you did the gig, and um, and afterwards uh you you asked me if I'd manage you because and I asked why me. And you said, Well, you're the only white man we know, and we want to go into that. And I was which is which is the truth, it's the absolute truth. And I was like, Okay, I think I was a bit flattered by it, and so I added another client to my list, uh, Uday. And do you remember the other client I had in India?

SPEAKER_00:

The other client in India, yeah. As you can tell from the opening of the show, my memory is quite a blur about everything that happened last week, so yeah, it's it's like the old verse, it's like that old verb song, The Drugs Dun Wom.

SPEAKER_02:

Um I think you need a few little tips to go out, Russell. I mean, you told me about this before, and I was amazed because it was a great movie. It's a movie stuff, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

It was on Netflix recently. Um it's called The Serpent, and it's about the world's at that time, the world's world's most wanted man uh in Interpol Charles Charles Silbarage, and he was on my client list.

SPEAKER_03:

So I had that serial killer.

SPEAKER_01:

I had a serial killer who I had the rights to his movie and his book, and I had a Indian band, the biggest Indian band, and I I traipsed off to LA to sell both of you.

SPEAKER_00:

I completely forgot about the Charles Sobrage thing. Wow, I completely forgot about the Charles Sobraj thing. That's incredible, it's amazing, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Set it set in uh Kathmandu, wasn't it? Amazing, fabulous.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, no, he killed people. He he wasn't fussy, he killed people all over the place.

SPEAKER_02:

Anyway, let's get back to the music. Uh, another story that one, I think the serpent, and uh let's crawl back like a serpent back into the world of music. And I can remember that powerboat race, and I remember the uh the the Gigu day because uh Dubai FM radio station used to be broadcasting live from all the powerboat races, uh concerts, events, and uh I'd be there on stage doing the M Sing. And I remember I think you brought an entourage of fashion models with you, maybe for that event or another event that sticks in my mind more. Sorry to say more than the band.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I can't blame you.

SPEAKER_02:

What were your recollections of playing on a sandy beach in the middle of uh the Middle East?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it was hot, and I come from a hot country, but the Middle East is really hot, yeah, and it's it's dry. But I mean, but it was really a very honestly for us, it was a thrill just to get out of this country and go somewhere else and play to a whole new audience. And uh really, we just want to get up on stage and play rock and roll. That's the that's the beginning and the end of every every desire that we really have. Yeah, and so this is that's just another opportunity to do that. So it was great fun, and yeah, sure, all the powerboats and all that kind of stuff. I mean, people get their kicks off those things, but for us, it was just getting on stage playing with a really playing with great backline, really good PA. Uh, with I mean, in those days, I mean, concert infrastructure in India hadn't really got to where it is today. It's you can get a great PA anywhere, you can get the best amps anywhere, you can get all kinds of instruments anywhere. But uh, this is uh this is pre-internet, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Or was it just about yeah, and a good backline so so important, like the front of house PA and everything else. Let me set the scene because as Russell keeps saying, I'm a BBC broadcaster. I need to set the scene. The Powerboat Racing was a big event during the season, and it would be sort of the cooler months. I mean, you say it's very hot, but it'd be like October through to January. And the teams would come from all over the world, a big American presence, Scandinavian, British presence, and uh a very strong federal team from the UA funded by the government victory, and there'd be a show on the beach. Powerboat racing take place offshore, it's called, but it's pretty tight circuit. But the crowds, there'd be up to 60,000 people for some of the shows. I remember one that was Banana Rama. 60,000 people. I thought they've got big pulling power, but it wasn't them, it was uh a Lebanese singer called Amra Diab who got the crowd going, and it's it's a massive setup in a natural amphitheater on the beach, it was brilliant. And bands like yourself had the opportunity to play, which is even better, bringing in uh unknown bands as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so it was a real kick for us to get out there and play, like I said, just with that gear. And of course, we we we hit off pretty well with uh Russell and figured uh we were pretty keen on taking our music outside the country, but we had no clue how to. And here's a white guy, he's uh he's in the music business, and uh he seems like a fun enough guy. Uh he was married very much.

SPEAKER_01:

Um but you were you were um you weren't actually indiscreet then, you were rock machine, you were rock machine then.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that was the name of the thing.

SPEAKER_01:

And what and what was what was my only criteria of acceptance for for for managing you?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you were, I will say you were very gracious about and very gentle about it because uh when you suggested the name change, you're talking about the name change, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So Russell comes up to us one day and says, Uh, I think you guys should maybe have you guys ever thought of changing your name? And we looked at him and said, Why the fuck would we do that? You know, I mean we're pretty well known as as we are. And uh, well, then he started to make some very interesting and uh we hate we hated to admit it, but very valid points. He said, Uh Rock Machine is is a good name for a college band, and you guys are not a college band anymore. Uh, we just started experimenting with a little bit of Indian instrumentation at the time. We'd used uh a tabla in one of our songs, a song that got us a lot of attention. For that and for various other reasons, it was it was a very popular song. And so uh Russell's sort of reasoning went went deeper into if you're looking to uh expand your sound, then a name like Rock Machine will actually only limit you into a very, very small category of music that you would uh be forced to create. So why don't you come up with something that is representative of where you come from, but without being obviously so, don't throw on a own something or the other. We almost became ohm tattoo, by the way.

SPEAKER_01:

Fortunately, I like I like that that one. No, I that got my vote actually, but you chickened out on political grounds.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, uh you also you also voted for Ashram mothers, which I oh yes I'm so easy. Yeah, we were thinking of kicking you out at that point when you approved that, but anyway. So uh so yes, so we so Russell's suggestion to us to change our name was uh was was um it was like I mean it was a bit shocking, but it made sense.

SPEAKER_01:

I got paint mail because you advertised well, you told all your fans it's not our fault, our manager made us do it.

SPEAKER_02:

I got paint mail exactly how how is that transition from rock machine to indiscreet in terms of as Russell alluded to then in terms of the fans? I mean, were you seen as a different band, a completely different band with uh perhaps more of uh ethnic style music being performed, or or do they still see you as being the rock machine?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, so the thing is well, there was a well mixed response to that. So one thing that really helped was uh we were getting a lot of airplay on MTV at the time. It was MTV Asia at that time, it wasn't even MTV India, they hadn't split the separate footprints. So it was one big footprint going out to uh all of Asia, except I think China. China had their own as far as far as I can remember. And the guys at MTV, um Russell spoke to the guys at MTI MTV. I think it was uh Zed Sharp's Danny. No, it's what the executive Ed Ed Bean. Ed Bean. Ed Bean. Ed Bean, yeah. And and he sort of spoke to Ed Bean about this, if I remember right, and they were really supportive. I think they thought Rock Machine was a shit name as well. So uh by then we had come up with the name Indus Creed, which was kind of getting, I mean, yeah, it was kind of getting uh a good response all around, starting with uh all of us in the band, which was a big thing.

SPEAKER_01:

I think I think the thing is, Uday, in my thinking, was because obviously I was from the West, and you really wanted to try and break the West and be accepted in the West. And I just I just felt if you were gonna try and be like a Western band, that because we're we're predominantly racist, we would um you know uh being they they they would they would judge you on that. Oh, you know, what are you trying to do? You're trying to copy, but if you added some a little ethn ethnicity, um well done, well done, Russell.

SPEAKER_02:

Can you do that again for us?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh almost. Don't ask me to spell it. Don't ask me to spell it. Um guys anyway, so um I I just felt that that would be a a a little bit more in interesting, you know, uh for the Western audience, not to lose your rock side. And and I think talk if people know Innis Creed's music, I think you know uh trat and songs like that, they really did mix it quite well. I don't know what your view on that is, Uday, but um I think you did really good job at it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, I have no regrets. I think it was one of the best decisions we ever took, and probably the only good suggestion you ever gave us.

SPEAKER_02:

I was gonna say it's sign of a good sign of a good manager coming up and broadening your perspective because no doubt you were so focused on the music, and as Russell was saying, trying to break the market, embrace the Western audience is a sign of a manager who's had a bit of worldly experience. Um while you while we're on this subject of name change, did you feel in terms of your music, your compositions, you had to change direction to fit better into the name, indiscreet rather than rock machine?

SPEAKER_00:

No, the thing is we'd already started working with different Indian instruments. I mean, we the thing is we didn't want to force fit it in any way, and the things we were actually really resistant to were things like sitar. I mean, as much as I loved, absolutely loved the Beatles growing up, and I loved George Harrison, that had been done before. I mean, it had been done in a very, very specific way, and we didn't want to replicate that. We didn't want to be, it would be strange for an Indian band to wannabe a wannabe uh British musician from the Indian, you know?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00:

So uh so we started to experiment with other instruments. I mean, of course, tabla was an instrument we'd used uh a little before that. Uh he worked with sarangi. Yes, sarangi, it's a string instrument, and yeah, it's a beautiful instrument. Uh there's the the bamboo flute, which we call the basuri. So worked a bit with that. We also tried using the tabla a little differently. So on the song that uh Russell mentioned, trap um we brought on uh a friend of ours who actually he's still based in the UK and he's he's actually principally yeah, Shri Khan, who goes by the name Shri. And he moved to the UK some years later and became part of that whole Asian underground scene that Palvin Singh started and sort of and these guys went forward with that. But Sri also played Basuri, the the flute, and he played tabla, that was the instrument he first learned as a child before he picked up bass guitar. So he came with us to LA when you were to record the album, and we used only one part of the tabla. The tabla is two drums. It's got a little bass drum and the high-pitched uh what we call the charty. So in trap, we used only the bass part, not the high part, to not give it that obvious tabla sound. So we were trying to we were trying to mess around with these things using Indian instruments, but in an unconventional way. We didn't want to just put it, slap it on top, uh over a rock sound and say, Okay, we're in we're Indian, and therefore this is our Indian stamp.

SPEAKER_01:

So we didn't, yeah. I love the the I love the guitar break, uh you know, in that it's uh all credit to your amazing guitarist Srikant. I mean I usually call him an arsehole, but he's such a he's such a good guitarist. I have to have to mention. Um, but that's a great song.

SPEAKER_00:

Who you talk about? You don't want Mahesh, are you? Yeah. Oh you said Shrikant, so I got a little confused.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh sorry, I didn't mean Shrikant. I meant um uh yeah, uh Sheesh. Yeah. Yeah. Um no no no no disrespect to Jaesh, the other guitarist, but I mean, yeah, great great. That's a great guitar break. And I think that for me that defines your change because you still had that real rocky feel. I mean it when it breaks, and you still play that number, I think.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, it's still it's it's one of it's one of the big uh sort of crowd pleasers at the set, you know, the concept.

SPEAKER_02:

So talking of change, how did the touring and the shows change once you've changed your name from rock machine to indiscreet? What was your path?

SPEAKER_00:

So, as I mentioned earlier, the MTV guys were really supportive. So the the name change, as far as the fans were concerned, was was pretty smooth because what they did was we were already getting a fair amount of airplay and we were sending them videos reasonably regularly, and they were good quality videos. We were managing to scrounge money from different sponsors and put all the money into our music videos because record companies didn't and still don't really put money into rock bands making music videos at all. So, but we managed to pull the money together and make this video. So MTV were really they were pretty happy with us. And what they did was at the time that we were uh uh sort of transitioning from uh rock machine to industry before we put out our first video as under the name Industry, all of their VJs, every time they announced uh one of the older videos, they would always make it a point to tell the tell the audience, tell the viewers that this band is it's the same band. And they would they would sort of make that reassurance that it is the same band, they're expanding their sound and they're expanding everything about themselves, and they're going to be called Industre, but don't worry, it's the same band. And by the time we put out the video, the first video under the name Induscreet, people had a pretty good, pretty good idea that this was happening, but not all fans are happy about this and yes, we got a fair amount of email. There's still there's still the odd um pogey who will show up and say, Ah, it was rock machine, it was always rock machine for me, and you guys suck after you change the name when you left school.

SPEAKER_02:

No, you're gonna get that. But MTV Asia was so influential, weren't they, at that time? They were massive across the region. And I remember being on top while doing travel programs, and we ended up with doing some of MTV. Went down to South Africa, and it was a really good collaboration, yeah. Uh so they did more than just music, they brought in uh sort of local context with bands and things. So that was really, really good. What about touring India? I mean, I heard uh on the on the Grapefine some strange uh events happening when you went on tour to Gujarat. For some reason, Russell chickened out, he didn't want to go with you guys. He sent one of his mates along, Ian, who's a good good friend and buddy and worked hard with uh with uh Russell and his team. So I think you played a few tricks on this guy. You wind him up a bit, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Ian Lichfield, real lovely guy, absolutely. So uh Ian uh I think uh Ian wanted breakfast one morning. We were staying in this little hotel, and uh I think he called down for breakfast. Oh no, we we sorry, one of us called the room and said, uh, excuse me, and we deliberately mispronounced the name like a lot of Indians would mispronounce the name Ian and say, uh hello, is this Mr. Ian? Ian Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian, yes, this is Ian. So he said, Oh yes, sir, would you like to order some breakfast tonight? So he said, uh yes, I would love to order some breakfast in there. Uh he says, Do you uh can I order some eggs and bacon? He said, Bacon, that is the pig. You want to eat the pig? You can't eat the pig here at the hotel. And he was oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. And he was really beside himself until we let him in on it finally and stuff. And yeah, we pulled Ian's leg a bunch of times, but he was just a lovely guy.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, because him and him and Sheesh, the uh the guitarist I mentioned before, uh Maesh, they they sort of teamed up together because they were sort of like drinking and they were drinking, but we just leave them to get up to their own mischief together. But uh yeah, he he came back and said, Why did you send me on tour with these guys? They terrorized me from the beginning.

SPEAKER_00:

He was so nice, he was so nice, he was really nice.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, um, tell it, tell us uh going back a little bit, rewinding a little bit, when you first were on the road, it was, I mean, going around India on trains and used to take all your like the drum kit, your back line, you take everything with you. And um, didn't wasn't um uh Mark Selwyn the bass player, didn't he have to take his dog on tour, Scooby-Doo?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so Mark had a fox terrier, and Mark lived Mark and his mum lived together, and and Mark's mother used to organize uh travels and tours for a bunch of well-healed ladies and from South Bombay, and they travel across the world. But usually uh Aunt Claudine was at home taking care of Scooby-Doo, and we went on. I mean, we didn't have a lot of gigs in those days, so it wasn't like we went out very often or for long periods of time, and so most often the calendar was fine, it matched okay. But this was one time where we had a gig and Aunt Claudine was off on tour, and we had no choice but to take Scooby-Doo with us on uh on the train. And unfortunately, we were those were the days when we hadn't even developed enough clout to uh to puts aren't allowed, no, they're not allowed to do that.

SPEAKER_01:

Smuggled the dog on.

SPEAKER_00:

We smuggled Scooby-On and we were in a not even in a in a good compartment, we were in the second class. Uh, it was like a pretty pretty crummy. It probably worked for us actually, because if we'd gone to a nice air conditioned unit, we would have been thrown out right away. But uh and Peter and all animal rights activists, I'm with you. I love animals, I promise you I love them, and we love Scooby-Doo. But we had no choice but to give Scooby a shot of Valium so he could just fall asleep through the entire trip and be tucked under the seat. So Scooby was given little micro doses of Valium and kept asleep so that we wouldn't because if we'd got caught with him, we'd have been thrown off the train somewhere in the middle of India. And it almost actually happened to us once.

SPEAKER_01:

No, but it didn't at four o'clock in the morning, didn't they put you on the platform?

SPEAKER_00:

That was yeah, they almost threw Mark out. That was on a way on the way back from Delhi. So Delhi was Delhi, Delhi was a city that taught us our hardest lessons. Delhi, uh uh you know, it was love-hate relationship, and I gotta love them for teaching us to the truth, the real truth about rock and roll. You got buggered wherever you go, basically. Uh so finish the gig, promoters nowhere to be seen, we haven't been paid, there's no money, there are no tickets to come back. So we jump onto a train without any tickets, or we had we had second-class unreserved tickets, we didn't have reservations, and we had Scooby with us. And Scooby was stopped under the seat again, and he was actually doing fine until somebody in the one of the passengers, co-passengers, he was on wasn't troubling anyone. Maybe this person had a fear of dogs or something, but saw Scooby and reported us to the ticket collector, the train conductor, uh, who, as it turned out, we were very surprised. Seemed to be the most incorruptible uh government official in the country because he refused to take any money, which is unheard of in India. You found the one guy. We found the one guy until we realized, well, he was he was about to throw uh Mark and Scooby off in them somewhere in the middle of Gujarat on the way uh on our way back to Bombay. And until we figured out there's no such thing as a person who is completely uncorruptible, it's just always the right price. It's all about you've got to make it to the right price. And that was another wonderful learning uh experience for us.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, talk about touring sorry, carry on.

SPEAKER_00:

No, that's that's fine.

SPEAKER_02:

I was gonna say, talk about touring uh by train. We were talking the other time on a previous podcast about touring and getting uh huge volumes of equipment behind the iron curtain by taking them on board a couple of massive Russian aircraft. So I think we ought to get some boats next, uh Russ, because then we'll have trains, planes, and boats to complete the sequence. But sounds like you had a lot of fun you day when you were touring, and uh you you did a tour with they went to Russia as well.

unknown:

Really?

SPEAKER_00:

It was still the USSR. It was uh 1988 and and sort of pedestroika was just about just about taking place. And uh it was called the Festival of India and the USSR. So the Indian government used to do these exchanges with with different countries, especially Soviet things, and they'd have like a festival of USSR in India with all kinds of folk dances and all kinds of things. So usually what the government of India would do was send fundamentally classical and and traditional folk music and art and dance from India. But this year, at this period of time, was we had a prime minister called Rajiv Gandhi, who was the son of the famous uh Indra Gandhi. Excuse me. And Rajiv Gandhi wanted to promote India as a country that was much wider, much vaster, and more expansive than just its tradition. Yes, of course, we have this incredibly rich heritage of folk and classical culture, but we also have rock bands and pop bands and jazz bands and stuff like that. So, next thing we knew, we were on a on an aeroflot plane uh on our way to Moscow. We were served caveat on the plane, I kid you not, man. It was great. And um, so yeah, we played the USSR to very bewildered Russian audiences because they wondered what the fuck was going on over here. They were not expecting us, but it was great.

SPEAKER_02:

Did you call it? Did you call it the Goralan Gantor or was that somewhere else?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, well, that was that was a few years later. That was when uh our in-house Goral Al Gun, and I'll explain that. Russell Mason, who is now our manager. So we we're cutting a little forward now because you mentioned uh the tour. Absolutely. So Russell is now is Russell is now our manager and has organized a tour of the UK. Uh uh, I can't even remember half the places we went to. Was it Waltham store? Womad festival. Womad, yes, Womad.

