A ‘creed’ apart

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Meet the guys who set the tune and created history with original rock music two decades ago in the country. Indus Creed (IC) is back in action after 17 years and this time with their new album, Evolve. Talking about the comeback, vocalist Uday Benegal says, “The most challenging would be to find a common ground. I’m happy to say that we found that ground pretty soon after putting together the unit. The combination of Mahesh Tinaikar, Zubin Balaporia, Rushad Mistry, Jai Row Kavi (and me) feels so right that it just can’t be wrong.”
The album Evolve has taken about two years in the making. “The first year was spent writing and then crafting the songs. I had written the bulk of them and took my ideas to the band. Then we played them over and over until they felt the way we wanted them to sound and feel. It took another year to record and produce the album,” he says, adding, “Fans can expect a large, expansive sounding collection of songs that drive hard — energy-wise and melodically. We’re proud of the album also for the collaborations that we’ve managed to put together. We had a great bunch of recording engineers that helped us track the songs. We were incredibly lucky to be able to work with one of the world’s finest mixing engineers — Tim Palmer, who has mixed acts like Pearl Jam, U2, Ozzy Osbourne, Tears for Fears and Mark Knopfler. His work on the album is stellar. Tim’s work was further enhanced by a crack mastering engineer called Andy VanDette, who has mastered a gazillion bands including Rush, Beastie Boys and Porcupine Tree.”
IC has been touring the country extensively. Uday talks about a few new observations… “Some things never change. But strangely, the audience is a lot better behaved than in our early days. That’s a weird thing to say, but the levels of aggression in rock fans in India these days is much lower. They are a much more mature and controlled bunch. But the levels of disorganisation within the industry itself is still high. Hope this changes soon,” says Uday, whose favourites are The Who, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Steely Dan and Deep Purple. “I’ve loved a ton more since then from Prince, Björk, Porcupine Tree to Karnivool. In India, currently, I love the ridiculous diversity and creative wisdom of artistes like Sridhar/Thayil, Soulmate, Thermal and a Quarter, Pentagram, Menwhopause and Shaa’ir and Func,” he adds.
A shout-out to fans out there, Uday says, “Check out Evolve. But most importantly, come listen to us play live — that’s what we live for.”