Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Pip of the Fourth Mother



Given the state of affairs from which theyemerged, it is hard to comprehend how Shillong boys ‘Pip of the Fourth Mother’made their way out. Period. They are the sort of band that you know could nevereven join in a Birthday sing-song without adding crashing  bass-lines, breezy vocal accompaniments, thesort of un-synthesized  rhythmarrangements once favored by L.A-rockers ‘The Offspring’ and a buttress of  Dirty Punk/pop lyrics. Theirs is a sound thatis willfully meek (damn you critics!) and technically overbaked, one which Ihaven’t had too many encounters with, in the recent times.
Whatsets this five piece ensemble apart from the stockpile of hedonistic nonsense Omni-presentin today’s Indian-rock Circuit is the wisdom of jollity flowing through each ofthe bands’ originals; egos seem to have been checked at the gate, allowing thequartet to freely discover a whole new level of different sounds and modes-both on and off-stage. In essence, POT FM soundslike a 51st-century abduction of alien-funk rock, packed with bubblegum poppingdynamics and KFC-crunchy breakdowns.

Having a good timeis a major bee in their bonnet and it features greatly in their lyrics, soundand their stage act. To them, nothing compares to the sound of a large crowdroaring to their music. They also understand that not everybody can or wouldappreciate, or for that matter even understand their brand of Punk-inclinedtunes. However, they do not plan to compromise on what they stand for musicallyfor they think, it is their right to do whatever they want to. Such nobleintent accompanied with such talent is a combination, hard to find and that isexactly why we advise you. Dear reader, to go google these guys up or add themon MySpace.



Q: What inspired you to make music together? And how didthe name POT-FM come along?
Well ever since we met and talkedmusic, we were very comfortable with each other’s views. Jason and Ben had alot of common thoughts about live music and what it means to them.  Apart from that, they just leave everythingelse to their mp3 players. The current bassist, Dauni, has always been a goodfriend of Jason’s back in Chennai through College and ever since he joined theband in December 2009, he has contributed a lot in terms of creativity in musicand live performances. We feel that all the three of us agree a lot when itcomes to live music and were a family now. No wonder we all started off our music venture as drummers for differentbands..lol.  What inspires us tomake  music is, well, nothing really. Wejust love music and we are just comfortable playing whatever we feel like andnot giving a hoot about whatever anyone says. We conceive this certainequilibrium in life wherein we are able to vent our aggression through ourmusic and be very sober people outside our musical activities. And we intend ondoing this indefinitely.

Coming to how the name of theband was coined, it should be mentioned that “Pip of the Fourth mother” was asolo project of Jason’s when he was drumming for his college band. Jason cameout with a name that was unique and difficult to remember..haha.. that justmakes it difficult to forget once it has sunken in J  Pip is a character from literature, a verysober character but the name in itself means troublemaker/brat. Jason’s mom is4th in her  family so you canfigure for yourself J  As we played live shows in shillong after weformed the band in June 2009, people started using the Initials of the wordsand they came out with P.O.T.F.M which we are comfy with since were a band nowand not a solo project anymore. Then they coined “Pot-FM”  for the fact that “P.O.T.F.M” was kindadifficult to pronounce. We are often asked whether or not were from a radio station by people who don’t knowus lol but we take it as a chance to educate them J

Q: What has been the progress of your music ever since you startedout?
Ever since we started out as aband, people have really appreciated our music to a great extent. We startedoff my releasing a promo single called “Shillong” which landed on “Vs the worldVol4”, “ The Great Eastern Rock Vol 1” and on countless cell phone handsets,mp3 players etc. We all grew up in this small town called Shillong and we justthought it deserves a song. We tried to bring out the essence of the placethrough the song and were very happy about it J . Apart from that we do have 13-14 Originalcompositions which we play at our live shows. Different people have differentopinions on which songs they like more from our sets which we think is good.Were packing more aggression and energy in our new songs which we think definesus more.

Q: Could you elaborately describe your music-making process? How doyou guys craft your compositions and your songwriting procedures? What inspiresyou to piece things together?
The way we make our songs is veryhaphazard and rational in a way that we don’t tend to make our songs sound toocliché. We achieve that by collecting a lot of riffs and melodies during jamsessions and recording them. Then Jason has this scrapbook where he writes alot of meaningless sentences. These riffs ,melodies and lyrics are used asfillers for songs that we come up when we are inspired and we keep in mind thatwhatever we create should be relevant to a subject  which inspires us to piece these thingstogether and as catchy as possible like sucking rock candy off a stick.

Q: Tell us about your latest single ‘Lun’ and about the E.p that’s inthe making. Who all are you working with on it?
“lun” is a semi slang in Khasi.It means noob/idiot. Lyrically, the whole song sums up the “lun” activitiesabout a guy dying in the arms of time and whowould give it all for a second chance at life, anything to start again.
Weare producing one song at a time for the EP and it will take a little more timebecause we really can’t decide which five songs to put in it from the 12 OCsweve done so far. Were even thinking of going full length. But again, the newsongs are of a different sound altogether and some  of which are in talks to be sold as singlesto different clients lol..hmm. We may just dump everything leftover into oneLP.well look into it later.
Wereworking with orange Byte Studios, Mumbai for the 5 track EP. We do therecording at home and we send it over to them for the mixing stages andafterwards.

