BLAKC (not a typo!) is a band needing no introduction if you’re a regular on the Mumbai Rock circuit. They’re a big blakc grunge band! But so are a thousand other minuscule bands with catchy names in this city, you might say. Now before you sideline this band to the ‘amateur rock trash’ segment of your brain, read my lips. Blakc have a successful commercial album called ‘Choking on a dream’ to their name. Now that I have your attention , let the blackattainment begin :

BLAKC is band from Mumbai made up of 5 talented people. Them being Shawn Pereira (Vocals), Roop Thomas (Bass), Reinhardt Dias (Guitar), Anish Menon (Guitar) and Shishir(Tao) Thakur (Drums).

I don’t want to tell you about how the band was formed and other such details. These guys have listed that kinda stuff out more than eloquently on their Facebook page.
What I love about this band is that they are so active online. Their FB page is regularly updated with gig alerts, pictures, etc which keeps them so much in synch with the fans. Other Indian bands, take a cue!

Blakc released their debut album in December 2008, called, “Choking On a Dream”. Releasing a debut album is always a big move for any band and this was one album that was pretty well accepted by both fans and critics. But the Indian music scene being screwed up as it is, the band says that it DID NOT sell out like crazy. On the flip side, releasing an album has led to more people listening to their music. And gave them a whole new set of fans, “some strange ones....lol......besides that the album always help in getting recognition and respect as it is seen as an achievement from people who do not follow this kinda music”.

There was a reason behind the name and album art, which my small, logically inclined brain was not able to figure out. I asked Reinhardt to spell it out for me - and he made me feel more stupid than I did before - “Choking on a dream is the name of our album....I think it is self explanatory in the cover art as there is a girl scene who is wrapped around this wire and she is in a dream where she is being choked! ....it relates to how we as an Indian rock scene are all having ambitions to make it really big in music but we dont end up anywhere major because we have a very limited audience that isn’t going to be enough to support bands like us in this country....so we are.... Choking on a dream!” Wait a second. That was kinda logical. Ugh.

Anyways, the band seems to be doing pretty well and seem to be doing quite a few shows. Unfortunately I missed their live act at St. Francis, Borivali, but got hooked onto them after hearing my friends gush about them like teenage girls gushing about Edward. That was a somewhat pansy comparison. But you get my point.
These guys have performed all over India. Or atleast in 9 cities all over India - Mumbai, Pune, Indore, Kanpur, Delhi, Ahmadabad, Goa, Difu(Assam), Hamran(Assam). Their favourite city to perform in? - Difu. Although they also enjoy performing on the Chitrakoot Grounds in Aamchi Mumbai! W00t!

I have a feeling they were kind of high on something while creating their Facebook page. Why else would any band put Virar fast and McDonalds as their inspiration. Or they are probably a bunch of freaks like the kid in the movie August Rush and hear “music” in everything. Fortunately, when I asked them about their inspiration I got a sober enough response - “We all have different inspiration to our music ranging from the something like 90's Pop to some hardcore metal driven riffs.....lol....we love to listen to a lot of different music and appreciate all forms! .... our music is an amalgamation of each of our inspirations.” Probably they ain’t such freaks after all.

These guys believe that there is a pretty limited amount of audience that listens to the kind of rock music they create. Although, the masses don’t exactly dig that music, Bollywood and TV are certainly borrowing stuff from rock. I wanted to know how they feel about that - “Bollywood and TV are linked together, thats the reason bollywood is so huge!! I am sure in place of Bollywood if TV had the balls to invest money in a few rock bands we would have become way bigger than what we are today and so would Indian rock music. But I guess then that would be too easy, the hard way seems a lot more fun!!!
... The rock scene (in India) is not all that bad, it is coming up, television can change a lot of things. I personally feel the movie Rock on (as lame as it could be) has brought a whole new audience to rock and have gotten people to understand what a guitar even looks like....lol.....so if media can motivate and support the scene to a bigger extent then i see no reason why Indian rock bands cannot be as popular as Cricketers or Film stars!”

Their current favourite Indian bands are Zero, Indus Creed and lately Scribe. (Note to self, check out the ones you haven’t and try yo interview them :P )

Being the rockstars that they are I wondered if they had the notorious drugs, sex and rock n’ roll lifestyle. But in an extremely un-rockstarish way they gave me a politically correct response and answered the question with another lame question - what do you think?
Seriously guys, political correct-ness does not a rockstar make.

And then they saved the day when I asked them which one got all the girls... their response - “Are you insecure about your girl friend?”
Smart-asses!