These men hardly pause

This weekend the Delhi-based band Menwhopause is all set to gift the garden city their new album Easy but with a touch of humour.

Five-member, Delhi-based band Menwhopause is on an album launch tour and will be stopping by to give music lovers here a taste of their newest tracks from their new musical venture titled Easy. Wit is perhaps the first thing you encounter right from the name of the band, to the way they speak and carry themselves.



The name that has aroused much curiosity since their formation in the year 2001, they tell us has no pun intended. When questioned about the name, Anup Kutty shares, "The name's origin is quite a story and there seems to be many versions floating around. But this is the real one. When we started off as a band we loved to pose for the camera. Once Randeep's (bassist) mother came to check us out and remarked we looked like men who pose. We changed it to pause just to make sure she doesn't fight for copyright later."

Witty lines aside, these men with their music mean serious business and we are talking about the strict no covers policy they have followed since the time when nearly every Indian band was resorting to it to gather audiences. "Music is a process of expression and creation for us so riding on covers just doesn't appeal to us. We never started off as a cover band because we were never about giving the audience what they want. As artistes, we believe we should give the audience what they need. As for bands riding only on cover songs, guess everyone has their own reasons and justifications," says Kutty.

When talking about the genre and the sound they present, they say theirs' is not a sound that can be defined despite having a rather easy and definable soft rock background. "We don't like to describe our sound. We would rather work on creating it. But yes, some elements have changed over the years and in our second album, Easy. Most apparent being the inclusion of our co-producer Miti Adhikari, who brought in a different perspective on things. There are many more layers to the sound which prepare a substantial base for the songwriting," says Kutty.

The band was initially started by guitarist Anup Kutty and the first members included Sarabjit Chadha (singer) and Inder Pal Singh (acoustic guitarist). The band moved to being five-member with additions in the form of their first fans Randeep Singh(bassist) and Rahul Chatterjee (drummer). In the current line-up though, Rahul Chatterjee remains replaced by French drummer Paul Schneiter. Paul, they tell us is back after a project in France and will be the highlight of the Bangalore show besides tracks from Easy. The new album comes with a series of songs with simplistic lyrics and hummable numbers.

Speaking about the album Kutty says "Easy is about facing reality after you are done with your introspection phase (which was our earlier album Home). The title comes from the song Easy and is self-apparent. Brimful, another track on the albumu00a0 has been written by Sarab as some sort of a note to the former Bollywood sirens -Simi Garewal, Zeenat Aman and Parveen Babi."

u00a0"What makes the lyrics simplistic is the fact that we are, at the end of the day, simple people. The lyrics are personal, honest and a description of emotions that we have been through. We are not here to make big sweeping political statements.u00a0 Our muse or inspiration isu00a0 daily and personal things like solitude, loneliness, peer pressure," says Kutty.

Fatafat five
First fan: Randeep was the first fan and the writer of their first fan mail. He worked his way in later when he figured that we were a bunch of talented but lazy people.
Inspirations: This whole surge of indie music that's currently happening in this country is truly inspiring. There's some brilliant music being churned out from all over India and that in itself pushes us as artistes to create more.
Dream collaboration: It will probably be someone completely random like "The Screaming Pythons" or something.
Most memorable show: The one at Escape Festival in naukuchiatal. It was around midnight and the crowd was screaming every single line from every single song we played and at the last finale just when we were builidng up the crescendo, the skies opened up and there was thunder and lightning. It was almost like even the gods were with us.
Craziest Fan Moment: Once at a show in Delhi at Indraprastha, Randeep had a girl throw her bra at him which rested on his guitar till he finished the show.

Where bFlat, 100 Feet Road, Indiranagar
On June 11, 8.30 pm
Call 25278361
For R 200