Raghav Meattle’s ‘Bar Talk’ Gets a Charming Visual

For Mumbai/New Delhi singer-songwriter Raghav Meattle, the lockdown has been quite productive. The musician released his plaintive single “City Life,” dropped a live video for the somber track “Back To The Known” and even kicked off an Instagram live series called Late Night ConeVersations. Now Meattle is back with a delightful new visual for the folksy “Bar Talk” off his 2018 debut album Songs From a Matchbox.

At the time that the album released, the artist explains that he had already spent a chunk of the money he crowdfunded and that it was too hard to release more music videos apart from the ones he had already put out (“Better Than It All” and “One Sided Stories”). He says, “I had been talking to Risheeta [Agrawal] who is an executive producer, and she had reached out to me and basically we were discussing how we can collaborate on a music video.”

The executive producer dug “Bar Talk” and pitched Meattle a concept involving same-sex relationships which “plays down the queerness” that the musician adored. He says, “’Bar Talk’ was always a social commentary about sensationalism.”

In the video – directed by Aneesh Malankar – we see onscreen couples including our June 2020 cover star Sushant Divgikr and Eric Matthew Knowles as well as Ridhisha Balani partnered with Franaita Jijina. In both relationships, the actors portray cute, quirky and joyous moments with their partners at home, but the clip closes with a bittersweet and melancholic feeling. “The typical end would have been a very happy ending. They thought that they’ll put a sad, poignant kind of a twist to it, which is what people are revolting against. I thought it made sense and I loved the idea,” says Meattle with a laugh.

The entire video was shot in Mumbai while Meattle was stuck in New Delhi due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ask the singer-songwriter how he felt about that and he says, “I felt so much FOMO and I was really irritated about that.” According to the musician the entire shoot was done with a minimal crew and explains that his only input towards the clip was just “tweaking the story” and “getting Sushant on board.” The singer-songwriter at first reached out to Divgikr to ask if 2014’s Mr. Gay India could recommend people to feature in the video. He says, “I thought Sushant [in the video] would make so much sense because he stands for so much.”

At this point, Meattle tells us that he’s extremely frustrated with being at home due to the lockdown and is eager to begin playing gigs again. However, he’s glad that he’s managed to build a community, rather “cone-munity,” through his Instagram series. “It’s so cool to find people from Madhya Pradesh, the North East, Kerala and Chennai and understand how these people are thinking and what kind of new music people are listening to.” The singer-songwriter has also been passing on what he knows through online sessions talking about how to release your music and upping one’s social media game.

Although the vocalist-guitarist has been grafting hard to get to where he’s at now, does he feel like a flag bearer for independent artists? He says, “To be honest when I was working in Bangalore, I always looked at all of these Bombay musicians and just generally indie musicians and was very enamored by it.” The artist adds, “So I always wanted to be this person who sort of would encourage other people to take it up and just generally know everybody in the industry to be able to do something bigger.” Up next, a music video for his gypsy track “She Can,” also off Songs From a Matchbox.

Watch the video for “Bar Talk” below: