What started out as a simple bedroom project, has evolved into one of India’s hottest acts. Brainchild of the multi-talented Keshav Dhar, we caught up with him to talk about his upcoming release, “Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos”

Hi Keshav. How are you doing?
Very well thank you, busy as all hell but that’s always a good thing!

Congrats on the release of your new album. Could you please tell us about ”Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos”? What is the concept behind the album?
It is still a couple of months away from release – it releases in UK/Europe/India/Australasia on the 23rd of April, and in the US and Canada on the 24th. It’s our very first album, indeed release of any kind, and I’m so happy that we’re finally putting it out in such a great package. There isn’t really a ‘concept’ per se, the album was divided into two discs simply on a sonic basis. The first disc ‘Illusion’ is more thoughtful and introspective while the second disc ‘Chaos’ is all balls-out aggression.

Started as a bedroom project, how has your journey been from bedroom to Hydrojent to Skyharbor?
That was just a silly name which I sorta always knew had to change at some point, and that point came when I finally decided to work towards a full length album and release. But to answer your question, the journey has just started really – releasing this album is only the first of what I hope will be several more milestones. I’m really happy to have two AMAZING musicians – Anup Sastry and Nikhil Rufus – on board as full time members of this project. I’m much more at ease now with the knowledge that if I ever hit a creative block, these guys can throw in some killer ideas to bring things to life again. I’m also really thrilled to have us signed to Basick Records, who I believe are seriously the best progressive label in the world right now, and this isn’t just me trying to score brownie points with them, haha… I can’t express enough how awesome they have been to us, even in this short time they have always been behind us and supported us through some very trying times. They are very open to suggestions of any kind, and have also given me some gems of advice which I consider worth their weight in gold.

On ”Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos” you have worked with legendary Marty Friedman, Dan Tompkins. How was your experience and what kind of challenges did you face considering you are located in different geographies? Can we expect some more collaboration in future?
The experiences were great, particularly the collaboration with Dan. He really took the songs to a completely new level, and with each new idea that he pitched forward I was blown away by his eagerness to step out of his comfort zone and venture further and further into experimenting with ideas. At the same time, where the music has just been straight up and emotional, he has sung some breathtaking melodies. I really, really hope that this collaboration can continue for future material; we’ll just have to see if this can be possible.

The collaboration with Marty was a bit different. He contributed two guitar solos, but our actual collaborative work happened on *his* solo album Tokyo Juke Box 2, which released last year. I wrote and recorded a ton of riffs, guitar parts, bass parts, even wrote the complete drum parts to several of the songs! And had a big hand in a lot of the arrangements. His contributions to ‘Catharsis’ and ‘Celestial’ on BWN:I&C was simply him returning the favor.
As far as challenges go, there weren’t any that I can think of. Everything happened really effortlessly. As for the future, who knows! But I’m personally all about collaborations and there are some phenomenal players who I would really love to get involved on some stuff at some point. Lets see!

Talking of collaborations, after Sunneith and Vishal J. Singh, which other Indian musicians would you love to work with?
My absolute favorite Indian musician to work with is one of my best friends and other guitarist from my old band (Another Vertigo Rush), Akhil Sood. He’s currently not playing much and is somewhere in Mumbai writing for fancy magazines, but I am pretty sure I’ll make him do a guest spot in some form for the next album.

Please walk us through your song creation process (writing, recording etc)
I wish there were a process to it that worked each time, that would make my life so much simpler! It’s different each time. Sometimes I start with a riff, sometimes with a chord progression, sometimes with an idea for a bass line, sometimes with a drum groove – doing things differently each time can be a strange process but the end product usually sounds more unique for it. Everything happens on the computer. Usually once I have a riff/loop/whatever down, everything else just sort of flows. And it’s rarely the beginning – for example, ‘Maeva’ started being written with the precarious riff! Then the chorus came, then the midsection, then the intro and verses, and then finally the last progression. So it’s all gloriously mixed up, but ended up being one of my favorites from the album.

Tell us about the side projects you and your band members are involved in.
We’re all super active as writers and musicians, even outside of the band. Anup writes and gigs with his other band Intervals from Canada – amazing band, check them out! – and is also working on a solo project which is one of the most unique and interesting approaches to songwriting I’ve ever seen. Oh, and he’s also touring with Jeff Loomis. Just thought I’d drop that in.
Nikhil performs very regularly with his prog-rock band Indigo Children, and is also a very active session bassist. We also played a ton of shows together with Another Vertigo Rush. I’m currently involved in a whole lot of projects, all of which are studio only. It’s very early days to be talking much about them, but all in good time! I’m also producing Dan’s solo EP ‘White Moth Black Butterfly’ – it’s amazing music, very moody and brooding sounds – people are going to love it.

From where can we order a copy of ”Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos”? How are the tracks on Disc I (Illusion) different from those on Disc II (Chaos)?
You can pre-order the album from Basick Records’ online store – that’s store.basickrecords.com – where you can also get the album in a limited edition double disc digipak + t-shirt combo deal. For folks from US and Canada, the album is available via Prosthetic Records’ online store. The Basick store ships worldwide, but there’s still some distro plans being figured out for certain territories.

Tell us about ‘Bandhappy’, how does it feel to give lessons and tips to young and aspiring musicians? Do you yourself take lessons from some of the musicians you look up to most, who are on there?
It’s one of the best initiatives I’ve seen in the music industry for a long time. It feels amazing and very inspiring that people dig our music enough to want to pay for lessons from us. I have unfortunately been so busy lately that I haven’t had any time to either give or take any lessons, but I will be updating my Bandhappy schedule very soon – and also want to take lessons from some amazing players on there.

Sadly, Skyharbor has played only one gig till date. Will you try to be active on stage this year?
Of course! The thing is, Anup lives in the US, so it doesn’t really make sense for us to play random one-off shows. If the offer is good enough and we are fortunate enough to get a string of shows or a tour going, then you will definitely see us on stage more!

Before we wrap up the interview, would you like to give any message to our readers/your fans?
Thank you all for your patience and support! It is very, very much appreciated. We’re finally moving forward rapidly with our progress as a band, so keep those pre-orders rolling in if you dig our music and help us make a career out of this! All the best and stay awesome.

Interview by Dinesh Verma and Hetal Bhagat