dissertation-delhimetal

[dissertation-delhimetal]

Abstract

The Indian ‘Metal scene’ with its slow beginnings and a dedicated fan base remains a largely underground subcultural phenomenon. But there have been certain instances where the ‘mainstream Indian music’ sheds a glimmer of its spotlight on the art form usually stereotyped as odd, abject and even aggressive or violent. This paper though places its focus around the metal scene in Delhi and tries to understand the relationship between the mainstream (‘centre’) and the underground subject art form (‘fringe’), in this case the Indian media and the Indian metal scene, respectively, by theorizing the views and understandings of the artists and patrons that have engaged with the scene in Delhi.

The research study will also try to highlight the role of venues like cafes, clubs, and music festivals that form a part of the centre embracing the fringe, albeit occasionally. Finally, to look at how the fringe comes forth to introduce itself to the centre this paper also tries to analyze events like college cultural festivals (especially competitions like Battle of the Bands) that provide a platform and exposure to metal artists to present their music to individuals that might have otherwise missed out on this engagement with the genre on a regular basis.

[dissertation-delhimetal]

Preface

Before starting this paper, I believe it is necessary to provide a clear picture of the logic behind the idea to try and study the subject in the first place. It can be understood how one’s personal tastes in art (especially in music) define their cultural and social engagements and interactions but it is equally important to understand how these cultural engagements end up labeling an art form or movement (here: the heavy metal genre) and its patrons in a particular way.

It is never a surprise to come across scrutiny and skepticism while making your musical tastes clear as a metalhead (an individual who listens mostly to metal music or at least a few of its numerous subgenres); or having to answer the questions and comments that usually follow, “Oh it’s unsophisticated music” “So are you always angry?” “I would’ve never taken you for a metalhead” “Do you always wear black?” “Isn’t metal all about noise? I can never understand anything those guys are screaming anyway” “Oh so you listen to death metal?” or my personal favourite, “So do you worship the devil?”

And rightfully so, being a patron of metal music creates its own social location, one that is filled to the brim with its privileges and prejudices, its merits and flaws, its grandiosity and its outsider and underground presence all at the same time. As a metalhead myself, I’ve come across my fair share of wandering eyes that always hid a slight sense of shock under thinly veiled expressions of subdued interest at my t-shirts, the length of my hair, or the music faintly blaring out of my headphones (metal, sonically has often garnered comparisons to jet engines after all).

This research paper would have never happened if some of my seniors from school hadn’t suggested that I watch Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey back in 2008 when I was in the 9th grade, which could easily be credited to have sparked my interest in the subculture as not just a casual fan of the music but also as an explorer willing to gather as much knowledge about the genre and understand how it had spread its roots all over the world.

And while trying to narrow my research interests within a subculture that inspires millions of fans worldwide and quite often ends up influencing a significant portion of the lives of the individuals engaged within the subculture, I’ve decided to look at what seemed at the moment most relevant to my own social, cultural, economic, and musical location i.e. the Indian ‘metal scene’[1]. Now, given the sheer lack of documentation, I believe it is only fair to start with smaller pockets of activity rather than deciding to look at larger narratives; India boasts a metal subculture as diverse as in any other part of the world and hence it’s only fair for me to limit myself for now to the closest and geographically feasible site for research i.e. Delhi.

The purpose of this research paper lies in trying to bring to light and pay homage to a subculture that millions worldwide, and in India, follow with intense admiration and dedication. It becomes important to observe and chart out the state of the Indian metal scene, in contrast to the ‘mainstream Indian music scene’[2], owing to the dearth of documentation and academic research on the subject despite growing interest throughout the nation’s youth willing to engage within discourses of metal as a cultural studies phenomena and art form.

The sheer fact that I have received emails appreciating that there is some research being conducted on the metal community in India brings to light that it is indeed necessary to be as exploratory, emotive and inclusive as one can be while trying to study a subculture that emerges out of the shadows of the common perceptions of music and provides an identity to millions who seek comfort in metal.

From a sociological standpoint, I believe it is necessary to observe, study and engage with the heavy metal scene in India because cultures of resistance and the product thereof of such engagements are extremely important to be studied and analyzed in emerging market economies, like India, given the fact that metal emerged in the West as a cultural phenomena and owing to currents of globalization has set its feet firmly in India (which otherwise lacked the cultural capital for a metal scene to emerge organically on its own) over the past two decades.

At the end of this section I would like to provide two clarifications in regards to my research that I, as a researcher and an enthusiast of the genre of music, am well aware of and have kept in mind while researching for my paper:

a) this is a Master’s dissertation submission which I have focused on for well over a year and had kept as a dream project for an even longer period of time. I accept that in no capacity is this work final or completely reflective of the form of the music, the scene in Delhi or India, and various momentary changes that might have occurred and gone unnoticed as I wrote this paper. A difference in opinions and realities is welcome and appreciated.

b) given how near and dear the music and art form is not only to me but to countless other individuals, I set out to provide personal experiences and comprehensive narratives with the hope that they would encapsulate the emotions and lives of individuals who have invested in the art at some point or another irrespective of the role they might have played.

[1] The ‘scene’ here refers to a collection of the group of individuals that engage with the music as listeners or performers (or both), and the resulting activity situated in a subcultural space within a particular geographical area.

[2] I use ‘mainstream Indian music scene’ in this paper to denote the popular idea of music in India, which is largely created and dominated by Bollywood cinema.

[dissertation-delhimetal]

Chapter 1: Introduction

A History:

Heavy Metal music, or simply Metal, emerged in the mid to late 1960s from the industrial cities of England and soon had its roots settle across the Atlantic Ocean when it started to come to life in the USA. Carrying forward cultural and musical lineages of blues and jazz, along with other political counter culture currents of the 1960s and 1970s, heavy metal music found widespread circulation and acceptance in the eyes of mainstream music and media in the mid and late 1980s. Countless influential metal groups were then formed during the first three decades of the genre and have since led to the formation of numerous subgenres within metal (which now itself remains mostly an umbrella term, but also quite often denotes a particular sentiment and a sense of familiality amongst the fans), which themselves gave a platform for a plethora of contemporary metal acts to emerge.

With its heavy instrumentation, through the loud guitars, hypnotic bass lines, relentless drum beats, and beyond human-like vocals that soared over all these instruments; a hard hitting attitude of honesty, non-compromise and going against the norm, heavy metal started to generate an admiration, a reverence and a culture of its own amongst immensely dedicated fans and performers. The same widespread acceptance by the media, however, did not entirely mean that there weren’t staunch criticisms, opposition and censorship of the music and its culture that were expressed through the music, lyrics, visuals, performances, and the individuals engaging in the phenomena (i.e. metalheads).

Globally, metal music has been an endeared art form that has, through its five decades of existence, helped and inspired countless metal artists and fans by providing them an emotive and cathartic space, and while there are a number of connotations associated with the music and the metalhead identity one can’t deny that it gives its fans an necessary outlet, a sense of purpose, and in most of the cases inspires people to pick up and learn how to play a musical instrument.

 The Indian and Delhi Metal Scenes:

Metal music started to cross over to India largely through imports in the 1980s and 90s. As undocumented as it might be, the Indian metal scene started around the late 1980s with a handful of tribute acts that usually played the music of internationally famous metal bands, the likes of Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth and others. Cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru continue to harbour two of the strongest, most active and stable metal scenes in the country that cater to numerous metal artists and fans, which in turn eventually found their way onto not only college cultural festivals but also saw the rise of a number of pan-genre and metal music festivals being organised there

The Delhi metal scene on the other hand stands out as a peculiar case though. Starting in the early 2000s, quite similarly with a bunch of tribute metal acts, metal bands from Delhi went on to create their own music but eventually the metal scene in Delhi, in the latter half of the same decade, started to become seemingly inactive due to the disbanding of a number of metal bands; not many new metal bands were formed around this time either, and a lack of metal concerts due to infrastructural and organisational problems could only further discourage metal artists and fans alike.

 Quasi Mainstreams:

In this paper, I’ve described the Delhi metal scene as a ‘quasi mainstream’. It is a concept term that I’ve tried to introduce through my research and I’ve used the term in order to better understand how usually underground subcultures might seem relatively underground, but are often at the same time subjectively mainstream as well.

Proposed Definition:

I propose that a subcultural art form or phenomena could be understood as a ‘quasi mainstream’ when,

a)      it can be viewed by a patron of the art form, subjectively, as a mainstream that especially caters to her.

b)      there are certain instances that can be pointed out where a larger mainstream art form or the media pays heed to this underground subculture and provides a ‘casual embrace’[3] in turn.

In a way, one can define almost any subcultural phenomena as a quasi mainstream, given how to a follower of an art form that particular movement which she engages with is one way or another, subjectively, a mainstream for her even though in the backdrop of a larger picture it might be on the fringes. Just as the fringe creates the mainstream, or vice versa, a similar interplay can be assumed to create a quasi mainstream as well.

 Research Questions:

The overarching question of this research paper is as follows:

1) Where can we locate metal music as a quasi mainstream in Delhi?

