Keith Veigas: The Veteran Axeman Who Soldiers On

Guitarist Keith Veigas. Photo: Sairaj R. Kamath

Jimi Hendrix, Joe Satriani and Elvis Presley share wall space with Jesus Christ in Keith Veigas’s flat in suburban Mumbai. The 61-year-old guitarist is sitting at his computer table, playing a song recorded by Sixties’ Bombay-based rock & roll band The Savages, one of the first ”˜Western’ outfits in India. The track sounds crisp; perhaps it is a re-mastered version of the original. He tells me that it’s a live recording and that is the reason why it sounds great. Veigas, who loves spending time on his computer, talks fondly of the time when Bombay boasted of good music, performed by bands like Burning Ice, Hazzard, Fifth Dimension, The Combustibles, The Reactions. He remembers the names of all their members too. He says, “You might have not heard about many of these bands.”

Veigas is a musician’s musician and has maintained a low profile despite being part of  the Indian music industry for four decades. Veigas has played with bands like Atomic Forest, The Nandu Bhende band, and Sabre Tooth. He says, “There was something unique about the music from the Sixties and Seventies. We had our basics in place which made it rather easy for us to adapt to any style of music.” Most of the bands in the early Seventies, including Atomic Forest which Veigas was a part of, held contracts with clubs in order to perform a designated amount of gigs every month. He recalls, “We played in clubs like Blow Up at Taj, Slip Disc in Colaba and Hell at Hotel Hilltop. There were a bunch of small, quaint joints all along Churchgate street, all of which have now gone extinct now. Those places used to pay around Rs 3,000 to 4,0oo for the entire band, which, for that time, was really good money. None of us had day jobs at the time. Of course, we did some gigs on the side at parties and weddings, but our main focus was playing with the band at the clubs.”

Veigas (right) with his band Sweet Wine

Back then, there was no demand for original music, and these local bands mostly played covers.“You have to remember that this was an era before the internet” says Veigas, “The radio would hardly play any rock music either, so we were the only resource for people to listen to the music of bands like Yes, Jethro Tull and Starship live. In hindsight, I do feel that was also the reason why bands of that era could not come up with a unique sound of their own because we were so hung up on copying those international acts.” Ask him if he finds any difference between crowds at shows today and from his time, and he says, “I feel that the audience in those days was much more involved with the music being played, which  is something I find missing in today’s crowds.”

Veigas’s rock & roll career faced a lull when he left Atomic Forest in 1980. His drug addiction was at its peak too, and he had to go to rehab. “After getting myself clean I started a catering business in Alibaug, and almost didn’t touch the guitar for about three years. But ultimately, that itch to play again led me back.” says Veigas, “Also the rock scene had suddenly hit a slump in the Eighties. Many musicians shifted to other cities; some got jobs and others started playing for Bollywood. So I did a stint in Singapore and Bahrain with some bands at a hotel but it did not last very long.” After his return to India, Veigas met bassist Keith Pinto and drummer Glenford Terence. Together they formed the heavy metal band Saber Tooth in the late Eighties. “The scene got better in the Nineties again, with fresh bands like Parikrama and Indus Creed coming in.”

Currently, Veigas performs gigs with his Seventies tribute band Sweet Wine and his pop/rock outfit Band-X. “I think of myself as semi-retired” he says, adding, “I still rehearse every day, and I get to play at least three to four gigs every fortnight which is sufficient for me. I’ve never had any obsession with leading a lavish lifestyle. My family has been very supportive of me, and I have been really fortunate to get to play for all these years.”