Indian Ocean takes its music beyond the stage as it turns 35, launches an immersive music experience
Indian Ocean, the legendary Indian folk-rock band, is not just making music; they're rewriting the rules of the music industry. With a bold leap into the digital realm, they're set to redefine the fan experience and push the boundaries of artistic expression.
In a candid interview, guitarist Nikhil Rao unveils the band's vision for the future. As technology continues to reshape the cultural landscape, the Indian Ocean is embracing the change, not fearing it. As they partner up Artistverse Nikhil opens up about the commitment that the band is carrying out towards innovation and their desire to connect with fans on a deeper level. He also shares insights into the band's journey into the Metaverse, the impact of immersive media on communal experiences and a peek into the band's upcoming projects
What about Immersive experiences called out to you as a band to partner up with Artistverse?
Artistverse is something that I have been quite excited about. We have tried this in the past. Every generation, a website keeps getting redundant and Indian Ocean has been a bit of a technophobe-dinosaur–old tech-analogue-old school-retro kind of a band. Nobody pressures us to be on top of anything, but a band like us, I think, is uniquely suited to leapfrog in the sense that, we’ve become so old now that we can jump the cultural switches by four to five generations. So we started discussing the Metaverse, Web 3.0, online concerts, and virtual reality. All of this happened during COVID-19 when the touring scenario was restricted. We tried doing various things with our friends and others offering Web 3.0 services. But when Shatadru Sarkar came up with the Artistverse idea, we knew he was the guy to go with. Shatadru is somebody we have known for a very long time and he is more than a tech guy. He's a music industry guy. He understands what a musician’s needs are. We made a lot of content and we are planning to do some unique things which we will offer nowhere else. So I hope that more and more people will engage with us online because we will try to deliver the same authenticity online that people know us for in our offline interactions and our concerts.
What can we expect from this experience as fans?
Same-same, but different. It is going to be us but it is a new platform. There’s a saying that goes like, “medium is the message”. So all of us change all of our personalities when the medium changes. So we may say or do or offer some things on Artistverse that we do not do anywhere else and this is because the medium is new. I think fans will have a great time engaging with this online on the Artistverse platform.
Do you feel the rise of content consumption, especially music and movies in the form of immersive media can change/affect the communal consumption that people normally experience -- which itself becomes an experience?
Yes. This is a good question. This is something we deeply worry about — that everything is so hyper-individualised that that sense of community may be lost. This refers to the experience of 500-1000 people getting together and just singing the chorus to ‘Arrey rukh jaa rey band” (the chorus lyric from the hit Indian Ocean song, Bandeh. It becomes more of an individual needs-based desire fulfilment. We do worry about it.
That said, I do not think we have a solution. I don't think anybody has a solution at present. But I think we have to make our peace with the fact that the world, technology, culture and society itself are all changing. I think all of us are convinced that every change is not necessarily for the better — that much I am willing to stick my neck out and say. But we are not also techno pessimists. We are not blinding optimists. I think somewhere in between there is a middle path and we want to find out what that is — what we can do online without compromising the integrity and authenticity of the offline experience. So that is kind of the bridge that we are carefully trying to navigate.
Would you say a technology like this can enable artistes to connect better?
This for me is a thumping, “yes”! Because of technological innovations, there have been many positive changes. There are no real barriers to entry anymore for anybody from anywhere in India. From the remotest of places with a phone, a basic internet and a laptop anybody can become a music producer. They don't have to move to Bombay. They don't have to ‘struggle and sleep in railway stations for months’. They don't have to go and beg studio bosses. They don't have to bribe chaprasis outside Yashraj films. They don't have to carry their CV. Whether it's for a song, a film or a script, artsites can work at it and refine, hone and do that work by themselves. While we cannot discuss the quality now, the quantity is flabbergasting.
I mean the quantity is probably 10,000 times what it used to be. Of course, it comes with its advantages and disadvantages, but the most positive part of this is that there are no barriers to entry. If you do not make a song it will be because you did not want to make a song. Nobody is robbing you of the songs you want to write. So that is I think is the most positive part of technology in music. Also, collaborations and communication for artists among have become easy. There are so many great collaborations that are happening just because the internet is there.
Are there any new projects in the pipeline?
We think we have the workhorse approach. We keep working but the release of our projects is not in our hands. We finished up the background score and a couple of songs for a movie which should be out in early 2025 (fingers crossed for that). Currently, we are busy finishing up the score for a web series. That should be fun. I do not know when it will come out, but by the looks of it, maybe at the end of 2025. We are also working on our music.
We released our album Tu Hai in 2023 and now we are working on the next bunch of songs. Indian Ocean takes fairly long. So I would say people should not expect Indian Ocean at least to do an album every year. But we are in the zone of writing new material. It is never a dull moment with the Indian Ocean. We’re 35 years old as a band and we're still going strong and here's to the next 10!