In this research paper, I argue that Delhi is home to a number of subcultural art forms that can be viewed as false or ‘quasi mainstreams’, metal being one of them. To better understand how the metal scene in Delhi exists amongst a plethora of similar subcultures that don’t necessarily or regularly occupy same space as the mainstream does, it is important to try and locate just how the subculture is present in the capital. Under this question I discuss the origins and years since that followed the beginning of the metal scene in Delhi, how it has operated and progressed over the years.

Here, it was essential to take into account the experiences, thoughts, understandings, and views of the individuals engaged in the subculture themselves in some capacity or another, be it the artists or patrons, and to theorise a movement that is not only rooted in the emotions and meanings that the music conveys to an individual engaging with the genre but also how it emerges out of a desire to be sonically and visually different or subversive.

In addition to this question, I also try to explore the following two sub-questions:

1) What role do cafes, clubs and music festivals play within the Delhi metal scene?

Here, I delve into analysing the ‘casual embrace’ that the mainstream provides to underground music by providing a platform to Indian metal acts to express their art. Through various narratives of the performers and patrons, I present a picture that has existed and has possibly changed throughout the years within the metal scene in Delhi. The research for this question revolved around studying concerts and gigs that happen in various cafes and clubs in Delhi (where a major portion of my research is located) as spaces which enable metal artists to not only present their original music and pay respects to their idols from metal or other forms of music but also where a large number of the crowd engages with each other in the subculture, physically and emotionally, through concerts.

The other aspect of my investigation is to look at the role music festivals have played, or continue to play in bringing forth the Indian metal scene to the common Indian music enthusiast unfamiliar with Indian metal acts. To observe this, I attended the NH7 Weekender music festival in the city of Pune in December of 2017, and having attended other music festivals over the course of my own personal engagements with metal, I try to bring in that personal experience in order to build on or at times resonate with the experiences of other concert-goers.

2) How do college festivals fit into this picture as a platform for Indian metal acts to express themselves?

A large part of the Indian metal scene is rooted in Indian colleges, especially engineering colleges, given that a number of fans are usually college going students, and so is the case with a plethora of Indian metal acts who in a lot of cases form during these years of study within a university space. So it becomes essential to bring out how competitions like Battle of the Bands in various college cultural festivals provide not only an opportunity to well established metal acts but also to up and coming Indian metal acts, and sometimes even international metal acts. The college cultural festival circuit is incredibly large in terms of scale and the sheer number of institutions of higher education there are all over the country, but I focus on the colleges and universities in Delhi that not only create a competitive and creative space but might also just be the most stable avenue for metal acts in the Indian metal scene.

 Research Methodology:

To best help in my research and to best investigate my research questions, I have chosen employ the following research methods:

1) Participant observation: Concerts remain the major avenue for metalheads to socialize and interact in order to feel part of a larger community of individuals with similar interests. Over the course of my research, I have engaged in various performances as a spectator and observer, and a patron nonetheless, at Jeff Loomis’ [Guitars, Nevermore; Arch Enemy] December 2016 performance at antiSOCIAL in Delhi, Twelve Foot Ninja’s first ever tour of India with their final performance at Hard Rock Café in Delhi in October 2017, and the NH7 Weekender music festival in Pune in December 2017, in order to view the performance itself as not just a cathartic event where the fringe is brought into the spotlight but to also observe how fans and performers engage with each other and socialize within the controlled chaos of a metal concert.

And so, participant observation takes the role of a significant part of my research because of the fact that not only have I engaged with the music for well over a decade but I also and wish to bring forth my own and others’ shared and individual experiences while theorising a narrative for the genre not only in Delhi, but also in India. I would argue that in order to read the subculture from an empathetic standpoint, it is necessary to physically, emotionally and sonically engage with the music, and that is where participant observation comes in handy.

2) Interviews: It is essential to understand how metal musicians and fans view the idea of the mainstreams, and media support to their interests, metal bands in particular. I had the opportunity to interview metal artists from various timelines of the metal scene in Delhi to get a better understanding of the ethos that run the scene in Delhi whilst also acquiring a viewpoint of audiences at concerts and events such as Battle of the Bands to try and understand how they understand the subculture and the music.

A large part of tracing viewpoints of patrons of heavy metal music could be traced from regular conversations with my peer group, and my constant engagement with the online metal community through online forums, and even the YouTube channels of international media outlets that cater to the global metal community through their insights and interviews with international metal artists.

The interviews that I have conducted with metal artists in Delhi were somewhat unstructured and in turn provided me better access to in depth themes that could be interpreted from the interviews. I divided my interviews into two major sections, where at first I would ask them specific questions that I had prepared, and then let them at last speak at length about their own experiences without any filters or inhibitions. This has helped me gather ideas surrounding a genre of music where emotions often run high and the metal scene in Delhi in a much more grounded and honest manner.

3) Questionnaire: In order to collect a bulk of ideas that metalheads in Delhi have of the scene, both in India and Delhi, and to gather their thoughts and experiences I conducted a questionnaire research with a specific focus on fans that have experienced the scene in Delhi and elsewhere in India. My questionnaires have tried to include as many ideas as possible that surround the identity of a metalhead in India and how they view the scene and the genre.

The questionnaire research was included in my methodology to help me provide a narrative, or rather a voice to the average Indian metalhead. The questionnaire was created online as a Google form and then distributed amongst various online metal forums, peers, and my university space. Hence it was relatively easier for me to collate and graphically perceive an image of the Indian metalhead that has engaged with the scene in Delhi, and India.

4) Documentary evidence: Using the vast amount of resources and literature that has already been produced on the subject I have had to develop a point of view that would help me to view the subculture better. I wish to engage with the existing discourses that discuss the various aspects of my study. At the same time, I will also take help of documented/published interviews, and documentaries to directly understand how people in conversation with the subject present certain ideas and themes.

Over the course of my own engagements with the music and over the period of my research for the paper a large portion of research was dedicated to watching documentaries and television series on metal music, reading and watching interviews with metal artists and fans, and relating analyses made by other contributors of heavy metal studies to the scene and its functioning here in Delhi, and India.

 ‘Quasi Mainstream’ as a Tool for Research:

To view the metal scene in Delhi as a quasi mainstream we can see how it fits the definition provided earlier. To a metalhead who engages with the metal scene, in that momentary exchange where she is in a space where metal music is at the forefront, for example a metal concert, the said subculture subjectively takes the form of a mainstream art form. And in instances where the larger mainstream art form, for example Bollywood feature films or pan-genre music festivals, or the media whether it is in the form of magazines or zines with a focus on independent metal artists, for example Rock Street Journal, start to focus or provide a casual embrace to metal music from time to time, the genre fits the mould of a quasi mainstream.

I use the term ‘quasi mainstream’ to present the metal scene in Delhi given how the capital is home to a vast array of similar subcultural art forms like theatre, poetry, dance, standup comedy, visual arts, etc. that exist by themselves, relatively undisturbed by the presence of any other art form. This explanation in no way posits that these subcultures in Delhi exist in a vacuum because often one can observe crossovers between these subcultures during certain events (example, college cultural festivals). The application of the term ‘quasi mainstream’ enables one to understand the importance that a subculture achieves momentarily during acts of casual embrace by the mainstream, at the same time it points out at the important role subcultural art forms like metal play for individuals immersed in the scene.

 Outline of the Study:

Chapter two discusses the theoretical frameworks present in the field of heavy metal studies that I have chosen to employ in my study. In this chapter I focus on topics that are, in my opinion, most helpful to be kept in mind while viewing the subculture as I have tried to through my research using texts from which I’ve derived the themes around which this research paper has been structured.

Chapter three is a short overview of the Indian metal scene: its unclear beginnings, the presence of a few major platforms within the scene, and how the scene has functioned over the years. In the same chapter, I have tried to introduce the first of my concepts to be analyzed, i.e. the crossover between the mainstream and the underground.

Chapter four is divided into two sections and marks the point where I start to talk about and analyze my field of research, i.e. Delhi. I provide a history for the metal scene in the nation’s capital and begin to include instances and inferences from the research I undertook. Then I shift my focus to another crucial aspect of paper, mentioned in the title itself, I introduced the term ‘quasi mainstream’ early on in the paper and here, I try to make sense of how the metal scene in Delhi would fit into the proposed definition of this term.

The final chapter of the study then shifts focus to performances and spaces in a bid to look at how the experience of metal musicians has been shaped through their engagement in the space within an organizational and performative role.

The next two parts of the paper include first, a concluding end to the research paper and second, an appendix of my research materials. Given that the topic of my research is fairly new, and it focuses so much on a performance art form that is as emotive in its engagement and the various personal meanings it conveys from person to person, this is where I include some of the responses to my questionnaire survey and the interviews that I conducted for this paper.

[3] A ‘casual embrace’ expresses a momentary break in character by a mainstream cultural art form or media when it shares, momentarily, the space it usually occupies with a relatively underground art form, in this case, the mainstream Indian music scene and the Indian metal scene, respectively.

