An interview with Gary - vocalist, harmonica player, and rebel extraordinaire!

Hey Gary, what did you do today?

Not much. I am now happily, ecstatically unemployed. I'm just soaking it in. Slept 11 hours, met Mel and Simrat, had an Orlem Delight, fish cutlets, beer. I read, I slept some more... awesome day overall. I just had dinner, which included sorpotel. Now to read and sleep some more.

Give us a quick update on 'p is for pig', the tracks, duration, every bit of info you can think up.

There'll be eight or nine tracks on the album. The well-known ones, and a few that we haven't played regularly or are pretty new - Isn't It Strange, Don't Wake Me, Save Me. Recording's a bit stuck right now- Fali's busy with a new job. So we need to figure out how and whereto finish recording.Oh, and for the record, I said "by the end of the month" - I didn't specify which month!That's about it I guess. Can't think of any other info right now.

What's your favourite track from the album?

It varies. I guess My House, Holy Ghost Machine Gun, and Build Higher. Also Don't Wake Me, and another that might or might not be on the album - Save Me.

What's the highest expectation you'd lay on this album?

That it's the kind of album that I myself would love to listen to, from start to finish. Or do you mean like record sales?! In that case, fuck knows! I don't think about it. We'll find out soon enough.

Who are you referring to when you say 'p is for pig' or 'pig society',is it the dead ('March of the pigs' by Nine Inch Nails) or an innocent profanity ('pig' by coal chamber)?

When I say P is for Pig, I'm referring to the pig in a child's alphabet book.

What's "my house" about? I mean, I know Mel wrote the lyrics so I'm not expecting it to make much sense, but, just in case it does? :P

I don't like explaining my lyrics, so I don't usually ask other people about theirs, but Mel has given us several different explanations for My House. I thought all of them were spur-of-the-moment, off-the-top-of-his-head bullshit, but quite amusing as usual. Personally, I think it's a weird love song and I love it.

"Fat oaf" sounds like a cross between a tiny anti-consumer message and a departure. Is it?

Departure meaning? Like "farewell, my lover"?

Yeah... is it?

No, nothing of the sort.I don't like the lyrics to that song, they're vague and unfocused... They were supposed to be temporary, but too much time went by, and with certain things, after a point it gets too late to go back and change them. I suppose there's a vague and rather poorly-expressed anti-consumerism message in there, but that's only incidental.

Kids being fed with father-values at the most vulnerable point of their lives (save me) or holy wars (holy ghost machine gun) what's more of an immediate threat to us as humans?

Hmmmm... in my head, both songs are coming from the same place. What are father-values?

Father values, like, conformities i guess. Anyway, what are you more of - a poet or a singer?

Singer. I know I sing well, and I do it quite easily. Writing's more difficult, and I'm usually not satisfied with it.

What's the toughest vocal line to pull off live, have you managed to do so every time?

Hehehe. The scream in Cochise. The highest notes in Build Higher. And no, I screw them up once in a while. The scream is easier though.

Your influences, who and why.

Nick Cave, for the immense range of his work, the beauty and depth of it. Dylan, Cohen, Tom Waits. Pretty much the same reasons. Their work is amazingly fine-tuned, pretty much to perfection. And as a whole -the lyrics, the arrangement, the vocal delivery... everything. Nothing is throwaway.Queens of the Stone Age. What awesomely melodic heaviness! And I love the sense of humour and the druggy, lazy, feel that they have, in spite of being heavy.The Beatles. I can't think where to begin with answering why. The Stones too... too many others to mention really... Cake, Johnny Cash,Nirvana, Depeche Mode, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Radiohead, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Roy Orbison... that should be enough for now!

Hip hop or death metal?

Death. I'd prefer death to either of them.

When it comes to covers you guys have chosen from a wide variety of genres. Nine inch nails to Radiohead to Godsmack to Deftones and Incubus. When you choose a track what criteria do you choose?

No particular criteria. But the process is something like this:
1. One of us likes a song and suggests it.
2. Everybody says it's fuckall.
3. a. Suggester himself is not too keen on the song and gives up.
b. Suggester likes the song enough to mindfuck everyone for a while,and sometimes everyone finally agrees that it's a good song to play.
4. a. No one bothers to learn the song and the idea dies.
b. One by one, everyone learns the song (with two-week intervals between each person), and six months later we finally play it.

You can play the guitar, harmonica and sing at the same time, or so i hear. Are there any bootleg Garreth D'mello recordings floating around that we don't know about?

Sing at the same time? No, I tried it a few times when I started learning the harp, but didn't manage really well. And since the harmonica-holder was one I made myself, it wasn't too stable or sturdy, so I didn't spend too much time at it. A few home demos, mostly stuff that'll be on the album. And I guess there are a few covers that I recorded with a friend, years and years ago. Chris Isaak, Roy Orbison. I don't remember the last time I heard them and I'm not sure I want to search.

