The homegrown blues of Lal And the People—An interview with frontman Rohit Lalwani
Rohit Lalwani. Photo: Nidhi Lodaya
From Bhopal to international acclaim, here is the story of how Lal And The People became one of the exciting new voices in Indian jazz and blues
Hailing from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Rohit Lalwani—alias ‘Lal’—grew up listening to a lot of rock-n-roll and early 70s pop. His core interest, however, was always the blues. He picked up artists who dabbled in contemporary blues, blues rock, Chicago blues, Texas blues, RnB, soul, and other such genres in the shade of ‘blue’.
If ‘you are what you read’, then in Lal’s case, you are the music that you listen to, and his music is an amalgamation of all the other musicians he’s grown up listening to, from T-Bone Walker, Albert Collins, and The Beach Boys, to Queen, Rush, Doobie Brothers, Judas Priest, Megadeth, and more.
Besides composing his music, Lal also writes his own songs. Music, he says, is its own form of storytelling. A story that could be anything: one’s own experience, or someone else’s story, a piece of fiction, or inspired by a true-life incident, or literally, just about anything else. “Personally, I’m an atheist,” says Lal. “So, a lot of my music deals with how I despise monotheism and the belief on all these doctrines and ideologies. Since I was a kid, I’ve been in this belief. I grew up with these ideas and eventually started writing about them.”
Blues and jazz seem to blend, and yet, can be further apart from each other, too. These are distinct genres that often tend to be categorised under the same umbrella by those not aware of their music theory. India has had elements of blues and jazz for some time, with flashes in a few Bollywood tracks, songs by independent musicians, and performances in big blues festivals.
Historically, blues is a forefather of jazz. Blues happens to be a raw and primitive form of the latter. While jazz derives its roots from blues, it manages to create its own distinct field. If the blues genre is a tree, then jazz sprouts off as one of its branches, with other sub-genres like blues rock, jazz rock, contemporary blues and more, growing over the same root.
Anyone making music then, either unconsciously or with intention, can take up bits and parts from a tree of genres, from their favourite bands and artists, and create something new. This was the journey for Lal, too, who learned guitar by the ear, following his favourite bands. And since then, his own band has since created a new, distinct sound of their own.
Formed in 2014 and now based in Pune, the trio/quartet of Lal And The People have brought their electric blues a long way, including two appearances at the Mahindra Blues Festival (the largest such event in Asia). In 2016, the band actually won the Mahindra festival, an achievement that their frontman still treasures.
“I’ve been attending Mahindra Blues since 2013,” says Lal. “But I was a kid back then, and used to come with my Mum. Time skip to 2020: and I’ve performed at Mahindra Blues twice, which seemed so far fetched at that time.”
“The band was formed in 2014, we did some odd gigs in MP, in Bhopal and Indore. It was surprising that people loved our stuff. In 2016, I released a DIY EP. I was in Bhopal with just a crappy computer and crappy equipment. I did everything by myself, from scratch, the vocals, guitar, bass, keyboard, everything. Not because I wanted to do it so, but just because it was a necessity in Bhopal.”
Lal And the People. Photo: Nidhi Lodaya.
“I knew exactly what I wanted [with my music] so I just put it out. I had a lot of confidence issues, coming from a small town and a humble background. I had nobody’s opinion on my work, and I had no clue what I was doing. I just did it because I thought it was good.”
“Bhopal isn’t a very ‘happening’ city. Just to be even inspired in that city, it’s a strange thing, as there are no budgets and no venues. We had no money when we first came to Mumbai for a contest: we were college kids, crashing anywhere we could.”
“When we got selected, however, from all the bands in attendance, it was a great feeling: it didn’t matter if we were from a city like Bhopal or less fortunate in terms of exposure. In the small cities you don’t even have the luxury of testing out equipment. That’s the basic evolution of an artist.”
“Mahindra Blues was a great boost for me—and after that we released our EP in 2016. To sum it up, Mahindra Blues boosted my shit up!”
“I knew exactly what I wanted [with my music] so I just put it out. I had a lot of confidence issues, coming from a small town and a humble background. I had nobody’s opinion on my work, and I had no clue what I was doing. I just did it because I thought it was good.”
Another leading inspiration in Lal’s journey has been the Indian blues band from Shillong, Soulmate. Lal And The People had sent an entry to MTV and Ray-Ban ‘Never Hide Sounds’ initiative, where small and new bands were set up to perform with bigger and more established ones around India. This is how Lal And The People ended up touring with Soulmate in Mumbai and Bangalore.
“We sucked,” says Lal. “We had no idea what to do or how to perform live or to make our music sound good. But performing alongside Soulmate was such a cool and amazing experience.”
Lal speaks highly of Soulmate, a band from whom he got a lot of support and continues to feel a sense of connectivity. Like Lal, Soulmate also hail from a ‘small’ town, Shillong, from humble beginnings before growing to become so well-renowned across India.
Things started to fall in place for Lal And The People after Soulmate. Blues is a niche genre, but is still much-loved among its listeners, which are fans of all ages. There are quite a few jazz clubs in India, specifically in metro cities which have a separate fanbase and will only host pure jazz and blues artists.
Lal mentions that even in gigs in small cities in MP, the crowd has grown more interested in his band’s music, even for those hearing the genre for the very first time, or who may not know about the blues, or perhaps, may not know English. Lal says that gigs in the small towns always gave a special feeling to the band compared to the metros like Pune, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. The audiences, he says, are smaller, eager, and more appreciative, even if they haven’t been exposed to the culture of live indie music. It is in the metros, however, where the acceptance of the music has grown considerably.
But this acceptance has still not made this an easy profession. Financing is a major issue. Lal and his band members are ‘session guys’. “You don’t have a choice but to get into commercials, or even Bollywood if you want to sustain yourself in this field,” says Lal. All the band members have side projects and other commercial work at hand, for other sources of income, whether it’s working on ad jingles, teaching music, and more.
“When I released my EP, I didn’t know anything about the business and managing part of music,” says Lal. “I just made it. We didn’t have Spotify back then, and promoting your music is very expensive. Someone told me to upload it on Bandcamp, which helped us get featured on a few YouTube channels and got some attention from the West. That has definitely increased our reach, and now I plan on publishing my existing work on other streaming platforms as well.”
For anyone like Lal, as long as they keep making quality original, inventive music, there will always be an audience willing to respect it and listen to it. The humble beginnings, or small-town disconnects don’t matter: the goals are right there to be achieved, just like the path carved by a band like Lal And The People, who followed their passions in the music world.
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Nidhi Lodaya is a final year journalism student, with interests lying in everything artistic. She currently works as a freelance writer and photographer, mainly in music, and has regularly contributed to the The Indian Music Diaries. You can find her on Instagram at: @nidhi_lodaya.