[dissertation-delhimetal]

Chapter 2: Theoretical Frameworks

Heavy Metal, Globally:

It goes without saying that the Indian metal scene needs to be examined thoroughly in order for one to be able to critically analyze its functioning within the underground and the mainstream Indian music scene. Globally, metal has spread across various nations which has led to a rise in numerous contemporary acts that have incorporated their own cultures (visually or sonically, for instance) within the fold of the larger metal subculture. Over the past few decades as heavy metal studies has emerged as an academic field, its contributors have also tried to bring to light as many salient and subtle features of the global subculture and music.

It is a little overwhelming to view the global metal scene from a distant detached bird’s eye view as a whole because of the sheer scale with which the art form has spread throughout the world even though it largely remains and thrives within underground. Around the time metal music was on its way to becoming the most popular form of music across Europe and Americas, there were countless movements against the rise of such an aggressive and violent form of art in the public domain by religious groups, parents associations and even politicians, who sought out to take this opportunity, like the groups mentioned prior, to point at the moral panic of the day.

To try and make sense of the root of this panic and to critically analyse structures of power and gender within the metal scene in the 1980s and early 1990s, Walser’s Running with the Devil (1993) emerged as one of the first definitive and in-depth texts that dealt with the contemporary art form of rock and heavy metal music in order to not only defend it from protests and censors but to also help generate a sympathetic outlook on the music while also creating the starting point for informed discussions within metal that would understand the cultural significance of the art form. Metal up until that moment wasn’t viewed as an area of study or associated with university education or academia at all, and through Running with the Devil a focus was directed towards trying to understand and relate the subculture to political and social movements, classical music and power relations within society in general.

One of the most famous metal subgenres to emerge from the 1990s was glam metal[4] and Walser discusses especially how the glam metal scene which on one hand pushed the envelope of gender identities at the same time indulged in massive excesses that enforced a misogynistic and sexist outlook and shut a large segment of the public and even the metal community away from that particular ideology that the glam metal bands were at least putting out on stage. And one might argue that the apprehension and rejection of the glam meal scene by the larger music and metal community is what gave rise to two of the most endearing forms of music in the 1990s, i.e. thrash metal[5] and more specifically Grunge[6], a style though not too separated from heavy metal

but something that caused almost a wipeout of heavy metal music from mainstream music in the mid 1990s.

It’s also around this time that a number of metal groups in the USA and Europe were creating what would later be clubbed under the umbrella term extreme metal[7] and the major idea creeping in everyone’s minds in the 1990s was that heavy metal was for ‘dead-end kids’, ‘low lives’ and ‘deviants’ and how it promotes violent tendencies in youth and lures them towards Satanism or the occult (and various other practices that follow, example: animal/human sacrifice). As Weinstein (2003) argues such associations were only emerging out from a gross misunderstanding of the music and culture that though might often seem rebellious, energetic (to the point of being violent), and hedonistic, is a way to stand up and question existing norms, order and structures while being a cathartic experience at the same time. Since metal artists often encourage moshing[8] and crowd surfing[9] during concerts, the apparent visual understanding of the uninitiated would certainly be to view the music as one that incites violence and aggression, and metal concerts as spaces where this aggression is expressed (which is true, but in an entirely different and opposite way) outright violently.

Now, with the emergence of extreme metal bands throughout the world that started to create music that was representative of their identities as individuals and the impact of cultural crossovers and in turn the creation of further subgenres in metal, there felt a need for the development a level of appreciation and sympathy for these artists and their art. Using Bourdieu’s concept of ‘field’[10] to highlight a certain ‘subcultural capital’ Kahn-Harris (2007) defines the emergence of the metal ‘scene’ across the globe. While talking about an art form which, in post colonial countries such as India, demands the presence of a particular capital (cultural, social and economic) to engage with the scene it is important to look at the role capital, power relations and infrastructure play in establishing and defining a scene.

Though what can also be said is that while these metal scenes attract individuals with this capital, at the same time, they try to distinguish themselves from other such prevalent subcultures due to the presence of extreme metal’s much exploited tropes such as misanthropy, anti-Christian or pagan beliefs, etc. This in turn becomes important to take note of because then the need arises to understand how this ‘subcultural capital’ interacts with the market, media, and other heavy metal music outlets in various scenes through tout the world. For instance, a very popular example among metalheads is the case of Norway, where 71% of the population is under the Lutheran Church yet Satanic black metal music has been understood to be Norway’s biggest cultural export since the 1990s. But rather interestingly, though metal music and metalheads have quite often taken firm political stances, Kahn-Harris, using Giddens’ idea of reflexivity[11], observes a ‘reflexive anti-reflexivity’[12] within the extreme metal scene that points at often contradicting political stances of black metal bands, or an almost camp-like image portrayed by these bands.

But as much as metal is about the music and the performers (and performances), it is a subculture that thrives on a highly dedicated fan base, that is what has ensured it continuous revival since the 1960s. A metalhead identity that fits all of its patrons is hard to outline, given that there are plenty of subgenres with wildly different idealistic, visual, lyrical and sonic characteristics, metalheads by virtue of their allegiance to a number of these subgenres can only be best described as fans of the music. The metalhead identity is one that is best defined as a global network of individuals, and can hence be surmised as a global family where metal fans, despite all of their differences in opinion, would still consider themselves a family, unified, together in their indignation (Roccor, 2017).

The metal identity is also often associated with one that seeks or calls out attention owing to the carnivalesque and abject form of art one is perceived to delve into. As one of my interviewees, Noble [Artillerie], mentioned that one of the prime reasons metal is big mostly amongst youth is because it is a “huge help programme”, this was in one way or another supported by various previously documented accounts of metalheads in documentaries, interviews, television shows, etc. and by the questionnaire responses I received over the period of my research. To relate my observations to a previously conducted research which tries to understand what causes the acceptance or seeking out of a ‘metal’ identity by teenagers (in Australia), what comes to light is how individuals opted for a ‘metal’ identity out of social exclusion from popular peers or when they felt especially vulnerable to bullying (Rowe 2016). What was also observed was that the teens that went ahead to embody a ‘metal’ identity were able to disrupt power relations by choosing an identity that opposed their ‘unchosen’ social identities. The political implications and eventual social and mental health implications of associating to a subcultural identity, here the metalhead identity, resonate with the popular understanding of metal music as contrarian and non-conformist and the explanation provided by Noble [Artillerie].  

In almost a similar manner, within the subculture, women used the metalhead identity to seek an escape from adolescent situations but since the scene is largely dominated by men, it eventually reinforces masculinity; the only time women could (or would) command power over others in the scene was either over other females or via a male friend, but unfortunately not collectively over men (Krenske and Mckay, 2000). What also emerges in this study conducted in Brisbane, Australia is that the hegemonic masculinity in metal has more to do with the power or position men have in the heavy metal scene because it is not seen as an ‘identity’.

A metal identity has been now prevalent in the world for over five decades. In Asia though, the case is a little different with respect to the identity, interactions with the mainstream, political ideologies and other aspects. The South Asian metal scene in that sense, seems not only somewhat disconnected from the global metal scene in general but also the Asian metal scene.

Centre-Fringe:

In this research paper, I set out to understand the relationship between the mainstream (centre) and the underground (fringe), and to do so I will now turn to texts that have tried to understand similar dynamics in other parts of the world. Focusing on the reception of the interaction between the mainstream media and musical acts in the USA, Halnon (2005) argues that the need of young music consumers to seek newer and more authentic musicians in order to escape the oversaturated mainstream music scene that over a certain course of time presents and perpetuates the similar type of artists and music is necessary to be taken into account. The rejection commercialism, and not consumerism, which leads to the presence of musical acts that ‘flash the finger’ to the mainstream music industry by being a representation of the alienated consumer is what sometimes pushes acts to purposely portray explicitly hostile, obscene, violent and aggressive on-stage and in-life personas, often “asserting the supremacy of the alienated” (ibid). Halnon then discusses the various metal acts that have passed over from the underground to the mainstream but haven’t compromised with the political identity that has become associated with their music, and how the emergence of these acts to the mainstream is understood by the consumers and their need for authentic music and expression.

Earlier on in the research paper, I had introduced the concepts ‘quasi mainstream’ and ‘casual embrace’, both of which warrant a mention under this section because of the importance these two concepts hold in this research in order to better understand the interactions between the centre and the fringe. To view metal scenes as quasi mainstreams is to define and accept that irrespective of metal’s widely accepted non commercial and non-conformist ideology, it sometimes enjoys a position where it shares the same space in the public discourse as any other mainstream art form, countless metalheads were witness to this in the 1980s and 1990s when metal music dominated the mainstream media to a great degree. Echoing on the idea of the quasi mainstream is the casual embrace that enables an underground art form to be viewed as a false mainstream in the first place. Though these casual embraces of the metal scene by the mainstream music scene could occur in a variety of different ways, I have tried to focus largely on the casual embrace of the Indian metal scene by the Indian mainstream music scene which is mostly dominated by Bollywood, and the performance spaces such as college cultural festivals and pan-genre music festivals where the metal scene is provided with a platform to bring itself to the eyes of not only the fans of the music but also the uninitiated.