How does the Split songwriting process take place?

There's isn't really any such thing as the Split Songwriting Process. A few songs have been brought to the practice room practically complete, only needing arranging. Others have been rough ideas - maybe a riff or two - that were brought to practice and were built on from there. Sometimes stuff comes out of a jam, sometimes out of someone playing something to irritate everybody else.

What, according to you, is the gem of songwriting? minimalistic ortechnical? how far have you incorporated that into split's music?

Minimalist. I think the technical bit can come in later, and shouldn't be overdone. And for Split, I think it's just how we are as a band and as individual musicians. There's no conscious effort to incorporate anything.

Lets take a random Split song being played live. who's job (from the band) is easiest to pull off?

Don't Wake Me - everybody except me! Everyone else fucks off for a drink. (Fresh lime soda if they're Shekhar.)

What are the social issues that you've tried to highlight using this album? What issues were less easily addressed? What do you feel you've missed out on?

I don't address social issues. It's all personal.

Which city in India would you say has THE scene you'd love to be in.

Bombay's pretty good... but I guess Delhi, probably. I don't really know enough of the scene to say so with any confidence though.

When it comes to the scene, most bands around are given importance on their old-school-metal outfits and Iron Maiden covers. do you think that keeps the scene behind a few decades or is it a good thing to being touch with your roots?

Being in touch with your roots and being stuck in something that's finished are two different things. There's nothing wrong with old-school metal, but hardly anyone manages to bring anything new to it, or out of it. Still, I don't know if you could say that it "keeps the scene behind" or anything of the sort.

When did you know that Split needed a second guitar player?

When we jammed with Aviv and realized how much better it sounded.

what can Aviv do that Mel can't? And vice versa.

Aviv can play the Slither solo. Mel can play the Your Time Has Come solo (usually). Mostly stuff like that. Only Aviv can nail some really tricky, fast shit, fancy chords and stuff... and there's some really simple, wacky, groovy shit that only Mel can come up with.

Now, most importantly, what's the worst cover you've ever done?

Blurry... or Control, I think... by Puddle of Mud. The bastards had both songs on the set list when I joined the band. What a fucking piece of shit.

What're you going to do after you've posted the answers to this interview?

I told you - read and sleep. 11 hours. Goodnight.

Oookay, enjoy Gary, keep the music coming, good night.

good night Kalhan, you fucking rule! <--- i added this part on my own, but i know he means it :)

Melroy - The Incredulously Ridiculous

I'm not sure if the usage of 'incredulously' is correct here. However, I'm going to go with my Googly instinct which says it suitably conveys what I want to convey. Anyway, getting on with business, I was going through some old links, and found this hilarious story that Mel had posted on his blog.
Here it is in Mel's own words.

THE FIRST HISTORICAL INDIAN HOMOSEXUAL EPISODE

It happened in the time of Ashoka, many years ago. Gopi was a young village lad, supple and ambitious. Being ambitiously supple, he grew tired of his village and decided to head towards the big city - Takshila. Leaving with only blessings and a donkey to carry all his worldly belongings (2 pairs of clothes, food for the journey, some gold coins and a pencil), he head into the big, blue world. He stopped for rest in a few hours, then resumed his journey again. He repeated this sequence of actions several more times till - almost all of a sudden - he was at the gates of the big city.

Inside the city, he let the sounds and sights sink in nice and easy. Once he was done sinking, Gopi realized that he was really hungry. However, the supple lad had spent all his money and eaten all his food... all except a loaf of bread. He watched a couple of hot city women walk across the street carrying water in jars... they were really, really hot. He reached into his satchel strapped onto the donkey's back. The loaf of bread... nice. He pulled it out and was about to have a go when he stopped all of a sudden and didn't have a go. Instead, he made a beeline for a street-side stall from where emanated the most delicious of smells... the store sold butter chicken. Gopi almost slipped on the small pool of saliva that quickly formed at his journey-worn sandals. What was he to do now? No money, hunger tearing into his tummy and only a loaf of bread. The smell of butter chicken was so yummily yummy that he decided he'd hold the loaf above the big pot where the golden puree simmered. That way, he could taste the molecules of butter chicken and still not have to pay. Gopi smiled and drooled some more.

He held the loaf, at first sneakily, and then with growing confidence, above the pot. The shop keeper was too busy to figure out what Gopi was doing for the first 2 minutes. Then, when he finally did, he got really pissed. He asked Gopi to pay up for the yummy smoke that he'd consumed by generously spreading it over bread. However, our gastronomic gangster didn't have any money. So, he screamed and pleaded for mercy -

"I have nothing .... please spare me .... all I have is this donkey".

So, they took his ass.

Splorkut?

