The Circus To Release New All-Covers EP

Photo: Rahul Lal

Arsh Sharma, vocalist and guitarist with experimental rock band The Circus, says Bon Jovi fans will have a hard time digesting their rendition of “It’s My Life,” which is one among the five cover songs on their EP titled Sheep, slated to release next month. He hastens to add: “But we’ve still tried to retain the spirit of the song, so hopefully it’ll go down well with them!”

The band has a lot lined up for them in the coming months. Sheep, which Sharma says took a “very long time to produce”, includes covers that the band has performed at most of their gigs. The EP contains two Nine Inch Nails covers including “We’re In This Together” and “Wish.” The Circus have been covering the industrial rock song “We’re In This Together” since the “very beginning of the band”, according to Sharma. There’s also a twisted, experimental version of Nirvana’s “School” and Bon Jovi’s rock anthem “It’s My Life”, which the band improvised upon at international battle of the bands competition Hard Rock Rising’s Delhi Leg. Sharma explains: “It was just our attempt at deconstructing and redoing a well known song in a way that it would sound completely new, yet retain the familiarity of a seasoned pop song.”

The EP also includes a space-y rendition of Radiohead’s “The National Anthem.” Sharma says, “It would be impossible to do a covers EP without having at least one Radiohead tune.” He adds, “It is one of the most open-ended songs we have ever heard and is probably the most abstract sounding tune on the EP; it is as much a production exercise as it is a cover and an experiment.”

The band’s second album, the follow up to From Space, will be “a little more live” compared to the mashup of psychedelic electronica elements on Sheep EP. “All these directions are just tangents of what we’ve always wanted to do, since staying in the same musical or sonic zone is something that none of us are too comfortable with, and we’re always looking at ways to manipulate our sound as much as possible,” Sharma says.

 Having spent all of last year and this year on their full length release, Sharma promises that “it’ll end up sounding as a bunch of very non-traditional sounds channelled through a slightly natural non-quantized form of playing.”

Hear a teaser from Sheep by The Circus below: 

The Circus-Sheep EP teaser by “The Circus”