To look at the South Asian metal scene, Indonesia sticks out as one of the more active pockets in the region with a plethora of metal bands emerging from the island nation. A study from Bali, Indonesia that looks the interaction between the centre and the fringe finds Baulch (2003) presenting her essay to look at how the Balinese death/thrash bands of the 1990s created a separate and politicized identity for themselves by territorializing avenues which catered for enthusiasts to gather and socialize. There was a significant exposure that the death/thrash acts were provided with through pan-genre concerts and community radio airplay. The Balinese death/thrash bands also distanced themselves from other genres of music that were prevalent and famous around that time. The article shows that there was a firm support for the death/thrash scene after the Metallica riots in 1993 (where over 100 people were injured, and more than 100 people were arrested), by various news-media outlets drawing parallels between the practices of the aforementioned scene and Balinese cultural practices. This gives an insight into how emerging regionalist discourses expressed their allegiance to and validated the presence and appeal of the death/thrash acts even though a number of these acts were not singing about the locale (Baulch, 2003).

Finally, India’s neighbor Bangladesh presents a rather interesting and convincing understanding of the various interactions between the centre and the fringe. Quader & Redden (2015) present their article to understand the construction and somewhat complicated presence of the metal scene in Bangladesh within the underground and the mainstream music scenes respectively. One of the results of their research deals with the idea of how even though the metal scene in Bangladesh might present itself as an opposite to mainstream rock and pop music, the idea of an economic compromise in terms of becoming mainstream themselves isn’t that unbecoming of their presence within the scene. The emergence of the scene can be attributed to the participants’ frustration at the state of affairs in their country and the lack of innovation, novelty and satisfaction that mainstream music was riddled with, all of which gets reflected in the need to create an alternate space. But while the participants of the Bangladeshi metal scene separate themselves from the mainstream through their expression of resistance, with all other structural bottlenecks and lack of economic incentives to continue to remain active within the scene, the idea of achieving success in the mainstream does not entirely reflect ‘selling out’ or the ethical dilemmas that underground artists might otherwise face.

 Carnivalesque:

To view the metal scene as a seemingly odd and abject subculture is commonplace in the popular opinion about the music. Hence, it is important to draw eyes towards its carnivalesque characteristics and engagements between participants. As mentioned earlier, Halnon (2005) discusses the rejection of commercialism, not consumerism by young music listeners, which leads to the presence of subversive musical acts that act as a representation of the alienated consumer. It is argued that they are the ones “asserting the supremacy of the alienated” (ibid). He then goes on to discuss how the carnivalesque characteristics of the music and the performances can’t be reduced to just subjects of the spectacle but they should be instead viewed as a representation of the liminal plane of the ‘grotesque realism’ of officialdom, and while fans of the music understand the on-stage, and sometimes even in-life, personas to be a mere image and take it as a ‘sick’ carnivalesque joke, their need for authentic music and expression is genuine.

And while metal acts themselves present a tendency towards the obscene and the profane, and their music brings out the carnival, it is during the performances that the real carnival-grotesque comes to the forefront. Riches (2011) presents her article to understand the construction of the performance space of a metal concert, with respect to the mosh pit, as a liminal leisure space where gender, leisure, and subcultural practices intersect. She brings to light how such an interaction would only be constructed within liminal marginal spaces that teeter on a thin line between narratives of pleasure and pain. Drawing parallels to Bakhtin’s idea of the carnivalesque[10] as an outlet for “venting, releasing, resisting and rebelling” (ibid) mosh pits present a ritualistic expression where metal fans and chaos are welcomed and embraced. The act of engaging or ‘jumping into the pit’ can be viewed as the rite of passage for a metalhead given the dichotomy of pain and pleasure the mosh pit entails and questions. In turn, mosh pits become avenues of danger, belonging, excitement and catharsis.

[4] Glam metal bands from L.A., California followed song structures made accessible through pop music influences and brandished a 1970s glam rock inspired flashy clothing and makeup as part of their musician’s persona. Example: Mötley Crüe; Poison; Warrant; Cinderella.

[5] A relatively more aggressive subgenre of metal emerging from the San Francisco Bay Area, California; often fast paced and percussive with a focus on war, violence, drugs, politics, genocide and similar themes in their lyrics. Example: Exodus; Megadeth; Metallica; Slayer; Testament.

[6] Emerging from Seattle, Washington, Grunge bands brought in punk rock inspired socially conscious ethos to the mainstream through their music. Example: Mudhoney; Nirvana; The Melvins; Alice in Chains; Soundgarden.

[7] Extreme metal refers to the harsher subgenres of metal that are often underground and follow a non-commercial lo-fi approach with dense, sometimes raw and unintelligible sounds and usually guttural vocals and wide ranging lyrical themes from the occult, Satanism, suicide, death, horror to fantasy such as the works J.R.R. Tolkien or H.P. Lovecraft.

[8] A form of dance as an act of participating in a rock or metal concert where audiences headbang together, or run or slam into each other.

[9] An act during live concerts in which a person is passed overhead from person to person as they support the crowd surfer with their hands.

[10] A ‘field’ is a setting where participants and their social positions are situated, as a result of the interaction between specific rules of the field and participant’s predisposition and capital.

[11] “The continuous monitoring of actions that humans display” (Giddens, 1984)

[12] A deliberate and active suppression of reflexivity by an individual indicated in reflexive practices. “If unreflexivity is ‘not knowing better’ and anti-reflexivity is ‘not wanting to know’, then reflexive anti-reflexivity is ‘knowing better but deciding not to know’”. (Kahn-Harris, 2007)

[13] Introduced initially as a literary mode, the term is used here to define the subversive nature of metal that stands against mainstream ideas of music and creates a liminal space sans the hegemonic ideas of the mainstream through its apparent chaos.

[dissertation-delhimetal]

Chapter 3: The Indian Metal Scene: an Overview

The Indian Metal Scene:

Due to the unfortunate lack of a properly documented timeline, the origins of the Indian metal scene can only be roughly traced to the late 1980s and early 1990s with bands like Millennium and Dying Embrace, both from Bengaluru, forming the earliest of metal bands in India. At first, there were hardly any organisers, promoters, booking agents, labels or venues that’d be open to metal artists. This, coupled with the fact that the only place for metal bands to perform ended up being college cultural festivals, only led to metal bands performing covers of otherwise famous and international metal bands. India had a rock and a fusion rock environment around the time metal started to cross over to the subcontinent but it wasn’t until almost a decade later in the early 2000s when the metal subculture in India really started to gather steam.

The areas where the subculture saw the most powerful and enthusiastic emergence, which started the metal movement in India, would have to be the Mumbai and Bengaluru scenes. Partly owing to the presence of a significant Christian community that had access to not only English music but also the English language, and an exposure to international cultural currents due to Mumbai and Bengaluru being technically and financially more ‘global’ than other cities in the rest of the country, one might deduce that these two cities should have indeed been the centers of the birth of the heavy metal scene in India.

Another area that stands out as a haven for rock and metal music in India is the North Eastern part of India. With plenty of rock bands coming from these seven states one can argue that the North East along with West Bengal is a hotbed for metal artists. But due to geographical limitations and a personal lack of knowledge about the metal scenes from these states, even though I have seen bands from the North East or West Bengal like Sycorax and Yonsample perform live elsewhere, I find myself unqualified to precisely comment or draw inference on their metal scenes.

                        Fig. 3.1: States of origin of a total of 193 Indian metal bands registered on Encyclopedia Metallum                              Source: Encyclopedia Metallum; 2017

As mentioned earlier, right around the early 2000s India’s independent music scene started to gather momentum with the emergence of a number of artists across various genres creating original music, including metal. It was around this time that bands like Demonic Resurrection (Mumbai), Pin Drop Violence (Mumbai), Kryptos (Bangalore), Prestorika (Delhi), Acrid Semblance (Delhi), Artillerie (Delhi), Exhumation (Mumbai), Bhayanak Maut (Mumbai), Inner Sanctum (Bangalore), 1833 AD (Delhi), Joint Family (Delhi), Sceptre (Mumbai), Bhoomi (Bangalore), Undying Inc. (Delhi), etc came into the picture and started to dominate not just the college cultural festival environment but also the independent music scene, the support for which was partly powered by the patrons and fans and the presence of upcoming music festivals such as Independence Rock, and probably most importantly, the Great Indian Rock festival (GIR).

Fig. 3.2. Lamb of God’s (USA) second concert performance in Bengaluru, India. May 26th, 2012.

Right around the same time, India saw the first of now many international metal acts perform on Indian soil. Bands like Iron Maiden (England), Enslaved (Norway), Sepultura (Brazil), Megadeth (USA), Ensiferum (Finland), Textures (Netherlands), Machine Head (USA), Freak Kitchen (Sweden), Satyricon (Norway) were the first few that gave Indian metalheads a glimpse of a larger global metal community in the years 2007 and 2008, and since then, India has seen the like of pan-metal juggernauts like Lamb of God (USA), Gojira (France), Opeth (Sweden), Meshuggah (Sweden), Cannibal Corpse (USA), Carcass (England), Slayer (USA), Tesseract (England), Metallica (USA), Amon Amarth (Sweden), Cradle of Filth (England), Kreator (Germany), Children of Bodom (Finland), Korn (USA), Dying Fetus (USA), Rotting Christ (Greece) and Twelve Foot Ninja (Australia) to name a few.