Oh, yea. The Split community on Orkut. I should have mentioned it before, coz I've never seen such a super hyper active community on Orkut. It's on a trip of its own. There was a time when I could keep pace with the community and its grave discussions. But soon, it grew wild, and took up a mad pace where someone would post every 3 minutes. It was quite incredible.

We've actually gotten to know other Split fans, and we've also learned some irreplaceable important facts about each other, (for ex: Kalhan likes to smoke kittens), and we've learned new bad words, and argued about all kinds of artists and music, and killed long hours in mundane conversation, and played ridiculous games like 'Rate the person below you' and cursed cops.

Wooooo. This post is dedicated to all those people who believe that life without the Split community would be as drab as a toast without butter.

Splorkut rules!

We were going to call ourselves Splorkutians back on the Split community on orkut.
Meh, it seems that phase is now over, like the Gary-long-hair phase, or the shirtless-nigel phase.

I like the whole idea of this blog a lot, and I thought If I could get to be a part of something so earth-SPLITting[wink-wink] it would be really cool.
Thanks to Afrin, and Split a lot.
and especially Afrin, cause she invited onboard.
hope you have a pleasant journey.
We're taking flight now.

Ani[also known as box on the community]

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rsj pubrockfest gig review : 10th september 2007

22 hours of busride and i'd be mad as hell if this gig hadn't happened.

the lineup for the show is in itself an exciter, 13th hour, the baby of drummer jay (of pdv fame) zorran (ex guitarist of split) p-man (current bassist of pdv) and whatshisname, the vocalist were going to kickstart the set followed by *drumroll* split and then the superfuzz.

i reached the venue at 7 pm or so, and the soundcheck was just going on, so i managed to sneak in a few snaps of me at the soundboard looking all technical while staring at the pretty red buttons and took a few pics of zorran's (better known as "warren's brother") pedalboard, which is pretty kickass. the phaser is a pretty important pedal if you ask me, and if you don't ask me then you can go fuck yourself.

anyway, i was checking out the pedals before i was kicked out of razz and asked to come in again. which i did, only to realize that the soundcheck was still going on, apparently the superrfuzz drummer's tom's weren't sounding good. i'm talking about the drum-toms, fyi.

so, went out, ate leftovers from the subway tables and rishu managed to sneak me into the guestlist, and i'm hoping i don't owe him a hundred bucks.

so, the gig starts with 13th hour, the band was brilliant i tell you, in the short span of a month, they've developed with a bunch of kickass originals and well-nailed covers ranging from system of a down to mudvayne. zorran is indeed the riff master, very good stage presence, although the vocals were a bit of a turn off, the sound kept everything tight as hell.

then came split. onstage, watching them there after about a year was bliss. mel's switched to a couple of pedals instead of that huge-ass processor that he used to drag along, one's a marshall bluesdrive pedal and one's an xxl stompbox (if anyone knows what the hell a stompbox is, please tell me) aviv's still using the processor and the les-paul lookalike guitar, shakkar used a k-5 for the gig, the fieldy (from korn) signature guitar, and nigel was using the wooden drumsticks as usual (sorry, i don't know a lot about drum equipment)

their set started off with this song called "voice", brand new song it seems, i swear i didn't think garreth would play the harmonica on stage, but he did and they messed it up in the end, but since garreth already told us that they might, he is forgiven. the set progressed into "my house" which kicked ass, a wee bit different than the version found on the streams, i prefer this one, any day. garreth's vocals shone out, and so did mel's backup vocals.

there's something about this performance that was so grand, which is odd if we take the size of razz into consideration. i guess its the light that shines off mel's specks and gary's rings that makes it look like a pink floyd performance. i could have sworn i saw vishwesh in the crowd till i stopped swearing (?) and he took the mic and sang a bit of my-house from mel's mic. he then took mel's place to play "pig society" and nailed the riff for sure. a note to garreth, or whoever the band leader is, i can play the riff too :)

mel got his guitar back, gary announced the song of the night for me and the set progressed into the opening harmonic-driven riff of "holy ghost machine gun" which was the mosh-starter (too bad there were hardly any moshers in the crowd) and i have to admit, nigel nailed the beat into the ground, yes, luke kenny can go screw himself. i felt an inch taller during the duration of the song, maybe because i was standing on the monitor, which probably blocked off a lot of the stage sound (hehe) but the song was liberating, if you'd like to believe an under-statement.

zorran was the lucky bastard who got "fat oaf" dedicated to him and he was called on stage to play the song, which he did. looks like he remembers the riff still. there were a few sound problems with this one, since zorran's used to his single effects and not the processor and he had to keep fiddling with the volume control, but if you pressed your ear against the speakers it was easy to listen to :P

no aviv solos on that one, and the night went into the almighty "build higher" which rocked the set-list harder than it ever has. it almost stole the light from pig-society and holy-ghost-machine-gun, the sound was excellent, the riffs could be heard clearly and garreth's voice sounded sweeter than ever. then came the end of a relatively shorter set-list, the song "sometimes" and i hope this one's gonna be on the album, a perfect ending to a perfect, yet short setlist.