Q: Most bands rue about a not-so-healthy scene, poor management,terrible sound in gigs (The list is long.) What’s your take on the Rock sceneat this moment? Do you think it’s headed somewhere? ( I’m looking at aNortheast-centric answer J)

The Rock scene is definitelyheaded “somewhere” , although its moving in a very slow pace. Im talkingNortheast Centric. Bands ruing about the scene is obviously human  but ifthey can be superhuman enough for once to realize that they should not expectchanges to come up in the scene and that they are the ones to make it changethen things would be a lot better. As of now, the event organizers are biggerthan the bands. Hands down. Terrible sound at gigs is not an option here in thenortheast, sorry for being blunt but we need good live sound producers here inthe NE.

Q: What is the image that you’re looking for as a band?
Were looking for an image thatmakes us look and sound refreshing, fun and we wanna’  have such a velocity that it makes peoplesweat!  Its all about having fun for us leavingskill and musicianship aside. The reason being there are millions of good bandsthat can play note perfect gigs in the world but not many are capable of givetheir audience/listeners a good time. Its not really about people looking at us as “musicians”. We wouldrather have them look at us as “artists”.

Q: How important are lyrics in your scheme of things/approach to songwriting? What do you guys mostly write about?
Oh the lyrics are reallyimportant. We mostly write about day to day experiences and if ever we comeacross an event that we think deserves a song, we write something about it andthese are the serious songs. We also like to write about insignificant events becausenobody cares about them and we get this air of freedom and bliss that kind ofreminds us of being young and joyful. The latest “insignificant” song in ourscrap book is called “sleep until you sleep”. J Its about nagging a friend lying down not trying tofall asleep. Haha.

Q: Does reality TV really change lives? Do youthink it proves to be a good platform for non-mainstream music? Has it in anyway helped the band to grow musically or otherwise? Tell us about the entire CenterFresh|DY-365 Rock Hunt experience.
Reality TV shows are verymanipulative. Again, as we’ve mentioned before, “Event organizers are biggerthan the bands”.  Whether it helps bandswith their music or not is what we don’t know. It depends on the extent thesize of audience and the type of audience it has. The DY365 Band Hunt was agood experience but it turned out to be a big scam in our opinion. Long storycut short, It was just a “TV Show”.

Q: Do you think that sustaining yourself on justthe band/ music in general is a goal that is slowly creeping towards beingaccomplished?
Probably. But there is a lot more todo but if you’re referring to the long run in general then yes it is plausible. 

Q: How significant do you think the internet isin today’s situation? How has it influenced your approach towards getting yourmusic out, so far?
The internet is a vital tool inthe market. There are some event companies that even run 80% of their businessonline. Band should be savvy enough to tap this and use it efficiently. Heck!You even have internet guides to proper band management. So if your band isn’tonline, you have nothing to lose! Get Online! If you don’t know how or don’twant to use the internet, get a publicist to do it for you!

And talking about getting ourmusic out, we’ve had thousands of streams and thousands of digital downloadsfrom all over the world and we don’t have any problem with it J
Q: Give us a brief account of your experience in the Bryan AdamsRockathon.
The Bryan Adams Rockathon was byfar the best show we’ve ever had.  Everything about the event production was so professional. From the tech rideragreements to the sound check sessions and the whole event upto completion.Credit goes to NitinChandrachud from Pune. We did a 45 minute set and we had the most awesomegigging experience. We gave the crowd our energy and they gave it back to us.The organizers had to hold us back on stage to make some announcements infavour of the band and we were out of words, out of breadth and full ofgratitude for everyone. We dint even have time to breathe when we got offstage, oh man. That one experience has raised the bar for us and we shall evertry to comply. We did not win it but yes we won a lot of hearts and for us itwas victory and musical bliss.

Q: Whom do you consider to be the band’s biggest asset?
Jason. He does a lot more thanplay guitar and sing for the band.lol

Q: Most Punk rock outfits are three-piece bands- any idea why?  Does that in general offer any particularadvantages over more conventional set-ups?
Hmm.. Punk Rock. I wonder ifthere is even a punk band in inda. But yeah, punk-esque bands do have aconventional 3 piece setup. If you ask us then we would say that the musicalelements required are minimal and so are the vocal abilities..haha..itscharming in a way. It does have many advantages if you think of it as there isless room for mistakes when only 3 guys are trying to be in sync..haha
 “ Hey you cant play guitar and I cant sing,lets start a band”. –Iggy Pop

Buh!

Michael Jackson: Bad orMichael Jackson: Dangerous? Bad.. its old skool
Guilty pleasure on stage… Nailing a guitar spin  (yet toaccomplish L)
Robin Scherbatsky  from ‘How I met your mother’ or Rachel Green from ‘Friends’? Robin!Robin! Robin!
A song by an Indianband you wish you’d written. ---
Silvio Berlusconi is a _______ Huh? Pron Chi?
Sahil Makhija in a toothpaste commercial or Sahil Makhijain the next Karan Johar Blockbuster? Definitely on a Toothpaste Commercial..haha..he dosent let anything slip by him.

Q: What keeps the band rooted to Punk rock?

We grew up listening to NoFX, The Offspring, Blink 182,Pennywise, Social Distortion.. so it just goes without saying.

Q:What does 2011 have in store for you? 

EP release. Music Videos, Gigs and more gigs. J

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