The Indian metal scene has over the years not been as active or engaging as an enthusiastic metalhead would wish it to be and it can be condensed to be understood as a long period of lull with momentary spikes in activity, all of which can be understood as a result of a variety of reasons. Needless to say the presence of international metal acts at music festivals is not only a treat for Indian metalheads but also acts as an incentive to metal bands who have over the years been inspired by the craft of an international act and the movement in general. And the lack of an active engagement with the international metal scene could be assumed to contribute, to a large extent, to this almost transient nature of the Indian metal scene.

Through my questionnaire, I came across plenty of views by metal fans that expressed a variety of concerns, namely: the prejudice they face as metalheads; the generalization and comparison of the sound to plain “noise”; a fear of being socially outcast just because one could be labeled as a violent individual listening to aggressive music; lack of metalhead peers; a lack of recognition by media outlets; and the lack of venues and shows (especially in Delhi) for metal artists and fans.

 Major Actors and Platforms for the Indian Metal Scene:

A few major actors and platforms that should be pointed out early on in this discussion are Rock Street Journal (RSJ; an independent music magazine), the Great Indian Rock festival (GIR) which was India’s first multi city rock music festival that Rock Street Journal organised from 1997 to 2012, India’s oldest rock music festival i.e. Independence Rock (1986 – present, though they haven’t organized the festival since 2012), and a few other music festivals like Rock ‘n India, Summer Storm festival (2010, 2012), and the Wacken Open Air (considered the biggest metal music festival in the world) sponsored Bangalore Open Air (2012 - present) which also happens to be India’s only music festival dedicated to metal music.

Fig. 3.3. The Dillinger Escape Plan’s (USA) first ever concert performance at the NH7 Weekender music festival in Pune, India. December 8th, 2017.

Another pan-genre music festival that deserves a mention here, that I have been a witness to as well, is India’s largest music festival organised by Only Much Louder (OML), the NH7 Weekender (2010 – present). NH7 Weekender holds a special place because being a multi city festival it was responsible for bringing international metal acts such as Megadeth (USA), Meshuggah (Sweden), Textures (Netherlands), Tesseract (England), Skindered (USA), Fear Factory (USA), Steven Wilson (England), The Dillinger Escape Plan (USA) and giving them a common stage with countless Indian metal acts such as Demonic Resurrection (Mumbai), Kryptos (Bengaluru), Bhayanak Maut (Mumbai), Scribe (Mumbai), Noiseware (Pune), Zygnema (Mumbai), Undying Inc. (Delhi), Skyharbor (India/USA), Colossal Figures (Delhi) among numerous other international and Indian music acts from other genres.

The NH7 Weekender music festival is to also be credited with somewhat inspiring this research paper. What initially sparked my interest was how NH7 had in the past few years stopped including metal acts in their bill, especially for their Delhi shows which resulted in my absence from those editions of the festival as a member in the audience. Then in 2016, NH7 Weekender removed Delhi as a destination which was quite disappointing at that time given how a lot of Delhi metalheads were visibly upset at this removal from the schedule. In 2017 however, when the festival lineups were revealed what came as a surprise to metalheads throughout the country was that NH7 had now included metal acts in their bill even though Delhi was still missing from the festival schedule.

Fig 3.4 The crowd after Texture’s (Netherlands) final concert performance as a band at the NH7 Weekender music festival in Pune, India. December 8th, 2017.

What made the 2017 edition even striking was that two of the scheduled metal acts, i.e. The Dillinger Escape Plan (USA) and Textures (Netherlands), had earlier in the year decided to call it quits after the end of their respective touring cycles for 2017. The Dillinger Escape Plan had included the concert in Pune as one of the shows in the last leg of their farewell tour and Textures, a band that had been performing in India almost annually since 2009 to around 10,000 people each time, performed a two hour set in Pune, as their last ever show together as a band. This surprising turn of events pushed me to not only include the NH7 Weekender Pune 2017 as a site for research but also got me thinking about my research questions in the first place.

By observing the NH7 Weekender music festival in Pune as a participant with a group of other enthusiasts who not only attended performances by metal bands but also shared affection towards numerous other music acts present at the festival, which themselves were from vastly different genres, what could be drawn particularly from this is that during pan-genre music festivals, one can witness a large number of people moving from one stage (of performance; out of a total of six stages at NH7 Weekender Pune) to another as each performance ends. It goes to show that pan-genre music festivals might be more important than festivals and concerts that focus on a particular genre of music on their own as these are the spaces where, under a sense of adventure and liminality, the exposure to newer and unfamiliar music acts increases, harkening back to how, specifically in the case of metal bands, this becomes an opportunity to present themselves amongst more mainstream genres of music.

 ‘Casual Embrace’ of the Fringe by the Centre:

Perhaps what stood out to me as a metal enthusiast viewing just how the genre has interacted with other outlets and avenues for music over the years has been a casual embrace that the mainstream music scene lends to the heavy metal scene from time to time. As mentioned earlier in this paper, and understood by numerous metalheads globally, support from mainstream labels and music chains, financial or in any other terms, has more or less faded ever since the mid 1980s and 1990s when metal music was probably at its peak from a commercial sales revenue standpoint.

This is not to say that there aren’t any more metal bands that are signed by major music labels or don’t enjoy commercial success. In fact, the need felt by metal enthusiasts for the music to reach out to the public has quite often led to the formation of various independent record labels and community magazines as a support mechanism for independent and up and coming metal bands and regional metal scenes all over the world.

If I were to try and deduce the relationship and interactions between the ‘centre’ (mainstream Indian media) and the ‘fringe’ (Indian metal scene) by pure observation of the scene over the years, I would find myself aiming this question towards understanding the different ways in which the Indian media has (or hasn’t) engaged with the Indian metal scene.

Fig. 3.5. Korn’s (USA) first concert performance in Delhi, India. September 5th, 2012.

My classification of the mainstream Indian media as the ‘centre’ here refers to the understanding of Bollywood cinema as that cultural entity which creates, promotes and dominates the popular idea of music in India, and print media like Rolling Stone India, Rock Street Journal, and other similar publications that whilst focusing on popular music also cater to independent musical acts. The ‘fringe’ i.e. the Indian metal scene would suggest that the metal scene exists within a larger popular understanding of music. But owing to its carnivalesque characteristics and largely underground associations, it thrives in the peripheries. In an emerging market economy such as India, one might say that metal has somewhat missed the boat to penetrate the general and often rigid ideas and understandings of art, music and culture in the mainstream.

The interviews that I conducted for this research paper were with metal artists that had been part of three of the Delhi metal scene’s biggest bands over the course of its existence: Vikas Dharmsattu, the guitarist for Delhi’s first ever metal bands, Prestorika and Acrid Semblance, who now plays guitars for Drohkaal (another Delhi based metal band) ever since his departure from Prestorika and the disbanding of Acrid Semblance in 2015; Noble Luke, the vocalist for Delhi’s Artillerie (one of the first Indian metal bands that I witnessed covering a Lamb of God song in 2008), even though the band hasn’t been particularly active since 2015 they are still together as a group; lastly, Moses Koul, the guitarist for Kraken., a band that sprung into fame with their song ‘Dance Jane Dance’ in 2014, they are still a mainstay at metal shows even though the band has now dropped their metal sound and started to move towards a more contemporary instrumental based experimental sound with the release of their debut EP ‘Lush’ in 2017.

To bring into focus how metal artists and fans navigate their perceptions of being part of a fringe subculture that is often viewed as odd and abject, Vikas Dharmsattu, the guitarist for two of the very first metal bands from Delhi (Prestorika and Acrid Semblance; and now Dhrokaal) mentioned the following in his interview:

“… if you look at India, anyway, it’s Bollywood that’s the most popular music ever. Metal is a niche within a niche. Rock in itself is kind of niche in India. Even a band like Linkin Park is kind of a niche in India, and then when you talk about metal it’s an even smaller genre. So definitely there’s no interaction (between the fringe and centre). In some rare cases you’ll find examples, like MTV Indies but I don’t know if it’s active anymore… I used to watch Demonic Resurrection music videos on that channel. But yeah, if in a movie you have a metal track, that’ll be a big thing.”

Dharmsattu, V. [ex- Prestorika; Acrid Semblance; Dhrokaal]. (2018, March 3). Personal Interview.

But again, this isn’t to say that the mainstream Indian music scene doesn’t acknowledge the existence or presence of the metal scene in India at all. But understanding the need for an intervention from the mainstream becomes a little more clear from my interview with Moses Koul, the guitarist for Kraken., who noted:

“That’s the only way the metal community or the independent music community can become financially viable, when the independent sort of crosses over to Bollywood. I remember my boss from a previous organization was a Hindi music lover but he used to listen to Joint Family’s song all day, purely because he heard it in Byomkesh Bakshy.”