and now, the superfuzz got the stage, i have to admit, the bassist is quite tight, he has amazing grip and he can nail a good bassline, the drummer lacks consistency but is great with his beats and the guitarist is... well, i can find a good 20 similarities between him and some major rock acts from the grunge/post-grunge era.

the set was long, and entertaining, but i couldn't help but notice the similarities between his vocal style and that of jack white (the white stripes) especially in "what every kid wants", and lyrical similarities like in the song "school" which has a hook that screams "you're back in school again!" which is quite similar to "you're in high school again" by nirvana in the song (again) "school" and another song which has lyrics similar to "aneurysm" ("she gets it pumpin straight to my heart")

their set consisted of some very kickass covers in their punk rock avtaars, "no ordinary love" which is a sade cover with a heavy chorus effect, "john the revelator" which consists of a catchy riff and screams which happens to be a favourite of mine from depeche mode's new album "playing the angel" and ended with "jack the ripper", a white stripes cover.

great gig, ended with a great applause, although half the superfuzz setlist i was staring at girls near the bar (sorry, i'm getting used to the bangalore no-glam life, i couldn't help it) but i'm glad i came for this one, even thought it cost me a bomb :)

wouldn't miss a split gig for the world

Nigel - A Story

I've promised myself I'm going to do a 'History' about each of the boys. Although, honestly, I know lots about only Mel and Gary. And Nigel to some extent.

Nigel, is a bum. A nutter. But a nice chap. Can be a super pest at most times, but somewhere deep inside, there resides a particle of niceness.


Nigel is hilarious. Not always, but many times, and he can have you cracking up, especially with some nasty one liners. He's fairly thick skinned too.

He's a burst of energy (noise) and he's a womanizer. Full time. In fact, he takes that occupation so seriously that he is continuously studying expert documents to fine tune his skill and prowess.
Last seen, he was reading a book called 'How to give a woman an orgasm without having sex.'

Of course, like all noble experts, Nigel likes to share his knowledge. Give him the floor and he will have you sit down and hear him out, all about sex, for 300 minutes. Even if you beg him to stop... nothing can stop Nigel when he gets started... (though we've discovered that bringing a girl into the room can distract him for a few minutes, but even that is not as effective as slowly making your way behind him, and hitting him hard on the head with a cymbal.)

Nigel lives in style. And likes to dress in style. He's a fancy-flashy boy. Looks nice though...

When we met, and I was appointed chief and only dedicated photographer, Nigel took me aside once before a show, and made a complaint / request. He said, no one ever got photos of him while he performed... Of course, this had much to do with the fact that he's always behind a stack of drums, but he is also vain. Come on, he takes care of his appearance, and takes longer to do his hair than how long Mel takes to get ready in a whole week. But that is not the point...

So, I agreed to pay special attention to drummer boy and get photos. Here's a couple of the nicer ones.









Nigel was one of the founding members of Split. Him and Shekhar are the oldest Split boys. And the band really means a lot to Nigel... He takes care of the money too - and guards it like a mother hen. He loves jazz, and can be trusted to
1. embarrass you in public.
2. get attention from 50 passing strangers by doing something ridiculously outrageous.
3. Cancel band practice if he is in one of 'those' moods.

Anyway... I'm extraordinarily tired, and can't think of any more nice things to say about Nigel.

Here he is - making that wall of noise for Split on stage.











If Gary can take his shirt off, so can Nigel.








Ps: Nigel is great fun and a rockstar. Split wouldn't be Split without him. At all.

Garreth - A History

A brief history of Garreth's avatars.

The old days:


The Bhagat Singh Look, GIR 2006:



Peace and Bikes - Goa, 2006:


The first hair cut in ten years? IRock, 2006:



Tatooed, barechested, and as Jim Morrison:

With ForceField, punk band, and as full time dog magnet:
Beer, and sidelocks:




At peace.

Mel - A History

The first time I saw Mel, was at the hospital where Nigel was at after he met with a near fatal accident (broken rib, arm, ruptured spleen). Mel, in those days, was neat, and looked like this:








Soon however, as a renewed madness - probably a combined effect of being back in Bombay, being back with Split, and hanging out with Garreth (and me) - hit him, Mel got a bit untidy. And his hair grew. And his sleek spectacles broke, and his contact lenses got lost.

As a result he dug out the good old sodabottles.



I was horrified when I first saw them.







Then, I grew used to them.





And then, I thought they were the best things to happen to Mel.














Now, I can't imagine Mel without them. And no one else could carry them off the way he does. On television, on stage, in my movie?