- Aho! Tell to begin, please, how do you become metalheads in the 90s in India and decided to start a band? In the 90s in India have someone played metal?

                    

                    We have had western music in India for a long time and back in the 70s you used to get LPs of all the popular artists so in the early 90s I heard some Iron Maiden from a friend of mine in school. Since then I was hooked onto metal. There have been metal bands in India from the 80s but it was mostly cover or tribute bands playing here. In the early 90s there was a band called Millennium that actually released 2 albums professional and had a music video and also there were some underground metal bands like Dying Embrace. The scene though was very small and my love for metal drove me to form a band of my own.

                    

                    - Tell us about the new album. The break was pretty impressive between it and the penultimate...

                    

                    Musically the album is faster, more brutal and at the same time we retain the melodic sound of DR. We had the album ready in 2012 and we spent about a year recording it and we are finally releasing it on 14th July 2014.

                    

                    - Does the text concept on album (I thought)?

                    

                    The new album is called 'The Demon King' which is a new story. The basic concept is about the balance of good and evil in this world and the story of the album talks about the resurrection of the Demon King who is modeled on the Indian demon Ravan (just visually) and how he unleashes his fury on the world shifting the balance of good and evil. In the story god who is the silent watcher descends to the world below to fight the demon king and restore the balance in the world. The ending I will leave to people to discover when they read the lyrics.

                    

                    

                    

                    - Your music is a pretty interesting and heaped eclectic mix of genres - why this is so and how you label it all?

                    

                    Music they say is a reflection of a persons personality and even as a person I cannot just do 1 thing I like do everything. So I guess that reflects in the music also. Everyone in the band as well comes from different backgrounds. Our drummer Viru likes many modern bands like Sikth, Meshuggah as well as death metal, our guitar player Daniel who was on the album used to like lots of jazz and bands like Gorguts and our keyboardist Mephisto loves 90s black metal. Our bassist listens to all kinds of music and likes bands like Faceless and Necrophagist. I personally love all kinds of metal but my favourites are power metal and death metal. So all these influences make up our sound.

                    

                    - You're one of the few bands in the symphonic extreme genre that still have live keyboardist - do you consider that it's better than recorded samples by not-keyboardist, then replaying at the concert from sequencer and often illegible generally in live mix?

                    

                    Yes, absolutely. I mean our sound is because of the skill of Mephisto, the keyboardist. If we had samples then he would not be in the band and then we would not sound like this. He writes all the orchestrations on the album and then of course he plays them live too. He is a very important part of the sound, the band and the live show. We do run some parts of the backing track but our style is more with the keyboard up front.

                    

                    - Whats the music are you currently listening to?

                    

                    I am listening to nothing actually because I am on tour and after playing shows every night you just want some silence. I am though enjoy the new De Profundis album which I am listening to, it's not released yet but it will be good when it comes out. Before coming on tour I was listening to the new Rotting Christ album and the new Behemoth record as well.

                    

                    

                    

                    - Tell us briefly about your death metal project Reptilian Death.

                    

                    It's been around for 12 years now. I started it as a spoof project inspired by the likes of Anal Cunt but later I turned it into a live band when Demonic Resurrection could not play a show. I pretty much do everything myself and we released 1 album and 1 EP. In 2010 I joined forces with Vinay Venkatesh who is the singer for the band Bhayanak Maut and we wrote a new album together. I did all the music and he did the vocals and wrote the lyrics. We also had Ashwin Shriyan join and record bass on the album. From here this project took new life and we gave it a full make over and we were ready to get back into the scene.

                    

                    - As it happened, however, that you are not only the most popular and well-known metal band in India, but went on an international level? Just luck or not?

                    

                    No luck, just lots of hard work. Sometimes people don't know that we have been doing this for 14 years and only just now we are getting some international recognition. So it has been a very long and hard journey with many ups and downs.

                    

                    - Across the whole India is there developed metal scene and fans or only in major metropolitan areas? Did you make a big tours in India? What is the most popular genres at India?

                    

                    Right now there is a good metal scene in some of the major cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata while cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai are slowly catching up and in our even smaller towns things are starting to happen but it will be some time before there is a proper touring network. We mainly have issues with venues and infrastructure here so big tours are difficult at the moment. Each city has a different scene like in Mumbai groove metal and modern metal are most popular but in Bangalore the more old school styles of metal are popular. So each city is different.

                    

                    - Have you heard about the Russian band Kartikeya, playing Vedic Ethno Death Metal (group leader for many years lived in India)? Why in India, as far as I know, metal musicians do not play metal focused on Indian classical music (I know only one like Kartikeya band in Nepal)?

                    

                    Yes I have and the thing is in India now bands are trying some new things but many of us have no connection with these roots because India is a huge country and each part has it's own language and culture. I think part of the rebellion with metal in India is breaking away from Indian culture and not embracing it. So that is perhaps why you do not see it being used very often.

                    

                    

                    

                    - Would you like to play in Russia? Whether can we wait for you?

                    

                    We would love to come and play in Russia, if we get a decent offer you will see us there.

                    

                    - Please, say a few words in conclusion to our readers.

                    

                    Do check out our new album 'The Demon King' and thank you for all the support. Cheers & Stay Demonic!

                    

                    - Can you name your top 5 most favorite music albums of all time?

                    

                    1. Strapping Young Lad - City

                    2. Old Man's Child - Ill-Natured Spiritual Invasion

                    3. Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

                    4. Slayer - Season In The Abyss

                    5. Behemoth - Demigod

                    

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