We caught up with thrash veteran’s SCEPTRE to talk about their recent single and new band members.

Greetings!!! What has been going on in Sceptre camp?
Hello…how are u guys? well, Sceptre’s on a little break right now. I’m going to Switzerland for a family vacation and the other guys in the band are occupied with their own work and stuff. But overall, it’s all hunkydory!

You guys have been around for more than a decade, but could you please tell us about the origins of the band to our new readers.
Sceptre was formed in December 1998. Our very first gig was merely 20 days after we were formed at Mood Indigo, Powai. Our main aim was to keep ‘thrash’ alive and kicking, even though everyone around us was getting into nu-age.

You recently released a single ‘Lest We Forget’. Tell us something about it
Ahh yes…that’s a very very special song for the band. When you listen to the songs on our debut album and then when you listen to ‘Lest we Forget’, it’s a quantum leap that we had taken. I mean, at this point in time, we had to decide what route to opt for and we decided to take a different route. We composed this song purely to give our fans something different, while still maintaing our thrash roots.

Are you working on a follow up album ‘Now or Never’? Details please.
We are thinking of releasing an E.P. very soon, but it did cross our minds that an album would be even better. But we’re still to reach a decision yet. When that happens, we’ll make it public.

Sceptre went through some lineup changes with recent departure of Teemeer. How did you recruit Sanju and  Samron?
Teemeer’s departure was tough on all of us. 11 years man…but you gotta do what you gotta do, right? It was my moral duty to keep this band alive. That’s when we decided to hunt for a separate vocalist and a lead guitarist, thus going five-piece. We auditioned Samron for around 7-8 times before we were dead sure he’s the right frontman for the band. Around the same time we had Shezaan Shaikh handling the leads dept. for a little while before he decided to call it quits. That eventually made way for Sanju. We had heard a lot about Sanju from near and dear ones. I attended one of his gigs with Devoid at Blue Frog last year and I was very impressed with him. When Shezaan left he was the first guy that came to our minds and he happily obliged.

With new members, how would you define the sound of the band? Will Sceptre change its sound?
With new blood in the band, we knew it was time to turn things around a bit. Obviously that meant changing the sound as well. The new guys had new ideas, new riffs that were craving for some attention. And ‘Lest we Forget’ if a product of just that! We have a fresh new sound, i would personally call it ‘Thrash/Core’ with faster riffs( thanks to the king of down-picking IMO, Mr. Gilroy Fernandes) and more variations in songs.

Your band logo got changed recently, who designed it?
There’s a friend of ours called Dheeraj. He designed the new logo.

Any gigs coming up?
Right now, we are focussing on making new songs. We already have 2 new songs apart from ‘LWF’, which are ‘Age Of Calamity’ and ‘Wrath of God’. There are few gigs in the pipeline, but it would be premature to disclose anything on that front.

It was a pleasure talking with you. Any messages to your fans?
I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again……this is the re-birth of Sceptre. If you have any pre-conceived notions about the band, I urge you to see us live. We are NOT throwing in the towel yet. A lot of people think we should, but these are the same guys who were once getting pummelled in mosh-pits when Sceptre was on stage! We are here to stay! Adios Amigos!!