Formed in 1990 in New Delhi, Indian Ocean are largely given the credit for paving the way for fusion rock genre in India.Catching them before they start preparations for another show, Indian Ocean talked to Republica’s Pramila Rai as they expressed their desire to visit Nepal again and do an outdoor concert. They also hinted at a possibility of collaboration with local bands.[break]
What made you want to play for your audiences in Nepal now? And were you satisfied with the response of your audience here?
We didn’t come here expecting anything, but the reaction that we got was fantastic. We’ve always wanted to perform in Nepal. In fact, we had been thinking of coming here. We had talks with The Indian Cultural Centre and Jazzmandu a few years ago but it’s only now that we finally managed to fix things.
We had a vague sense of the listeners we might have here, but it wasn’t anything concrete. We certainly didn’t expect it to be like this. It’s great that things fell into place and we’re here. It’s nice that people enjoyed the concert, but frankly, we think we didn’t perform very well. There were some technical glitches. The concert that we did in Pokhara was better.
How would you explain your music style or genre?
We don’t explain our style. You do. We can’t really put the music we make into any category or genre. Sometimes we’re invited for a Rock Fest, and we also get invitations to perform at Jazz concerts. So we can’t single out any one genre for our music. We have Rock, Jazz, Folk, fusion, it’s like we have a little bit of everything. If we tell you that our music is of so and so genre, you’ll come expecting that genre but find that it’s actually different.
A listener can listen to Rock music, Sufi, Pop and Jazz and can slip effortlessly from one type of music to another. It’s an effortless transition for the listener. And that’s the way it’s with the music we make. We don’t find it difficult to play our music because it’s like listening to the various kinds of music in the world. And we like putting together all these different flavors to form our music.
Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Everything inspires us. Once you reach a particular age, you see inspiration in anything. When we’re making music, we may suddenly remember something we saw somewhere and incorporate that into our music. Inspiration is unlimited for us.
Related story
Unlimited Saturdays Unlimited Fun at Soaltee