Koul, M. [Kraken.]. (2018, March 4). Personal Interview.

To point out at this ‘casual embrace’ of the underground by the mainstream that I refer to really points at the nature and trajectory that the Indian metal scene has largely followed for more than over a decade since it came to life in the cities of India. A small spike in activity that’s followed a significant period of lull, where there are hardly any live shows or music releases by metal artists really only works towards diluting and dulling the scene. The casual embrace that I talk of here really refers to how once a year, at a major music festival there would be a group of Indian metal artists who would be provided with a stage to perform on, mostly because an international act is also playing at the same festival along with artists from various genres and for a large number in the audience, this engagement with the scene would be as much as they would get till the festival comes around again.

Another interesting, and quite essential as can be figured from an interview excerpt provided earlier, is how sometimes the mainstream Indian film industry i.e. Bollywood features metal tracks or metal artists on their film’s soundtracks. This, as pointed out by the metal artists I interviewed, is not as frequent as they would like to see it happen, but it again points to a momentary break in character by mainstream media and it is just this embrace of the underground that is intriguing to take note of and study. A peripheral crossover would then in turn seem necessary as it would only lend itself to be in time accepted by a bigger audience that just might be open to not only the inclusion of metal songs in Bollywood movies, but also to listening to more of something similar.

[dissertation-delhimetal]

Chapter 4: I: The Metal Scene in Delhi

Beginnings:

The Delhi metal scene, as partially inactive as it may seem on the surface, has similar origins as that of the national metal scene. But almost all (of the very few) earliest metal bands from Delhi, for instance, Nightmare on Elm Street and Vishnu, used to play covers of other well known bands like Metallica, Megadeth and Iron Maiden; all other heavier bands at that time were either covering rock or grunge tunes, or playing a Guns N’ Roses inspired hard rock. The earliest metal bands to create their own original compositions started emerging only in the early 2000s; bands like Prestorika and Acrid Semblance were the first of Delhi’s crop of metal artists making their own music.

Though it may seem detrimental to the creative environment of a subculture at first for metal bands from the capital to have only played covers during the beginning of the scene, it is the same that seems to have laid the groundwork for original material to surface, as Noble [Artillerie] explained:

“… they were trying to prove a point, by doing all that… it was necessary because what happened is that in that process, a lot of guitar players became really good at their skill, a lot of drummers became really good at their skill, a lot of vocalists became really good at their skill. Which is what we did as well, we just played a lot of covers in the beginning.”

Luke, N. [Artillerie]. (2018, February 26). Personal Interview.

Vikas [ex-Prestorika; Acrid Semblance; Drohkaal] pointed out the early environment of the Delhi metal scene around the time metal bands started to play original music in an interview:

“They were basically playing covers. I would say we were one of the few bands that started with a full originals set in our shows. So we were there, Demonic Resurrection from Bombay, Myndsnare, Pin Drop Violence. Bombay had a good number of bands who were doing originals… Basically, in those days, everyone started with IIT Rendezvous (2002), where they had a competition for bands. So we played at a few of those, and we got invited by RSJ for GIR. Then people from RSJ started organizing pub shows all throughout Delhi. So we used to be there with a couple of other bands like Undying Inc., who had just started, and a couple of other bands who are no more active now. So we started from there, and started getting calls for outstation gigs from Bombay and Bangalore. Sahil Makhija from Demonic Resurrection was big into organizing metal shows in Bombay, so he helped us a lot. He offered us a lot of gigs there. That was a good time, lots of shows.”

Dharmsattu, V. [ex- Prestorika; Acrid Semblance; Dhrokaal]. (2018, March 3). Personal Interview.

This is also the time when Rock Street Journal, an independent music magazine started by independent musicians and enthusiasts in the year 1993, started operating the RSJ forum, which proved to be an integral part in the movement in Delhi’s metal scene (as well as the Indian metal scene) from a seemingly unoriginal atmosphere to a scene producing original compositions. It becomes necessary to point out Rock Street Journal’s role in all of this because now with the presence of a platform where artists and their songs could be reviewed and scrutinized, a place where metal fans could express their opinions on prevailing metal artists and the state of the scene became integral for the development of the scene.

“To this day, I think those forums were really important, which is something we sorely miss and lack now… Suddenly you had people commenting. They had a place where they could go to, they didn’t have to reveal who they were and they could be scathing in their reviews of bands, sometimes unnecessarily, but this forced bands to become better. I remember that at that time it felt very detrimental, it felt as if no one gives a shit, no one cares… but now that I look back, I think those things were necessary. And that’s what truly makes a scene, you know? When people get real about what they think. And so, bands tried to outdo each other in terms of being creative and that changed everything. Suddenly people who were writing on these forums, some of them went on to become critics; they went on to write for RSJ. And it’s sad to say, but at that time, it was only RSJ that was really driving the machine, actively coming out with articles about Indian bands, full page articles, double page articles; no one had ever thought about that.”

Luke, N. [Artillerie]. (2018, February 26). Personal Interview.

It is quite necessary here to point out that here because of the presence of a driving force like Rock Street Journal, a focus from the mainstream could now be shifted not only on the independent music scene in India and metal scene in India, on top of that, there was now an incentive for metal artists to have their art appreciated and reviewed by enthusiasts and music critics alike. And most importantly with a certain level of constant socialization now made possible through the medium of the forums, the metal scene in Delhi could now operate as an independent and powerful creative cultural movement.

A Crack in the Bone:

Ever since 2007, international metal bands finally started to fly over to India, starting with possibly the biggest and most important metal concert even to this day where Iron Maiden performed in Bengaluru. Iron Maiden’s 2007 performance is the key moment when metal in India was put on the front page of mainstream music. Iron Maiden then visited India again in 2009, but it is their performance in 2007 that one can argue opened the gates for countless metal giants to then come and perform in India over the next decade. To present this graphically,

Fig. 4.1: Number of performances by international metal/rock bands in India from 2006-2014                                                                  Source: metalbase.in; 2017

The increase in performances from international metal artists is encouraging because that provides an opportunity for cultural crossovers that enable not only sustain the scene but also bring new ideas and exposure to native metal artists.

Fig. 4.2. Twelve Foot Ninja’s (Australia) first ever concert performance at the Hard Rock Café in Delhi, India. October 27th, 2017.

The state of the Delhi metal scene at present is a little disappointing given the lack of genuine and creative engagement owing to various factors, within the genre and even the functioning of the capital and its infrastructure, physical or otherwise. This was pointed out by a number of participants in the questionnaire responses and interviews, where metalheads stated that the metal scenes in Mumbai and Bengaluru are far more active precisely because of the presence of the required infrastructure, an ease to secure venues for gigs and concerts, and support from the fans of the music, a “different kind of excitement and fervor” coupled with an equally high amount of will to participate in events and the organization of the same. And some metal artists echoed the same during interviews, that just to play in other cities somewhat more rewarding because metalheads in Delhi tend to “hold back” during shows and the reception by fans in other cities has often been more visible.

But to be reflexive in our understanding of the scene it is extremely necessary to be self critical, and that is where part of the responsibility for the lull in the Delhi metal scene lies on the performers as well. Moses [Kraken.], speculating on the possible reasons behind the lack of activity in the metal scene pointed out at something that might be far more concerning for a metal enthusiast seemingly unaware of the happenings within the scene than the lull itself:

“I feel there’s this very strong superiority complex that exists among metal musicians, at least the ones there are in India, or Delhi for that matter which is this ‘holier than thou’, ‘we are better than you musically’, or ‘we understand life better than you’. That sort of translates into the attitude that they sort of put forth, which is extremely off-putting for fellow musicians and also people who come to attend their shows. I guess this is also what sort of caused this sudden decay and decomposition... If you’re playing a genre of music that is very off centre and has a very niche crowd, and on top of that niche crowd you’re playing to a very niche crowd in India where Bollywood takes most of the cake, there is no reason for one to feel like they are Steve Vai, or Alexi Laiho, but it’s just the attitude that exists among musicians.

So that is something that’s  made me feel very uncomfortable and not feel a part of it because I don’t really see my band or myself as someone who’s ‘holier than thou’; given the right context, I’ll enjoy any sort of music. That’s one thing. Then I guess the audience as well. At least in Delhi, they’re not very forthcoming when it comes to coming out to enjoy metal music, maybe it’s because of the quality of metal bands, maybe it’s the venues, or maybe it’s just the timing of the whole thing.”

Koul, M. [Kraken.]. (2018, March 4). Personal Interview.

Now, the following three narratives from performers who have seen the changes in the metal scene in Delhi over the years are presented here in order to best reflect the current state of the Delhi metal scene.

