After releasing their excellent debut album ‘Throne Of Control’, (read our review here) which takes all that is great about thrash and heavy metal and creates an album by metal fans for metal fans. We put some questions to the Mumbai thrash metal quintet, and find out about the band, the album and the Indian metal scene.
First off. How are you guys doing during this current situation? How has the pandemic affected the band? Any messages for your fans?
Yash Wadkar : We’re doing great!. Yes, pandemic has been stressful for all of us at different levels. But we’re glad that things are getting better and slowly coming back on track. We took the biggest hit on our recording sessions. We had to put them on hold and that delayed the album release. We initially had plans of releasing the album by April-May. The pandemic has also affected our marketing campaign to a certain degree. That being said, we can’t thank our fans/well wishers enough for their undying support and love for us. We really feel overwhelmed.
For people who may not be familiar with the band. Can you introduce us to the band and tell us a little about how you formed and why you chose the style that you play?
YW : So we have Vishwas Shetty on the Rhythms, Anirudh Gollapudi on the Vocals, Shubham Khare on the leads, Patil on drums and I handle the duties on the bass. Bloodkill was formed back in 2016 with Vishwas and Me being the founding members followed by Anirudh, Shubham and Jay coming in at different time intervals. We have always faced constant lineup issues but the current lineup has been the strongest we’ve had. As far as our music is concerned all 5 of us have different influences in metal music and that’s why we sound the way we sound. In my opinion this is a perfect amalgamation of Heavy, Groove & Thrash metal. So we never chose to sound this way. It’s just how things kept building up and we love how it sounds.
I read that you started out as a typical thrash metal outfit influenced by the 80’s thrash era but now you incorporate wider from the metal genre? What led you guys down that path?
YW: Well again, Vishwas is a pure thrash guy while I prefer Heavy/Groove more. Anirudh, on the other hand, listens to almost every metal subgenre out there and he’s got phenomenal vocal range. That really gives us the freedom to experiment more with our music. And with Shubham and Jay we could really widen the dynamics of our music. So it’s basically just each one of us letting loose in the studios.
How does a song develop in the band?
Anirudh Gollapudi: We generally have Vishwas and/or Yash coming up with the initial riffs/song structures. I then pick up the mood of these structures and pen down my concept/lyrical ideas. Then comes Jay throwing in some sick drum lines followed by Shubham who usually writes the interludes and solos over these structures. But this isn’t always the formula. Anyone in the band who has a particular idea is encouraged to put it forth. And all our songs are written with multiple permutations and combinations.
YW: If we’re writing a series of songs then we usually prefer sticking to a particular theme. We try finding the most relevant instrumental and lyrical pieces around the concept mostly. But sometimes we get our ideas during random jam sessions or just a free instrumental run. We try to keep our approach very linear but it isn’t always the case. We go with the flow and skateboard that shit.
Outside of the music, what do you guys like to do? What keeps you busy?
YW: We drink!. Just kidding.. We all have our jobs here. Anirudh is currently pursuing Lawyer, I am an Investment Banker, Shubham is an Engineer, Jay is a youtuber and Vishwas is a management facilitator. Besides this our favorite pastime activity is to get sloshed!.
Are there any bands past or present you would love to have played with or even been part of? Is there a particular band that got you into music?
AG: Now that would be quite a bucket list to clear of! However just to name a few at the top of our heads we would definitely love to play with the Big 4 and the Teutonic 4, Gojira & Down to top it off. As Yash spoke earlier, all of us have a very different background with regard to how each of us got into metal music. Most of us definitely started off listening to bands like the aforementioned Big 4 however each of us branched out quite a bit into the sub-genres we love to listen to on a rather regular basis.
Difficult to talk about future plans, but what does the future look like?
YW: Our immediate goal is to tour around and market our music to as many geographies as possible. But let’s see how it turns out amidst this pandemic. As far as our long term goal is concerned we really don’t have much planned particularly. We just want to keep writing and performing more music, entertaining metal enthusiasts all around the world and keep the Indian metal scene active.
How is the metal scene in India? Are there any bands you think deserve some more exposure?
AG: The Indian scene has been quite active for a while now and some of our contemporaries have also managed to go on and get bigger exposure outside India with the likes of Demonic Resurrection, Bloodywood, Kryptos, Gutslit, Godless, SystemHouse33 (to name a few) being some of the biggest to come out of this scene. However, there are also a lot of bands that we feel deserve more exposure like our fellow Mumbai Thrashers Carnage Inc. & Sabotage, death metallers Dead Exaltation who will be releasing their debut full length in the month of February, Groove/Death Metallers Eternal Returns who just released their debut EP in 2020 & extreme metallers Infestation are also amongst the local well-known. Out of the more veteran bands Inner Sanctum, Albatross, Primitiv, DIRGE, Diarchy come to our minds.
Have a listen to 3B live, below:
Find out more about the band via their Facebook
Grab yourself a copy of the album here
And then by chance I came across this band. Thank you for writing this piece. Didn’t know I missing out on such a cool Thrash band from the country.