Music
Guitarist Keshav Dhar talks about opening for Deftones, the new album and what he's been listening to lately.
Even for a band that’s been through an album release cycle twice in very different circumstances, things have changed yet again for American-Indian progressive rock/metal band Skyharbor now that they’re gearing up to release their third album Sunshine Dust.
The title was announced earlier this year, and songs like ‘Out of Time’, ‘Blind Side’ and ‘Chemical Hands’ have kept the band’s name in the spotlight, but the real boost came when they headed out on tour with one of the biggest metal bands in the world, Deftones. They supported the band across Europe between April and May.
But even then, there hasn’t been any word on the forthcoming album – their first with Cleveland, Ohio-based vocalist Eric Emery and Mumbai drummer Aditya Ashok. When asked about the status of Sunshine Dust, guitarist Keshav Dhar says a tad diplomatically, “There have been a few holdups in regards to the album, and it's as frustrating for us not to be able to talk about it as it is for the fans who have been waiting patiently for years now. But we should positively have an announcement addressing the situation very soon.”
The band members themselves have been doing their own thing in the meanwhile. Aditya is busy with this producer collective Dasta and drum and bass material with Ox7gen, Emery runs his own studio, as do Dhar in New Delhi and guitarist Devesh Dayal in Los Angeles, while bassist Krishna Jhaveri is a part of other projects in Mumbai.
But when it comes to Skyharbor, Dhar says all the material has been fully collaborative, with even a few roles being changed up for Sunshine Dust. “Now it's a case of everyone writing for each other, Krishna wrote the main guitar hook on the title track, for example. I've written a bunch of bass and drum parts, Devesh has written some vocal parts… stuff like that. Everyone is super involved in everything, and it's great,” Dhar says.
They even premiered a couple of unreleased songs off the album on their India tour last year as well as in Europe, supporting Deftones. The tour experience, on the whole, was “incredible” for Skyharbor. Dhar adds, “We felt invincible every time we got off stage. I will never forget that tour as long as I live.”
Since Europe has been the one area they’ve managed to tour every year (knocking festivals such as Download, Tech-Fest and Euroblast off their list), Skyharbor did see familiar faces in the crowd, but Dhar says their fan base amounted for a small percentage of the total audience in attendance. Off-stage, watching a band like Deftones go through their tour days like clockwork was certainly a learning experience for Dhar. He certainly now sees them as not a band, but an entire team of people.
Dhar says, “It just emphasises that although there are five people that are the face of that band, there are hundreds of people that make that band run like the juggernaut that it is. It takes incredible amounts of hard work and professionalism - the crew starts work at 9am every morning setting the stage up from scratch, and they end at 1am tearing down and packing everything up into their cargo trucks. It was quite overwhelming and very very inspiring at the same time.” He adds, “We need to get to that level. One day at a time...”
Watching perfection play itself out is one thing, but Deftones – after three decades on stage – are also human, and prone to the occasional slip-up. Dhar makes exactly that point when he talks about getting to watch them every night of the tour for nearly a month. Dhar says every noticeable mistake was likely not in their control. “No sets really registered as bad, except maybe in terms of sound or lights some days as opposed to others, which is nothing to do with the band themselves,” the guitarist says.
In the prog world of squeaky clean studio production and the endless demand for polyrhythms and odd-metered music (fuelled by both bands and listeners), Dhar says it’s important to recognise that “we are humans and not machines.” Playing consecutive shows and taking on the rigours of touring does, sooner or later, invoke a fatigue that often leads to bad shows. “Putting impossible expectations on ourselves – like thinking we're going to deliver identical machine-tight sets every night without any glitches at all, be they technical or performance related – is just going to put pressure on us and that translates to a lack of really feeling the set emotionally. The important thing to keep in mind is just to be as well rehearsed as possible beforehand, and go in and enjoy the music as much as possible. The rest is a product of what happens at that moment,” Dhar says.
That’s probably the kind of zen that Skyharbor is going to carry through on their second India tour with the new line-up that’s rolling into town in October 2017. Dhar says about their set, “Some new songs, some old songs, some stuff you've never heard before - we like to change it up every time we play.”
Keshav Dhar’s top five
Here's a list of five songs that Keshav Dhar is listening to right now.
Worship - 'Distant Sirens'
I absolutely love this band, the lyrics are melancholy and at times dark but the music is so bittersweet, it just gets my juices going. Highly recommend everyone check this band out. Other sick songs by them are 'Nothing Is Sacred' and 'Nothing More'.
Joe Satriani - 'Oriental Melody'
I'm rediscovering Joe's album 'Strange Beautiful Music' right now and this one is getting me squarely in the feels.
SikTh - 'Century of the Narcissist'
Find it on iTunes here.
That last riff. Enough said.
Sepalcure - 'Fight for Us' (feat. Rochelle Jordan)
I've really been getting into this act of late. It has the kind of guitar melodies I absolutely am a sucker for, and delicious electronic grooves and sounds.
Gustavo Santaolalla - 'The Way It Was' (The Last of Us soundtrack)
An absolutely tear jerking piece of magic from one of the best games of all time. Made me cry when I heard it the first time. It will you too.
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