SPEAKER_01:

Peter Gabriel's festival, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so it was it was it was it was the Womad Festival and it did a bunch of club dates after that. But anyway, we had no idea. So the word gora, gora in Hindi means fair or white, usually fair, which is a term that is used for white-skinned people in India. I mean Goras, they call Goras. A friend of mine, or rather, a friend of my brothers from uh from college took it a notch higher because he noticed that all the goras that came to India when they went out sunbathing, they would develop, of course, this this hue of this rose hue all across their body. And uh he started calling them lal guns, which means red bum. Lal means red. Gand is a slang term for bum. So he would call them lalguns, and so we would refer to uh Russell as Lal Gand and Gora Lal Gand. That was our little in-house thing. That was our in-house thing. But we arrived in the UK. Well, so this is how we discover, right? So we had no idea what Russell was brewing. We show up in the UK, he's meeting us from the Middle East, from Dubai, and he he presents to us in the UK, in England, a stacked batch of t-shirts that we're gonna be selling at our gigs, and it says, kick the Gora Lal Gang tour. And we were like, Russell, what the fuck are you doing? Brilliant. If the locals, if the locals find out what this means, the Asians are fine, but if the non-Asians realize what this means, they're gonna get beaten up on stage.

SPEAKER_03:

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_00:

So that was the yeah, he was uh he was the instigator, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, a few tricks up his sleeves, yeah, no doubt. Yeah, so um, yeah, okay, lots to talk about. MTV awards and uh touring with big bands. Give us some idea of the bands you've performed with.

SPEAKER_00:

So the the the first big band we opened for was Europe. Uh funnily, I but I should add that we opened for Europe again uh earlier this year, 40 years later, that was 1985. So this is literally 40 years later.

SPEAKER_01:

It definitely is final count town.

SPEAKER_02:

Very good, Russ. Very good. Very good.

SPEAKER_00:

And this is in some in some Podang town in Assam. We opened for them recently, which is which is interesting. And we finally got to meet them. They were nice guys, really, especially the keyboard player, really nice chap. So anyway, we were opening for um Europe. We opened for in 1985 in Bombay. Uh, we opened for Bon Jovi a few years later, also in Bombay. Those are, I mean, we played with some really big audiences then. Uh, not treated not very well by both those bands road crews.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you remember Bon Jovi? I I got a call in my office in Dubai because that was another one that I slipped out of, Phil, being the you know, dedicated manager that I was. Um got a call from the stage in Mumbai or Bombay as it was then, and they're saying, This tour manager, they're not letting us do a sound check. I said, What's Guy's name, he said, Well, is this this British guy? Uh Bon Jovi's tour manager. I said, What's his name? He said, Oh, it's Dave Davis. I was like, and actually, Phil, this Dave Davis came, he used to be the guitar tech for George Michael when I worked with George Michael. Oh, right.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Is this the guy you were talking about in your podcast with uh Steve and Steven? Stephen.

SPEAKER_02:

We've got a listener to the podcast.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

There you go.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, he sent me the he he sent me the link, so I couldn't. Yeah, so um uh I got this call and they said wonder so is it Dave Davis? I know Dave Davis, put him on the phone. So we put him on the phone and was like, Come on, Dave, what's going on? I manage this band. He said, Really? He said, Oh, and then he started saying, Oh, well, you know, every you know, all support bands deserve a sound check. Anyway, they got their sound check, I think, in the end. But it's uh it was just one of those coincidences. Anyway, I stopped you there because uh that suddenly came across the now.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, so those are those are the big bands we opened for in the early days. Uh a few years ago, we opened for Santana in uh in in Bangalore. That was really great. Yeah. And and what a difference. So here's something I I learned something really, really beautiful from Santana and his crew, really. Actually, we didn't get to meet uh Carlos Santana himself, though he did come on stage during our set and was because I was saying something about him to the audience. And I mean, I grew up on we all grew up on his music, and he was really gracious, apparently, standing behind in the wings. But even when we got to the venue for sound check and stuff, I mean we were having trouble with uh one of the amps, and uh their sound guys came and they insisted on coming and helping and helping us sort it out, and then we start our sound check, and I noticed there's there's a white guy standing next to our sound engineer uh at the foh desk listening to us, and we were playing one of our songs, Fireflies. And uh anyway, we played, you do our sound check. This guy, I see him come backstage, and it turns out he's uh Santana's bass player who's also played with Miles Davis and who knows who else, Benny Reiedfeld. Such a nice guy, and he I mean he's he was he he loved this, he loved our sound, he loved the song, and he was really genuine. He wasn't saying it for the sake of being a nice guy, and that was the entire the entire Santana crew were exactly like that. They were really gracious, they were really nice, and I I learned from that that it starts from the top down, it's it's all the entire the entire energy, the attitude of the people in the crew is inherited from the top down. And Carlos Santana, man, what a beautiful human being. And uh more power to him for for for showing his people how to be.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, um how did how how did the um the slash uh guns and roses he came and played with you? Well, what was that all about?

SPEAKER_00:

So that was when so that was when MTV India was get developing their own well, mtv was breaking up their footprints from the this global Asia one to individual country-based footprints, and they were launching MTV India at that time, and they were doing it in Bangalore, and for that, they were gonna fly down Slash to come and give away a guitar, a less form, of course. And uh and they wanted him to play with the band, and we were the band that we're gonna be playing for the launch. And they said, Do you mind if Slash comes and plays a few tunes with you guys? I said, sure, of course, yeah, come on, dude. It's rock and roll, man. So uh he shows up at um he shows up at sound check at night, and it's it's fun because there's somebody following him. Now I know people say that you know you make up stories and rock and roll is filled with all kinds of true stories and many made up ones. This is true. He was followed by a guy with a six-pack of Heineken wherever he went that was there on call, available to him wherever he went.

SPEAKER_03:

I wasn't no, she should have drunk it all.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh so, anyways, so he shows up for sound check and play, and uh he's a really nice guy. I mean, he was really nice, also very, very nice. The first thing he comes up to me and says, Look, I know this is your gig, and I don't want to step on anybody's doors. And I was like, No, man, come on, you're really really happy to have you on stage and playing with us. And uh, we'd worked out a couple of songs that his management had uh sent in advance in terms of tunes that we could both one was uh uh Under My Wheels by Alice Cooper, and uh I think the other one was Come Together by the Beatles. So he came on stage and we we did a sound check, and he was loud, man. He turned that amp on really loud. Great sound check went off really well. Next day is the gig gigs happening. Slash comes on stage, he's really loud, he's playing, people are loving him. He's pretty smashed. I mean, he's he's he's he's knocked back quite a few of those uh six packs that were following him around, and he breaks a string, and this is where it gets really funny. So I don't know who set up his guitar, but the way it had been set up, the cable had been wound around some really peculiar way. And so our Rodi, who was helping Slash, and Slash, who's kind of in his in his own space, now needs to get the guitar off his just just get take it off. And they spent a good five seven minutes just taking the guitar off him because they couldn't figure out what was going on. So yeah, but I mean the audience didn't care. We just kept playing, just kept holding down the groove until they made that switch. He came back on, blasted everybody away, and it was it was great, it was great fun. And he was he was really nice, actually.

SPEAKER_01:

I I must say something, and I hope I hope Sheesh does listen to this because I I do genuinely, I do genuinely believe this. And when I heard that hit that Slash had played with you guys, I thought immediately of Maesh. And uh Maesh is a sensational guitarist. I that was the one thing he really is, and maybe you I know you've played with him for a long time and we tease him, and you know, he is what he is, but um, he is a sensational guitarist, and I always wondered what Slash thought of him.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, someone's gonna have to call him and find out, though I don't think Slash would have much of a memory of anything.

SPEAKER_01:

But because I know I know Slash was a bit of a hero of of uh most guitarists, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think he probably I mean they were very comfortable together on stage, so I'm sure he just sort of appreciated Malesh for who he was and how he played. I mean, there was there was no there was no one-upmanship taking place, and it was just a really good vibe on stage. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I've totally I've totally lost my way. Um well, I haven't.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm I'm on track, I'm on track, so don't worry. Yeah, and talking of Slash, um I started my broadcasting career with BBC Radio Snoop when I went to that part of uh the Midlands for study, hometown of Slash, would you believe it? And my so-called manager in Dubai, remember Howard? Fuzzy Ellen, a bit like Mika. Well, his wife is the her sister was a brother to Slash. So what connections? Oh, amazing. There we go. There we go. Anyway, that's digressing a bit. And talking of uh bands like Santana and Slash, I've just been reading a book by a lady called Tana Douglas, was a first female roadie, and in her book, Amazing Read, it's called Loud, so well worth uh reading, talking about all the different bands she worked with. Started with, she's from Australia, started with ACDC, worked your way through so many bands, including The Who, and uh Santana's mentioned quite often, and she refers to them in very much the same way as you did. So if you've got a bit of spare time, I'm gonna plug the book. I get no benefit from this, but Loud by Tana Douglas. Great for anyone involved in production, rock and roll, and rock. So we're gonna move on now. So after you've mentioned all those names, those big names of like Slash and the Reddit's bands, you decided to put that behind you and go off to uh to the States. Why?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I pretty much I got sick of living in India, I got sick of living in Bombay, really, and I'd kind of uh my my relationship with Bombay took a hit when in 1993 there was this communal turmoil that took place, there were Hindu-Muslim battles taking place, and there was all kinds of shit going down in the country. And uh I suddenly saw this city that I had always known to be an extremely inclusive, non-judgmental, very tolerant city, rare and ugly head that I did not know existed. And it was horrible. So '93, I saw a lot of. I mean, we would read about uh Muslims being targeted in the city and being attacked. So my disenchantment with Bombay started then. The music industry in India also had started to shift in ways that I was not happy with. None of us were happy with in the band. And there was a lot of pressure to make Hindi pop or Hindi rock, and it wasn't merely about changing the language, they were trying to alter the kind of sound that we were we were putting out, and we were we were kind of losing interest in it all. So I had lost, I was losing my mojo pretty much by the mid-90s. Uh mid-yeah, and by '97, we decided in the band not to break up. We never really broke up, but we just decided to stop playing. And uh I decided at that point that I needed a cultural shot in the arm, and I wasn't going to get it anywhere in India. So there were two places I could think of where I could sink myself in and just soak in the culture, music, theater, film, everything. One is either it was either London or New York. And New York became the less difficult place to go to. So I pretty much left Bombay because I was I was uh I was feeling lost in it and I didn't want to be be there anymore. So then the other guitar player, Jayesh, uh, who Russell mentioned, Jaesh, when I mentioned to the guys in the band that okay, I'm done since we've stopped playing anyway, I'm gonna leave the country now. And hope to catch you guys again at some point. And then when Jaish decided I was rather discovered I was going to be moving to the US, uh, he said, I'll move with you because I already have a green card. Let's start a band there. And that's what we did. So Jaish and I moved to the US. Yeah, we moved to New York, and uh we had we had a great time for the few years that we played there. We had a really good time. Uh, we had a Japanese bass player, um, an American drummer, a tabla player from from Pune in India, who we had who we'd never met before, and uh an Israeli-American keyboard player, and we just had a great incredible time playing the clubs of New York and stuff, and it was it was what I needed.

SPEAKER_01:

Was it Shanti?

SPEAKER_00:

Arms for Shanti was that arms for Shanti that was arms for Shanti, that's right. Arms with an L.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, okay, okay, so uh a truly international band by the sign of it. And uh, how did things progress from that point onwards?

SPEAKER_00:

So it was fun, it was it was great fun playing the clubs. I mean, we we were going down pretty well, but there's only so far you can go as a band playing uh you know rock and funk with Indian stuff thrown into it, and I started to lose my mojo again. I well, it it the music wasn't going anywhere anywhere in exciting to me, and I started to get really interested in film for some reason. I was watching a lot of world cinema and independent cinema, and the US is just great for things that are actually, even though America is known for being this exporter of all crass commercial mainstream shit, it's a treasure trove for all the stuff that lies beneath. Everything under the radar of the big mainstream stuff is there waiting to be picked. So I would be out there watching uh international cinema, American independent cinema in rays that were getting me really excited. So I decided to jump into film. I did a little course in filmmaking, I did a brief course in cinematography, I made a short, uh very short four-minute uh movie, and I started to write movie scripts, both of which were based in India. One was too dark and didn't get any traction, and the other one, which was uh the film I did not want to write, it was about a fictional, fictional rock band in India in the pre the pre-internet days. It's kind of like Spinal Tap, uh, but in the third world. Okay, okay. When we were in India, when I was still living in India, it was the first time I saw the movie, this is Spinal Tap. It showed up on the Star TV network. I was like, ah man, I've heard of this movie, I've never seen it before. And I start to watch the movie, and as I'm watching the film, mind you, Russell's already our manager at that point, and I'm watching this the band's manager going, there's no sex or drugs for me, it's all hard work, all I do is work really hard. It's Russell, it's Russell in the Russell in the movie.

SPEAKER_02:

So, what's what's the name of your four-minute version of Spinal Tap, Indian style?

