Quick Take: Skyharbor On Their Second Album

Keshav Dhar at the Rolling Stone Metal Awards in June 2013. Photo: Prashin Jagger

What’s the update on Skyharbor’s second album?

Keshav Dhar: It’s still get­ting there. We’re chipping away at it bit by bit. It’s been a very collaborative process [this time] [Dhar wrote most songs on Skyharbor’s 2012 debut, Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos] ”” no one’s taking songs into their hands or anything. Writing is not time-consuming for us, though. Everyone is doing it [writing] on their own time. We’ve only set something of a deadline and want to finish it by the first quarter of the year.

You produced and played guitars with [Skyharbor vo­calist] Dan Tompkins’s new alternative project Black Moth White Butterfly. What was that like?

I’ve been involved with it [the band] for two years now. When the album was finished, it made sense to have a launch gig. We figured it [launch tour] out on our own, mostly Dan with all his contacts.

You were at the NH7 Week­ender festivals in Bengaluru with TesseracT and then in Delhi, where you played with Scribe on stage and hung out with Meshuggah.

I was a guitar tech for [electro rock band] SundogProject in Delhi, since they were just really good friends. I love being at festivals because it’s just one big party. With TesseracT, they just called me to Bengaluru to hang out with them. I said yes, because it’s not like I get to see them every day.

It’s a busy year for you with several projects you’re pro­ducing and mixing/mastering.

Yes, that’s correct. I’m mixing Dan’s other project, Piano [alt rock band]. He and other members of that band have been writing songs for five years now, so I’m helping them getting done. There’s also [Delhi technical metal band] Undying Inc’s new EP, Ironclad.

This article appeared in the January 2014 issue of ROLLING STONE India.