Most of the 100 individuals gathered round The Spotted Deer pub in The Palomar lodge in ECR early in April had been in black T-shirts, whereas others wore distinctive white shirts and lungis.
Shreyaa Lakshmi Narayanan, one among the many few managing the group, had by no means heard a metal tune earlier than this sold-out gig. But she has been bobbing her head to heavy music ever since.
The style is making noise once more in Chennai. And there isn’t any higher proof than Metal Munnetra Kazhagam, a canopy gig by musicians throughout the town in tribute to globally legendary bands Slipknot and Rage Against the Machine.
“It wasn’t just a concert…it felt like a turning point, a hope for even greater collaboration and creativity in the community,” mentioned Aditya Rao, frontman of Mangas and the Mango Men, a metal band born in 2022.
Formed with a sly spin on Tamil Nadu’s distinctive political occasion suffix, the gig featured members of Chennai’s loudest homegrown bands, like Mangas, Moral Putrefaction, Frankendriver and Godia, teaming up with one another to roar and get roared at.
“We wanted to change attitudes towards metal, and mix bands to give people new to Chennai a chance,” smiled Manu Krishnan, one of many organisers.
Artistes acting at Metal Munnetra Kazhagam at The Spotted Dear pub in lodge The Palomar by Crossway, ECR in Chennai. Photo: R. Ravindran
| Photo Credit:
Ravindran_R
This yr has been greater than a revival for metal in Chennai. It has additionally been a reinvention: in embracing Tamil tradition as a model, who will get to play on stage, accessibility, and within the very coronary heart of what it means to like the heaviest sounds of Chennai.
Armaan, Manu and Srikanth Natarajan based Metal Chennai in 2018 to vary the concept of “metal being an expensive hobby,” in Manu’s phrases. Saturday evening’s screaming marked the primary huge Metal Chennai gig since September final yr, which was hosted in Gears n Garage in Nungambakkam. When the pub indefinitely shut store, it signalled a shrunken variety of venues keen to host metal.
Nevertheless, metalheads in Chennai have for generations been combating tooth and nail to maintain the risky pulse of the scene alive: discovering scream-friendly venues and making an attempt to construct a neighborhood that’s protected and engaging for everybody, whereas nonetheless robust and edgy sufficient for the model.
Venues that each sonically work for metal and are keen to host it within the metropolis are uncommon, in contrast to ones like Bangalore. “Metal is not like other genres. We can’t just amplify the sound. It needs an advanced setup,” says Shivamoorthy of Moral Putrefaction.
Artistes acting at Metal Munnetra Kazhagam at The Spotted Dear pub in lodge The Palomar by Crossway, ECR in Chennai. Photo: R. Ravindran
| Photo Credit:
Ravindran_R
The Palomar lodge started operations simply final month, and talks are ongoing for future occasions.
The craze for metal the truth is dates again to at the very least the Sixties, in keeping with Eddie Prithviraj, who joined within the early Nineties. He’s been organising dwell music gigs throughout genres like jazz and pop in Chennai for 30 years, however again then, he had simply based a metal band referred to as Bone Saw, and one other referred to as Blood Covenant in 2004. Issues with venues date again to even his time, when he needed to shut one himself.
“Come the Nineties, a couple of rebels really wanted to explode themselves,” Eddie explains. “It’s never been in the mainstream. But it was there. Guys recorded extreme death metal on cassettes in 1996. It was something to be cherished. It isn’t anymore.”
Between 2015 and 2018, Chennai’s metal scene had as soon as once more “died,” as recalled by Armaan, Mickey and Isaiah Anderson, vocalist of progressive metalcore band Godia.
Mickey has satisfied a few of his bands to vary their names and album artwork kinds to make them fiercer as a result of “branding matters in a commercial music space.” In Chennai and India at giant, he argues, bands normally begin in universities and they don’t take into consideration branding then.
Chennai has seen an increase in additional explicitly outlined topics in metal lyrics, with topics spanning from genocide, the “rot” in society and rights for the queer neighborhood for Moral Putrefaction to psychological well being and despair for Godia. This, Shivamoorthy of Moral Putrefaction says, additionally goes towards the tide of “aggression”, generally tinged with right-wing politics, in metal.
Artistes acting at Metal Munnetra Kazhagam at The Spotted Dear pub in lodge The Palomar by Crossway, ECR in Chennai. Photo: R. Ravindran
| Photo Credit:
Ravindran_R
As a end result of all of the developments on this style in Chennai, the attendance at Metal Munnetra Kazhagam is what Beeto Jerrin from Moral Putrefaction describes as a “decent” crowd by the requirements of 2023. Ironically, throughout the wrestle to regain these numbers in Chennai, bands like his and Godia reached worldwide acclaim with performances and signed data.
Despite metal now being compelled to assume by way of enterprise, the will to extend listeners comes from a really private place for a lot of.
Armaan, factors out that to date in India, there have been boundaries of privilege in language, caste, gender and capital that prohibit prospects for each bands and audiences. One means this performs out in Chennai is girls being sidelined within the metal scene This is one thing that Armaan, as an organiser, admits to nonetheless navigating.
The gig additionally comes on the heels of a model new school student-run platform MoshLit Events, the youngest group to organise metal and exhausting rock occasions, securing venues like 10 Downing Street and Steams n Whistles bar in GRT Grand. The technicality of sound is a matter right here, in keeping with Sivaramakrishnan, bassist for Frankendriver, however his bandmate Teeto Jerrin feels the vitality at their gigs is sky excessive.
MoshLit kicked off simply this yr. They lay all of it out on Instagram: commissioning graphic designers for posters, posting movies from the exhibits, and virtually daring individuals to come back. Their goal is to convey metal to the “forefront,” with uniquely interesting initiatives like comparatively accessible ticket costs and an after-party DJ. You might spot MoshLit at a Metal Chennai gig, and vice versa.
In in the present day’s Tamil Nadu, metalheads preserve grooving. Inside the toughness, Manu says, “we’re all teddy bears.” As Aditya places it, “supporting each other will carry us forward.”