SPEAKER_00:

What's it called? The movie that the movie that never got made was called World Famous, World Famous in India. Okay, it's uh yeah, it's kind of like a it was a term that I that we would use in uh in in school. It's kind of like a a come down, a knock you down. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You you you also were doing writing as well. I mean, you wrote for The Village Voice. That's a serious journal.

SPEAKER_02:

It certainly is, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Well, I was doing, yeah, I did some book reviews and some film a couple of film reviews, some book reviews, some some few music reviews. I wasn't, I didn't like their music review music department as much. But yeah, I did some writing for the village voice, I did copy editing for them and for the entertainment weekly. I was also writing a column, a weekly column for a newspaper in India, a paper in Bombay called Midday. So that was that was fun. Yeah, I've enjoyed writing over the years.

SPEAKER_02:

I did a bit of writing. I was world famous in Dubai for the Khalis Times. There you go.

SPEAKER_00:

So so anyway, so I did the whole film thing, and this this movie actually, World Famous in India, actually got started get traction in my from a studio in in Bombay. It was Fox, Fox Film in India, was very interested in making the film, and I'd got an independent producer to help me shepherd it through. And her thing to me was look, if you want to make this film, you've got to move here because you keep running back to New York and we lose all the work that we all the momentum we gain peters off every time you go back, and we've got to start from scratch each time you come back. So I moved back to Bombay and uh I hit the shores of India in September of 2008, the beginning of the economic recession, or rather the the the thick of it. And uh Fox at that time has been given uh intimation by the parent company in LA that only big budget Bollywood movies are to be entertained, nothing independent, nothing small, and that was that. And so I just got back to making music again. I'd I had put together an acoustic band just for fun of it at that point called Whirling Kalapas. And when the film finally went, I mean, wasn't going to happen at all, I put Indiscreed back together again. And in some weird way, I mean uh I I live in uh Woo-woo land half the time. So uh I accord a lot of a lot of my life to sort of the inevitability of the dots. When I look back and I connect the dots, I realize that the dots were always meant to bring me back here because the mojo that I was losing in the US with the music and stuff, and which I thought I would get through film, which I later realized I was not cut out for at all. Thank God the movie never got made. I would have been a disaster as a director. I can't work that hard, very honestly. So uh it it brought me back to the music in a way that got my spirits going in an incredible way. Because when we brought Indiscreet back together, it was with a sort of semi-new lineup. So three of us were original members, the keyboard player, Zubin Bala Porea, the guitar player, Mahesh Tanaikal, whom Russell's been talking about, and I uh are the original members from the earliest days. And the other guys had moved on to different parts of the world or different professions, and they were like, Yeah, you can use the name indiscreet, just don't produce any fucked up music. That's all. Do it well, you know, you use the name well. So we got a couple of young lads in, a good 20 years younger than us, a bass player and a drummer, and they came in with their influences and their whole reference points were completely new, and it just blew the sky open for us because I was having the most fun I'd ever had in my life. Yeah, I mean, for at least for a long time, and yeah, so that's how I came back into uh from New York back to India.

SPEAKER_02:

And you answered my question now, you lost your mojo twice, not once, but twice. So you found your mojo again with the the flesh of the fresh blood coming into the band, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right.

SPEAKER_02:

How did that progress?

SPEAKER_00:

So that progressed very well, actually, because uh at this point, I kind of a bunch of us used to write the songs in the earlier incarnation of the band, and by now some of the other co-writers were gone. Uh, the bass player who was the founder of the band, actually, Mark Selvin, he'd sort of hung up his bass and moved on to other things. And so I became the main songwriter. So it was interesting for me because I mean I loved it. I loved it. So I had a I had a I had a sound I was looking for, and it was really being upped by these two young musicians, a drummer called J. Rao Kavi, who is currently one of the hottest. I mean, in my opinion, he is the finest rock drummer in the country. He's since moved on into Bollywood because Bollywood is really where the money is at, and he gets paid really well doing that. But he and I really close friends, and a bass player called Rushad Mistri, when they came in, they started to bring in all this energy and these ideas that were just really pumping up the music. So we in the meantime, we put together an album, we recorded an album in uh in Bombay. Mind you, this is uh the first time we were we were able to record live drums in India. I'll do a little bit of an aside. The first times we ever recorded live drums in the studio was thanks to uh Russell tying us up with a studio in LA when we went, that was in '94. Was it '93 or '94? '93 or 95, I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

94. And Russell hooked us up with uh with a studio and and uh and a producer in LA. And that was the first time we recorded live drums because the studios in Bombay prior to that were just not equipped to do that. So the first two albums were all recorded were recorded with drum machines. The first one with a really old Lin drum, and the second one was with a Yamaha RX7 uh drum machine. So now, cut to many years later, we've moved back to Bombay, and the studios are well equipped to record drums really well. So we record our album, and um we don't know who's gonna mix it. At this point, um, an album we were listening to a lot, a band we were listening to a lot, and particularly an album that I love, uh, is a British progressive rock band called Porcupine Tree. And the album's called In Absentia. And I hadn't heard I hadn't heard the album until then, and it became my favorite sounding album. I I mean I loved the band and their songs, but just the sonic quality of that album was was I mean, it it spoke to me in in every possible way. So I said, okay, I'm gonna look up who this mix engineer is, and I get onto um onto the internet, I go to Wikipedia, and it's a guy called Tim Palmer, and I scroll down, I see that Tim Palmer is not only mixed um in Absentia by Porcupine Tree, but he produced uh the Tears for Fairs album Roud and the Kings of Spain. Yeah, which at the time was my favorite sounding album. I mean, I love the album for the songs, but again the sound, and I said, Wow, this guy sounds like we should reach out to him, and then I go through his bio and I see okay, he's mixed Pearl Jam 10, and he's worked with Mark Knopfler and Ozzy Osborne, and I'm like, Oh wow, yeah. I think I think we're sort of getting out of our league here. So I go to Zubin, the keyboard player, because Zubin and I would talk production stuff uh all the time. And I said, Okay, the guy's name is Tim Palmer, but these are his credentials and this is his background, and these are the people he's worked with. Clearly, we won't be able to afford him. And uh Zubin very correctly said, Well, you know what, the one thing that's free, and I said, What? I said, email. Just email him and see what he says. I said, Good idea. So I got his email, I sent him an email, told him where this independent band, rock band from India, and we love his stuff, and this other kind of stuff. I mean, I I spoke to him about, I mean, I wrote to him about why I loved his stuff so much. So he knew that he was really serious about who he was. Okay. And he was incredibly, he wrote back within the day. I mean, in this almost the same day, I got an email back from him saying, I went online, I checked out your stuff, I find you guys really interesting. I'd like to work with you. I understand that you you don't have this, you don't have the same kind of money that a band in the West would have. He said, but he said, as serendipity would have it, I don't I've moved from LA where I used to work in a big recording studio and work only with major labels, pretty much. He's saying, I've now moved to Austin, I've set up my own facility, and uh, you let me know what you can afford. It's got to be something reasonable. And uh let's see if we can work it out. So we sent him a figure that was actually beyond our means, but just beyond our means. We'd have to pull out some money from somewhere, yeah. But figure we figured would be anything less than that would be an ins would be an insult to him. So he wrote back saying, Yes, I'm on. As long as you guys are okay with the fact that um I will mix it when I can because I've got other stuff going on, and I'll send you the mixes as soon as I can. He said, Cool at your own pace. Um his pace was pretty quick because we we sent him all the masters, we coded him the hard drives and stuff. And the first two songs we sent him, he sent back the mixes, and uh we were so blown away because he got it right away. What is really good, Zubin actually, yeah. Zubin made a really good suggestion to me. He was saying, Why don't you write songwriters' notes explaining at least the thought behind, don't expect to explain the song, but the thought behind the songs, so he gets an idea of what the songs are about on a sonic level, emotionally at least. And he got it right off the bat, and and his mixes were just absolutely fantastic. So in 2012, we put out our fourth album called uh uh Evolve, and it was mixed by uh this Grammy winning uh or Grammy nominated mix engineer Tim Palmer, who was just a joy to work with because he was phenomenal.

