Skrat frontman Sriram TT discusses their latest album, 'Circus Act' and the Skrat Universe
Skrat, the popular rock powerhouse is taking the art of writing musical albums up a scale. For 18 years, they’ve been crafting a narrative woven through their music, introducing characters and evolving their sound. Frontman Sriram TT dives into the making of their latest offering, Circus Act, a prequel of sorts to their Bison album and it’s a fascinating glimpse into their creative process. This time around Skrat’s album narrates the tale of Slingscot, a vital heroic character in the larger narrative of their musical universe. Sriram delves further in.
The album’s storyline is quite intricate. Did the narrative come first or did the music inspire the story of Slingscot and the ‘Emergence’? How did the two processes influence each other?
For over 18 years, Skrat has been building this universe. We found ourselves building this universe and over the many albums, we’ve sort of introduced all of our characters. Simultaneously, we’ve had our journey in our musical direction. Somehow, we found that it is always a chicken-and-egg thing. Either the music will tell you the story, or the story tells you how to do the music or both of them are written separately. The answer to the ‘Emergence’ (a conflict within the narrative) question is that it happens in the Bison album. Circus Act narrates all the events that lead to the Emergence and it’s sort of like Rogue One — sitting between the Queen and Bison album, respectively.
The album culminates in the Great Bison Wars. Is this a concept that will fall under that Skrat Universe that you had spoken about in an earlier interview with Indulge ?
The Bison Wars happen immediately after the ‘Emergence.’ The details of the Bison Wars are not written yet, but in the Bison album, they all culminate together after being introduced and they go to war. That comes from the Bison album. Since the Circus Act sits just before the Bison album, you get an idea of what led to that album happening. What you can expect later, well, you’ll have to wait and see.
This album was recorded live in a garage making it sound raw. What were the biggest hurdles you faced during this unique recording process and what were the most rewarding moments?
One of our biggest challenges, more than hurdles, was to kind of figure out how to balance all the microphones in the room because it wasn’t really in a treated room. It was just in a garage. And whenever we recorded, there was road noise, there were people in the room and other unwanted noises. So we wanted to do that as our point to make, saying that ‘since we wrote the songs like this, I think it should be recorded like this’ and it’s the only way we could try and get a semblance of how we sound live into a recording setup, which we’ve had struggles with before. But, I would say the most rewarding moment was when we didn’t need to look at the computer and say ‘okay let’s do that’ or ‘let’s go for that again’. We just played the songs so many times that we started really enjoying it and started ad-libbing and moving them around with every take. And it gave us that great rehearsal in the first place.
Since the album was recorded live, were there any unexpected or spontaneous moments that made it onto the final recording? Any happy accidents?
Yep! Because we recorded every take again and again, we could keep changing it, keep coming up with ideas and happy mistakes kept happening. Many of those mistakes made it to the final take.
Would you claim Circus Act to be your most ambitious project yet?
This is the most ambitious process we’ve ever done because the entire band and Rahul Ramachandran, our producer, sat together and recreated an entire studio setup in the room. So we were the crew. Now we know how to do everything. It was like a crash course in recording an album. At least our musical recording knowledge has improved to a huge degree.
If Circus Act were a circus act, what would it be?
If the Circus Act was a circus act, I think it’ll be walking a tightrope with two swords, trying to fight off a dragon that’s trying to burn the rope and make you fall or burn you to a crisp.
What’s coming after Circus Act from Skrat?
So the next step will be more stories, more storylines, more ways to sing it, more ways to show it, more ways to get it across to everyone since we are now focused on one in exploring musically and also exploring how the story is going to go with ourselves and how the universe is going to be told and we are excited to show everybody over the our next releases on what the story is going to be.
Circus Act is streaming on all audio platforms.
Mail: pranav.shriram@newindianexpress.com
X: pranav_shriram
