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| Jeet Thayil (centre) with Suman Sridhar, drummer Viru Kaith (left) and bassist Amit Ahuja (right) |
Their heady brew of rock, blues, funk and jazz has seen them hailed as one of the most exciting acts in the country. The Mumbai-based duo of Sridhar/Thayil — poet and author Jeet Thayil on vocals/guitar and Suman Sridhar on vocals/programming — were voted by Rolling Stone as one of nine artistes from India to watch out for in 2009. They also won Jack Daniel’s Rock Award for Emerging Act the same year. S/T recently toured the UK and are working on their debut album. A t2 chat...
How was it playing at Rich Mix (the cross-arts centre in London), opening for (London-based Tamil musician) Susheela Raman?
Jeet: Don’t remember much of Rich Mix. I arrived that afternoon, there was a brief sound check, the first time the band played together was on stage. I was on a rich mix of jet lag, residual engine noise and red wine. People liked it, so I guess it went well!
Suman: After the Great Escape gig in Brighton, people kept asking us if we were really from India, which was funny. We sure represented India though — we prefaced The Drowning Song as a song from the bottom of the mucky Mumbai sea.
How did you guys meet?
Jeet: We met at the end of 2007 in Bangalore and wrote a lot of stuff in a week or 10 days. January 2008 was our first gig at the Galle Festival in Sri Lanka. We had 20 minutes of material but the response was such that I knew the band had a future.
Why didn’t you think of a full-blown band? Why just a duo?
Jeet: It was always a duo, other musicians come and go as they are available. It’s the nature of the beast; nothing’s permanent.
Suman: It would be a dream to meet other musicians who share our sensibility, and live near us, and have the time for a band.
Theatrics, poetry — an S/T gig is a performance-art offering. How do you design such a show; is it planned or does it come about organically?
Jeet: Organically. We took what we had: Suman’s background in theatre and music, mine in performance and music. The rest was obvious. We knew that by going with our skills we had something original.
Tell us about your songwriting. Do you usually write as a duo?
Jeet: Suman writes songs. I write songs. Some songs we write together. When I write a song for S/T, I write specifically for Suman. I play to her unique gifts, which for me is a liberating thing.
Suman: As he’s a poet, most people assume Jeet writes all the lyrics and I write the melodies or arrangements. But it’s much more chaotic. Jeet writes stunning sweet melodies, I write lyrics. I write melodies, Jeet writes lyrics. We both do everything.
For songwriting and composition, who are the biggest influences?
Jeet: Chairman Mao, Muhammad Ali and Maria Callas.
When does one get hold of the debut S/T record?
Suman: The album is in its mixing phase. It will feature newer, different versions of songs you may have already heard. In it, we’ve done things we couldn’t necessarily do live — like featuring a bass clarinet, a viola, RD Burman’s session trumpet player, Kishore Sodha, four bass players from different corners of the world, including UK-based Dr Das of the Asian Dub Foundation and one of India’s best session bass players, Dwight Pattison.
Being from Mumbai, has there been a Bollywood connection yet?
Suman: I’ve sung for a couple of Hindi films — 404, Luv Ka The End and Shaitan.