SPEAKER_02:

As you say, it sounds like serendipity and what he did with Tears for Spheres on the album you mentioned. It was a big departure for the band. It was a big move from the sort of normal sort of top 20 pop stuff. Yeah, it was a good good Sonic album.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you're a fantastic pair of yours, that man, really.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01:

I I I actually wasn't aware that um uh that you'd you'd work with him. Um just uh something that we missed, and I would like to just rewind again a little bit if you if you permit me, Yoday, is rewind, rewind.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll see a producer here. Yeah, okay, go on. Keep it, keep it snappy.

SPEAKER_01:

It's uh it it's the MTV Award, which was at its time was incredible, really. The the awards themselves they would win uh yeah, the MTV the MTV Award for a for a black and white video that cost ten thousand dollars, I think, to make, and you won Best International Video along, and and we all went to LA. Um, I went for a day. Um I I've uh it took me a day to get there, a day there, and a day to come back to Dubai. But um uh you you guys, you know, there was Aerosmith, there was there was just everybody performed at that that uh there was Neil Young at Bull Jam, yeah. Oh, it was amazing.

SPEAKER_02:

How did you feel? Your experience with being with that mix of megastars.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean, it it just felt great to well. The thing is, to be honest, the international acts aren't on the main stage with the big acts. I mean, people should know this. So uh, but to be out there in that room with all these guys and watching those bands was phenomenal. Uh, and it was fun, you know. Very honestly, I don't I personally don't take awards seriously. I see the value in awards for me. An award is great because you can put it on your resume so that you can get you can continue to do the work that you love to do or continue to create the stuff that you love.

SPEAKER_01:

That was recognition of a great song and a great video, really.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, it was it was lovely. I mean, it was lovely. I try not to get lost in in the drama of all the you know, because too many people fall into that. I have been awarded and therefore I am great, and I all of us in the band try not to get sucked into that stuff, yeah. So, but yeah, but yes, of course, it is exciting. I mean, to be to be the one band from Asia really that is chosen to get out there and uh get a moon man and all that stuff was of course it's it's fantastic, it feels really, really good. It's really good.

SPEAKER_01:

Um while while we're in that era, and we'll move we'll move fast forward again a minute, Phil. But um what I remember from the times working with with you guys, it was incredibly enjoyable. And I really thank you all for that. But what I uh what I felt privileged being being a part of that was you you welcomed me into what was like a family. You used to, you're not only a band, but used to hang out together as if going on tour and being under these incredible pressurized situations, which you get yourself in. The last thing that most bands want to do is hang out with each other. But you, the wives, the girlfriends, the everybody uh we you we always used to go out and eat together. And every time I came to Bombay, it was just fantastic. And uh that was that was something very special. I I mean I'd worked with a lot of bands, a lot of bands by then, by the time I met you. I toured with a lot of bands, but I never ever felt that sort of it was a totally non-pretentious camaraderie that that that I was really uh thankful that you allowed me to enter into. And and I do think of those days with with incredible fondness. And like I say, it was the best$50,000 I ever lost.

SPEAKER_02:

I think for the manager, that's quite an accolade.

SPEAKER_01:

Three and a half years of abuse, which was just glorious.

SPEAKER_02:

And um the years or the abuse, do you mean? Do you mean the abuse was glorious or the years were glorious?

SPEAKER_01:

The abuse my god was was just the memories are great, you know, in a sort of complex way. It's fun.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, it's totally our pleasure, Russell. And I'm I'm happy, I'm I'm really happy to hear that you felt that way because you were family for us. And as far as we were concerned, you were part of us, and yeah, I mean that's how it was meant to be. I'm I'm glad it felt that way too.

SPEAKER_02:

It didn't do. Yeah, so there's a couple of sort of standard things we ask our guests on on our podcast, and it's always a pleasure having conversations like this and insights. I mean, I'm an outsider, not part of the family, unfortunately, but some amazing insights.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh it's never too never too late, Phil.

SPEAKER_02:

It's never too late. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh, yeah, we're gonna catch up on the tour sometime a gig. Um talking of that. So a couple of things, really. What's the future for you, first of all?

