Apu and The Dentist To Release First Single

Saurabh Roy and Achint Thakkar photo: Monisha Ajgaonkar

There’s a new supergroup in town, and they are called Apu and The Dentist, after the band members’ shared interests in Satyajit Ray films and the Beatles. Saurabh Roy from Mumbai punk rockers The Lightyears Explode and Achint Thakkar from psychedelic rock band Rosemary formed Apu and The Dentist in December 2011 after buying vinyl players together. “Achint is Apu and I’m the Dentist, the guy who famously slipped George Harrison and John Lennon acid, introducing them to it,” says Roy.

The two have written five songs in all, which will be released in a month or two as an EP. “It’s got a Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, Bollywood vibe and lots of Raj Kapoor influence as well,” says Saurabh Roy of “No Messages For Rumi,” the first single that he wrote with Thakkar. The song is about [what else?] a girl, but has no Sufi leanings, clarifies Roy, despite being named after a Sufi saint. “We’re both kind of more interested in how words sound with the melody than anything else,” says Roy.

The studio project started by Roy and Thakkar also features friends and bandmates. “No Messages For Rumi” has Mumbai alt metal band Goddess Gagged bassist Krishna Jhaveri on sitar and drummer Jeremy D’Souza, also from Goddess Gagged, as well as Rosemary bassist Suraj Manik. “It sounds like psychedelic rock stuff and stuff you would hear on a vinyl record,” says Roy. Another upcoming song features drummer Mumbai punk rock band BLEK’s drummer Varoon Aiyer.

Thakkar returns from his music production course in San Francisco next month, after which Apu and The Dentist will polish up and release the remaining four songs. However, the musicians have no plans to bring Apu and The Dentist to stage yet.

Listen to a teaser of the first Apu and The Dentist track “No Messages For Rumi” here