Soulmate: Green Hill Blues

Tipriti Kharbangar

Tips: It’s about me. It’s about me getting older, getting bolder.

Wallang: It’s actually about me. I wrote it for me but it can be about you also. It’s for everyone. But seriously, it’s about her.

Tips, you’re taking your role as his muse very seriously.

Wallang: It’s about me, now. A guitar player ”“ a blues player. Accepted by other musicians as ablues guitar player.

Tips: I’m moving on, too. I’m growing, I’m learning. Everyday. So I like to think this song is for me. To sing it, you have to feel it. It has to come from within ”“ no pretence. You saw our rehearsals. It’s pretty intense when we rehearse.

Yeah. At this time, when you’re more together as a band, when you’re getting better known, getting more gigs, isn’t it time to kind of settle down? Get regular guys for drums and bass instead of sessions guys? To have people who feel like you, to feel secure beyond the songwriting and the singing”¦

Wallang: You need to really have the blues ”“ inside you. You have to have that edge. Sometimes people don’t have that the edge. They may have the energy ”“ which is always good, new energy is always good ”“ but not the edge. With the blues you need to come out of your comfort zone”¦

Let’s talk about the music biz aspect of Soulmate.You recorded your first album at home, there’s the label out of Mumbai, OML, which moved you”¦

Wallang: That didn’t work out too well. Rightnow we’re talking to another company, guys basedin Delhi. Achille Forler [a Frenchman, who runs Deep Emotions Publishing, a music rights and FX company in New Delhi], who has a new label called Silk Road Music. We’re in discussion withOML to discontinue our deal with them, so we can work with Achille. The guy wants to bring out both our albums.

You mean reissue ”˜Shillong,’ along with your new album?

Wallang: Yeah. Reshoot the cover, re-do every-thing. We also have a new manager, Subir Malik [keyboard player with Delhi rock act Parikrama]. Achille said he wouldn’t work with us without a manager. He said we guys were too far away from Delhi; he needed someone around locally, to coordinate our music, our gigs. We’ve learnt a lot of things in the last few weeks and months. It’s more professional.

What was it like to play in Memphis at the International Blues Challenge?

Wallang: Great. We played on Beale Street, the home of the blues, man. There were 150 bands from all across the world. Bands would play around town, ten bands at each place and each band would play half an hour. We were a bit nervous in the beginning: on the first day we were the second band on stage after a band from Canada. But it went off well. The crowds were with us.

You guys were the only band from India.

Wallang: Ever.

Tips: (Laughs.) In the history of the blues, man. We sold some CDs, we gave away some.

Wallang: This guy from Colorado called John Catt, there with his band, walked up to us and said, ”˜How do you guys have the soul of the Mississippi in you?’

You must have a self-image as a band. What is it? Lonely trudgers?

Wallang: I don’t know, man. I think we’ve been lucky, but lonely. We also don’t want the pressure of being the only blues band in India playing original stuff.

That’s still a pretty big deal, isn’t it? Playing original blues, rock and jazz in India? And how the hell does it happen in Shillong? Can’t be the pork noodles.

Wallang: Music in Shillong is a whole different story, man. Music is what we have.