SPEAKER_00:

Ah, well, the future. Well, the future is who knows? Musically, musically. I can tell you, I can tell you what the right now is for me, which will influence the near future. Is uh I've recently started, and this is this is gonna come as uh news to Russell because I haven't mentioned it, but I was gonna mention it to you, Russell, because I was gonna send you the songs when they're ready. But I've started recording my own solo stuff this year uh for the first time, really. Wow, it's very different, very, very different from the indiscreet stuff. As much as I love getting up on stage with a heavy band, I still love it. I love getting out, getting up and cranking them out. I've always really enjoyed the mellow side of music, the really soft side. And uh this is what I'm doing. So, my the stuff that I'm writing now is much gentler, it's much quieter. I'm working with a whole new bunch of people, all young ones in their 20s. And uh I've given it up, Russell. You'll find this interesting. I've given it up to a to a young producer, a young woman in in Bombay, who also owns a really, really great recording studio in Bombay. She's a part owner, and she's a wonderful young musician. She plays and sings beautifully, but she's got a really beautiful, uh, really great ear for sound and a fantastic work ethic. So when I heard some of the stuff that she'd done, and I was kind of toying with the idea of writing my own stuff, but I didn't want to produce my own stuff because I'm in that stage of my life where I want to break all patterns, all habits and all patterns. And certainly with the music, I want to break the patterns because I want to explore I mean things that are that go beyond my natural instinct, my normal instinct. So I said, I'm gonna give up control, and I asked her, her name is Arya Nanji, and I said, Would you like to produce my stuff? And she said she'd be very happy to. So we've been we've actually tracked four songs, it'll probably be an EP, and we've tracked four songs, they'll be going for a mix pretty soon, and uh that's my near future.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'll is it something you you can um play acoustically?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, and I I think you have to come and play in my jazz club then just me or what or would you want a couple of I mean it's it's it really sounds good with we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_02:

We'll do a live session. Let's do a live session on uh on a podcast, you know, acoustic. Yeah, we'll think about that Russell.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll come and do the teaser so that we can then bring on bring in the band because as I was telling as I was telling them recently, I said pardon my terminology, but hearing so hearing three of them the uh the keyboard player, the guitar player, and the producer. Who also plays guitar. When they were doing the backing vocals for me, I was like, man, I know the sounds a little creepy coming from a 50-something guy to 20-something people. But this is my wet dream coming alive because I would want, I've been dreaming about these harmonies my entire life. I love my rock machine indiscreet buddies, but they're not backing singers. I mean, Zoom does a great job. He works very hard at it, but they're not backing singers. And I'm working with a group of musicians which have the most beautiful voices. So yeah, we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_02:

And you've introduced a new theme here on our podcast series. I think it's the first wet dream it's been mentioned on our podcast series today. So put that on the list for future podcasts.

SPEAKER_00:

All right.

SPEAKER_02:

And the other thing we'd like to ask people, maybe Russell, you it was your turn.

SPEAKER_01:

I think, yeah, looking back, what what do you think? You know, if you look, if you look back, what do you think is you would say you feel most proud about? What what do you feel personally is your your proudest moment? Because uh I think people will gather who don't know you are listening to this podcast, is that you are a serious musician and you you have us had a serious career, and India has a serious scene. Um forget the international stuff. But what what do you think is your proudest moment, really?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I can say the thing that we're really the happiest about, and I won't say we can't take all the credit for it, but we certainly uh I might as well acknowledge we played a very big role in it was uh changing the minds of the listening audience, especially the rock music, the rock listening audience in India, from demanding cover tunes of bands. Because when we started out, every band you could not get on stage unless you were playing covers, famous covers by Western rock bands. Yeah, well, exactly that and a whole bunch. And we we really struggled to get our own songs in, and we would those in those days, the days before the internet, we were able to fool the audience very easily because people thought the band on stage has inside info onto new as far as new releases in the West are concerned. So we'd say, Okay, this next song is an is a new song by Def Leopard that hasn't been released yet and stuff, and we'd play one of our tunes because if we because if we told them it was one of our songs, they'd be like, you know, fingers up in the air to put the bird in the booth.

SPEAKER_02:

Brilliant, brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

SPEAKER_00:

By the third or fourth time we said that, the the audience was in on the joke, and and by then they said, We like your music, go ahead and play your own stuff. And I think what happened was so by the time I come, so we I mean we were one of the earliest bands, if not the only rock band to put out our own original stuff at the time. And by the time I come back to India uh in 2010, I mean when I start playing again in 2010, bands today in India, indie bands today, are expected to play their own stuff. Sure, there are cover bands, but the cover bands are doing corporate shows and little club things on the side, weddings and stuff. But if you're playing a festival, if you're playing a good festival, you better be playing your own shit, which was unheard of then. And I think the role we played in changing that mindset for me is the most satisfying.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, excellent, excellent, indeed, indeed.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh last thing for me, Phil, before you sign off, because we come sadly, we come to an end. Uh Uday, we can talk with all our guests. I mean, I must say, all our guests, we've just been so knocked out by you know the stories they've had, and and it's a bit of self-indulgence because you know we're of a certain age and you know, you become nostalgic and everything. But um, before before you go, I just this is another funny uh coincidence. Is are you still living in my ex-employee's house? Uh a guy who worked for me in Qatar, uh Rohan, he's from Goa, and he said, Oh, this guy's uh rented my house. He used to be in a band. I said, Oh, what's his name? He said, Oh, Uday Benigal.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh no, I was oh no, no, no. I was going, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to rent his place. I was about to rent his place, but it didn't finally happen. I I stayed where I was. Oh, yeah, yeah, I forgot about that. What a crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That was a crazy.

SPEAKER_02:

I digress, Phil. You digress. You digressed indeed. Well, I think you sort of mentioned earlier World Famous in India is something that's much more than world famous in India, and even more so after this podcast gets out around the globe. Well, you know, anyway, it's been brilliant talking to you, finding out a lot more about uh your career, what you've been up to, tricks on the road, industry had the pleasure of seeing on stage for that powerboat racing in the studio in Dubai. So it's really good to uh catch up after so many, many years. Russell, thanks for uh organizing this one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and great, great. Yeah, happy to be here. Yeah, great talking to both of you.

SPEAKER_01:

And say hi to all the all the guys, and uh uh you can see me in Goa um at the end of this month. I have some some business that I need to attend to, but I'll let you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, let me know. Yeah, absolutely. Look forward to that, man. Yeah, yeah, good.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, we're definitely yeah, take a day.

SPEAKER_00:

Enjoy chatting with you guys. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks very much for joining us. I'm a fan, I'm a fan, and uh so far we have people involved with uh rock music from being on stage or producing shows. Our next one is something with a bit of a departure when I can perhaps link, uh, have a closer affinity because we'll be talking to a couple of rock fans, indeed, joining us talking about uh bands they first saw, bands along the way, bands they sing now 40 years down the road, or whatever. So that's gonna be our next episode of It's Only Rock and Roll. And we love it.

unknown:

Goodbye.

SPEAKER_02:

Available on Apple, Amazon, engani, Spotify, Deezer, Google, and all good podcast channels, and also now on YouTube. And if you would like to have a podcast production for your organization, do come in touch with me. Drop me an email, fillblizzardmedia at gmail.com or Phil Blizzard Radio Production.