“Now it’s pretty scarce, and mostly shows happen elsewhere (Bombay, Bengaluru). I mean, they happen in Delhi but the scale has gone down. Earlier we used to have GIR, NH7, those were big platforms, but now as international bands have become so accessible, so people prefer calling them. So that has hurt the local Indian bands a bit. It boils down to lack of bands and lack of interest, but yeah, lots of fans are here in Delhi, it’s just that the scene is more or less dead because a lot of fans wish to see international bands, and now they can.”

Dharmsattu, V. [ex- Prestorika; Acrid Semblance; Dhrokaal]. (2018, March 3). Personal Interview.

But surely with the present state of the scene, its lack of engagement or inactivity can’t just be put on the shoulders of international metal acts to help and resuscitate. So to systematically increase our net of reasons for this decline, Moses [Kraken.] points out:

“When it comes to the metal scene in Delhi, or India at the moment, it’s going through a very deep lull. No one’s releasing any music, I don’t think there’s hardly any metal shows in line, so I hope, fingers crossed, that this is a temporary lull and not a permanent lull. But there’s a very strong quiet in the metal scene at the moment. To add to that, people are sort of going towards more experimental sides of metal which is like modern, instrument based… like Plini just did a tour, so did Twelve Foot Ninja.

So in terms of international bands coming in, there’s a huge influx but the metal bands in India, or Delhi for that matter, sort of just wake themselves up when there’s an international guy coming in to play; they play the opening slot and sort of die out, they don’t release any new stuff or don’t go out of their way to push their own band. Which has a lot to do with, you know, the crowds, the people, the audience, the opportunities, and just the output compared to the input. You have to put in a lot more than you get out of it, and then you have day jobs, or people get married.”

Koul, M. [Kraken.]. (2018, March 4). Personal Interview.

And a lack of engagement due to a lack of will to even create or play music owing to personal preferences does make sense while trying to reason out just why the metal scene in Delhi has been now left to the hands of a presence of international metal acts. Now to bring these arguments to a close and provide the final narrative that sheds a little more light on just why the metal scene in Delhi is now not as exciting as earlier to say the least:

“The scene dropped the moment that scathing review, the idea of weighing the band on how creative they were, the moment that fell through, you know? Like when it came back to just playing covers, like in tribute acts and all that. It came back to that and that’s how it all fell apart. I remember the Norwegian embassy was very interested. We never went to Norway, but there were those that did (Undying Inc., Bhayanak Maut, Scribe) and this cultural exchange happened and that’s how scenes are built, you know? At the moment, we lack that infrastructure; no one’s filling that gap… GIR used to run because people were genuinely interested. It’s show business after all, people were interested in seeing ‘Ye kya karenge?’ (What are they going to do?), ‘how heavy was that band?’, and ‘was it heavier than that band?’ It’s not like people don’t give a shit. There are some who really genuinely enjoy music and they do give a shit, but the talk is not happening anymore.”

Luke, N. [Artillerie]. (2018, February 26). Personal Interview.

A Future of the Delhi Metal Scene?

Given the bleak picture that one might arrive to from the narratives that I’ve included in this paper so far, it is necessary to come to terms with the present situation, and to look forward optimistically to a more engaging and relatively more active, self regenerating subcultural scene. As difficult it is to speculate where exactly the Delhi metal scene would head next, it is necessary to try to understand how and where metal artists perceive Delhi’s metal scene to move forward. Given that the two excerpts provided here are from the first very metal artists from Delhi, who unfortunately no longer perform with their earlier bands, there is undoubtedly a much clearer insight that can draw from these.

“The local bands need the fans’ and organizers’ support. And organizers will only support these bands when they see a large enough audience for this kind of music, to whom they can market it as a gig, right?... For example, 1833 AD almost sounds like an international band now, so musically they are evolving. But without the support, it’s difficult. You can’t keep on spending your own cash just for the love of it. You can do it for 4-5 years, but after that you need some kind of support.

Plus this kind of music, as a performer, you need certain kinds of financial support and backup. Without that you can’t really do it. If you look at bands from US, South America, most of the international bands that made it big, they used to be really poor or were from a very humble background. But over here, it’s a totally different scene. So to buy good instruments, to buy good technology, you need that financial backup and only then will you be able to really go on stage. But it will take time, I think around another 15-20 years for people to really accept… but yeah, at the end of the day it all boils down to the fans. The fans have to make a stand and support. Personally, I knew two bands who at that time used to sound like most international bands but they were from a very humble background and after 3-4 years, they just faded away. I’ve seen instances like that.”

Dharmsattu, V. [ex- Prestorika; Acrid Semblance; Dhrokaal]. (2018, March 3). Personal Interview.

“I would like to believe that just like all these electronic artists that we’re getting to see now, who were sitting in their bedrooms all these years and working on their craft, I’m sure that I would like to believe truly that there are some artists in Delhi who have been relegated to those bedrooms and they haven’t stopped working. No one will come and tell them that their music is good, not right now; it’ll be many years before they’ll be found again. Maybe they have a few friends who’ll come and tell them that they’re good, that they truly believe in what they’re doing because no one cares right now. But as long as it just stays stubborn, we have a future.”

Luke, N. [Artillerie]. (2018, February 26). Personal Interview.

[dissertation-delhimetal]

Chapter 4: II: Quasi Mainstreams in Delhi and the Location of Metal

Now that we are equipped to understand how a subculture can be defined as a quasi mainstream, we can move forward to locate the Delhi metal scene among the various other quasi mainstreams that exist and operate in Delhi. And again, taking cues from the narratives that I came across during the process of conducting interviews with metal artists in Delhi, the resounding truth that one can try to come to terms with is the fact that metal has majorly catered to a niche crowd over the past few decades, and in India, this niche gets reduced even further and then, to view the metal subculture in India as a whole would not paint a picture that’s convincing enough through its numbers of fans and artists.

As Noble [Artillerie] described the situation; looking at the various quasi mainstreams in Delhi, aside from metal, are relatively more active,

“Some of the quasi mainstreams in Delhi are doing much better than metal, for example, improv comedy, there are some groups that are regularly holding improv classes and workshops and they’re just going at it. Then standup comedy, more and more people are organizing those little standup comedy gigs, world music. So metal is not doing well, not as well as these other fringe elements.”

Luke, N. [Artillerie]. (2018, February 26). Personal Interview.

And sticking to what does indeed stand out as a crucial factor for any subculture to thrive, i.e. the presence of a crowd that follows and engages enthusiastically with the art form and in turn cyclically creates the environment and opportunities necessary for it to survive.

“Metal, in the world, is a quasi mainstream. It’s a niche genre which attracts a very niche crowd, and everything caters to a very small community. I mean, metal in the world is so niche, then when we come to India, then the independent music and then metal, you literally can count the number of fans or people who turn up for shows on your hands.”

Koul, M. [Kraken.]. (2018, March 4). Personal Interview.

“…it’s a very niche thing, and especially in Delhi in terms of art you have art galleries, standup comedy, rock shows, etc. and a typical metal fan would go to a show to just get that release, drink a few beers, headbang a bit, have a good time with their friends and just release that energy. So in that way it’s good but you can’t compare it to other subcultures like art, poetry and standup comedy, so you get a different kind of crowd for that… more sophisticated. It’s more accessible, more mainstream.”

Dharmsattu, V. [ex- Prestorika; Acrid Semblance; Dhrokaal]. (2018, March 3). Personal Interview.

The position of metal within Delhi among countless other similar subcultural art forms is quite apparent given how there is a strong group of people that feel one with the community, maybe more so with the music. Irrespective of their actual numbers or the level to which they engage within the scene, even within a community that’s privileged enough to come across and appreciate a genre of music that dares to be so off kilter just by how it is sonically perceived by most, there are plenty of individuals who are still bound by various limitations that might just feed more and more into the listlessness that plagues the Delhi metal community.

[dissertation-delhimetal]

Chapter 5: A Role for Venues and Events

Like any other art form that is focused around the performance of the creative, the most important and powerful tool for the genre to satisfy existing fans and capture new audiences is the concert. A concert brings together people in a “common context of space and time, producing the closest approximation there is to heavy metal” (Weinstein, 2000). The concert stage in heavy metal subculture is quite often valued even more than the studio because it is on this stage where bands have to not only recreate the studio sound but also showcase their musical virtuosity and adeptness at their respective role in the band, and in turn prove their worth as a metal artist.

It goes without saying that a concert venue plays as important a role as the concert itself. The ease of organization of concerts and a desire from venues to seek metal bands to perform at their premises is quite often extremely crucial to the construction of a metal scene. An ongoing narrative, or string of complaint that most metal musicians and fans in India often make is in regards to the lack of venues for metal concerts. Here, in this chapter I will try to cover two major aspects of how the metal scene in Delhi navigates around this question of space and location by focusing on the presence of metal bands at college cultural festivals (home to competitions like Battle of the Bands) and how cafes and clubs/pubs figure in this scene when it comes to organizing metal concerts.

 College Cultural Festivals:

Delhi is a university city and is home to numerous institutions of higher education and as is quite common to metal scenes throughout the world, a number of Indian metal bands are usually formed during high school or college years. And in what might be peculiar to the Indian metal scene, annual college cultural festivals are major opportunities for metal bands to prove their mettle, win crowds and earn an income for the band. Numerous bigshots of the Indian metal scene have been observed to have either started or made a name for themselves on the college festival circuit by competing in Battle of the Bands competitions, sometimes even all over India. It should be noted that the same could be said for countless other independent musicians from India who have used the college festival circuit as the platform to showcase their talents and win new audiences.

Fig. 5.1. The crowd at Lamb of God’s (USA) second concert performance in Bengaluru, India. May 26th, 2012.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, most metal bands in the beginning of the scene in Delhi viewed IIT Delhi’s cultural festival, ‘Rendezvous’ as the event to make a mark on the scene. This association of a particular cultural event as a major stage could also have a lot to do with public’s association of the space in which a particular event is taking place with other notions about the space, in this case IITs having always been held as the keynote institution of higher technical education in India. Battle of the Bands are a regular event at various cultural festivals throughout India, and given that it is not only metal bands that often compete for the top prize, plenty of colleges pair up their Battle of the Bands winners to perform with a major musical act, usually the next day, which has quite often led to crossover events between international and national metal acts and even non-metal acts.

As Vikas [ex-Prestorika; Acrid Semblance; Drohkaal] pointed out, back in the early 2000s, and even now, college cultural festivals are “very very important. Back then, IIT used to be the ‘Mecca’… like if you got to play there, you got lots of exposure.” And so with the association of certain connotations with the space within which the event would take place, its organization, management, level of engagement in terms of crowd participation, and it reception would vary significantly.

Maybe the best way to summarise all that I’ve stated so far in this section is through Moses’ [Kraken.] opinion on the issue:

“… if you’re a band that’s in college, play as many festivals and competitions as you can. That’s where you can, sort of, learn to be tight, learn to play fast, earn good money if you win a competition. That’s also where you can earn fans because no one’s gonna give you a venue to play if you’re a newbie, if there’s no music out, if there’s nothing you can back it up with. These are also places where, metal bands who won’t necessarily get gigs to play otherwise can earn a bulk of their income from, and you can put that into your album, which is what we did.”

Koul, M. [Kraken.]. (2018, March 4). Personal Interview.

But then again, there have been instances where college bands don’t specifically seek out metal bands, owing to the fact that due to the presence of a “mixed bag” of people, the diversity in audience present at a college cultural festival; colleges generally “want to get a band that’ll please everybody.”

Fig. 5.2. Pentagram’s (India) closing concert performance on the last day of the NH7 Weekender music festival in Pune, India. December 10th, 2017.

 Pubs, Cafes and Organizers:

Echoing on the same ideas as the earlier section, concert venues, more often than not throughout the world are best actualized in various pubs and cafes. And as important concert venues are for the survival of the scene, an equally important role is also played by the organizers of such events. Through the interviews and research questionnaire it was easy to conclude, just by the sheer presence of the opinion, that at the moment, Delhi doesn’t have any venues specifically dedicated to metal music. The lack of venues is disheartening because as pointed out in the interviews, for an independent musician in India concert performances are logistically easier than in other parts of the world, as venues in India often cover the backline, drums, PA sound system, and catering.

Vikas’ [ex-Prestorika; Acrid Semblance; Dohkaal] interview outlined how organizing a concert currently mostly DIY if it’s a small bill of artists, where the artists usually club resources and and approach a venue with the idea for a concert. This then gets approved, unfortunately, sometimes when the concert is promoted as a tribute show, because to most organizers, who often aren’t necessarily fans of the music, have economic issues at hand to deal with first and it is easier to promote a tribute concert.

But he also pointed out at the difference between performing at college cultural festivals and in cafes/pubs or clubs:

“… college festivals give you a huge platform where you get in front of a very big audience, whereas clubs are very important because they give you a platform every weekend. The number of people isn’t that much but still, a band gets to play music every weekend. So the presence of a good club that provides this platform in a particular area is very important. But then again, even clubs need to attract crowds, right? So they can’t really do it promoting a metal gig.”

Dharmsattu, V. [ex- Prestorika; Acrid Semblance; Dhrokaal]. (2018, March 3). Personal Interview.

Now that we’ve mentioned promotion and marketing in this section, it’s fair to include that Noble [Artillerie] mentioned how important it was back then and still is to market a concert or the happenings of the heavy metal subculture in a way that does justice to the fans and the artists. Speaking about the lackluster turn of events over the last decade with respect to audience turnout, fall in number of concerts, and a general inactivity in the scene, he had the following to say:

“Delhi has a very spirited crowd; most of them don’t turn up to gigs anymore. I don’t blame them necessarily. I think somewhere organizers, artists, people just dropped the ball in terms of just presenting… Outrage (festival) was very successful. Can you remember what worked for them? Do you remember seeing the Outrage logo for the first time? It was a fantastic logo, man… like a beast. These are tropes of the show business. Like, if you slack in these regards, if you slack in these matters, you will lose the ball. I remember seeing the Outrage logo and saying ‘Oh, fuck we’re getting professional again!’ I was very interested in what was happening here, and bands were interested in playing, because it’s just an exciting proposition.”

Luke, N. [Artillerie]. (2018, February 26). Personal Interview.

And as I write this, I do remember attending Outrage 2015 (a tribute and fundraiser for the Nepal earthquake relief) and Outrage 2016; both editions of the festival featured some of the best and edgiest metal bands from not only Delhi but all over India and Nepal. I also just happen to recall at this moment that somewhere near my collection of books and music CDs, I have a set of posters and artwork that the organizers of Outrage festival had handed out to every single person in attendance the night of the concert, which at that time I’d viewed as a novel gesture because, and even though I haven’t after all these years, I do recall wanting to get those posters framed and hung up on a wall in my room. Noble [Artillerie], also a performer at Outrage 2015, finally went to mention just how even though in hindsight all these things he’d mentioned would be viewed as secondary, their importance could’ve been realized sooner.

[dissertation-delhimetal]

Conclusion

At the end of this research paper, I would like to conclude by saying that metal as an art form is a deeply personal and intimate experience for its patrons and rouses equivalent sentiments that makes metalheads across the world feel a sense of belonging to a larger than life phenomena and means different to each listener or audience member at the end of a song or a performance.

The metal scene in India looks to be on the cusp of starting to grow and expand further with metal bands from other Indian states like Kerela, Telangana, Karnataka, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh that have started to engage with the scene more actively than earlier. The national scene still seems more proactive than the one in the capital, and it is probably that which would need to change in order for a fresh breath of air to hit the metal scene in Delhi. Currently, at this very moment, all that the metal scene in India, and especially the scene in Delhi, needs is continuous and genuine participation from metal bands, fans, organisers, promoters and booking agents, magazines or other media publishing houses, and maybe even from international metal acts, and also from academic spaces.

[dissertation-delhimetal]

Bibliography

Baulch, E. (2003). Gesturing Elsewhere: The Identity Politics of the Balinese Death/Thrash Metal Scene. Popular Music, 22(2), 195-215.

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge.

Dunn, S., & McFadyen, S. (Directors). (2007). Global Metal [Documentary]. Canada: Seville Pictures, Warner Home Video.

Dunn, S., & McFadyen, S. (Directors). (2011). Metal Evolution [TV series]. Canada: Tricon Films & Television

Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Halnon, K. B. (2004). Inside Shock Music Carnival : Spectacle as Contested Terrain. Critical Sociology, 30(3), 743-779.

Halnon, K. B. (2005). Alienation Incorporated : “F*** the Mainstream Music” in the Mainstream. Current Sociology, 53(3), 441-464.

Kahn-Harris, K. (2007). Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge. Oxford: Berg.

Mayer, A., & Timberlake, J. M. (2014). “The Fist in the Face of God”: Heavy Metal Music and Decentralized Cultural Diffusion. Sociological Perspectives, 57(1), 27-51.

Quader, S. Bin, & Redden, G. (2015). Approaching the Underground: The production of alternatives in the Bangladeshi metal scene. Cultural Studies, 29(3), 401-424.

Riches, G. (2011). Embracing the Chaos: Mosh Pits, Extreme Metal Music and Liminality. Journal for Cultural Research, 15(3), 315-332.

Roccor, B. (2017). Heavy Metal : Forces of Unification and Fragmentation within a Musical Subculture. The World of Music, 42(1), 83–94.

Rowe, P. (2016). Becoming metal: narrative reflections on the early formation and embodiment of heavy metal identities. Journal of Youth Studies, 20(6), 713-731.

Sinclair, G., & Dolan, P. (2015). Heavy metal figurations: Music consumption, subcultural control and civilizing processes. Marketing Theory, 15(3), 423-431.

Singh, M. (Director). (2013) Yeh Hai Metal [Documentary]. India: Mehr Singh Films.

Wallser, R. (1993). Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Hanover: University Press of New England.

Weinstein, D. (2000). Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture (Revised Ed). New York: Da Capo Press.

Wise, J. J., Dunn, S., & McFadyen, S. (Directors). (2005). Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey [Documentary]. Canada: Seville Pictures, Warner Home Video.