• Navigation
  • Back Home
  • Our gig photos
  • Our YouTube Channel
  • CB on Facebook
  • Our Blogs
  • Contact Us
  • About the CB team
• Gig Reviews
  • Damnation Festival 2010
  • Fukpig - Damnation Festival
  • Fury UK / Kyrbgrinder - Derby Old Bell
  • Alter Bridge - Hammersmith Apollo
  • Furyon - Scruffy Murphys
  • Basick Records 5th Birthday Party
  • Imperial Vengeance - Underworld
  • BOA 2010
    • Bloodstock Friday
    • Bloodstock Saturday
    • Bloodstock Sunday
    • Furyon - Bloodstock Open Air
  • Sonisphere 2010
    • Sonisphere Friday
    • Sonisphere Saturday
    • Sonisphere Sunday
  • High Voltage Festival
    • High Voltage Saturday
    • High Voltage Sunday
  • All Gig Reviews
• CD Reviews
  • Shrapnel - The Devastation To Come
  • Dyonisis - Intoxicated
  • Cyclamen - Senjyu
  • Trucker Diablo - The Devil Rhythm
  • Murderdolls - Women and Children Last
  • Kyrbgrinder - Cold War Technology
  • Fukpig - Belief Is The Death Of Intelligence
  • Furyon - Gravitas
  • All CD Reviews
• Interviews and Features
  • The Mercy House
  • Trucker Diablo
  • Shrine of the Monkey
  • Damnation Festival 2010
    • Panic Cell
    • Festival director Gav
    • Fukpig
    • The Construct
    • Colonel Blast
    • Diascorium
    • Technical director Neil
    • Sabbat
    • Press Officer Lisa C
    • Maybeshewill
    • October File
  • Blue Gillespie
  • Gama Bomb
  • The More I See
  • Godsized's Download Experience
  • All Interviews & Features
• Links
  • Finest music blogs
  • Band websites

Sahil 'The Demonstealer' Makhija Demonic Resurrection Interview

India is not the first place that comes to mind when you think of Heavy Metal. Bollywood and Spicy food maybe, but not Heavy Metal, not real Heavy Metal surely ?

Well, that may soon be all about to change as one of the bands at the forefront of the ever expanding Indian scene stake their claim for worldwide recognition. For any rock band winning an award at the Golden Gods would be a dream come true, but when that band started 10 years ago in Mumbai this journey to international recognition is all the more special.

When Demonic Resurrection came onstage in London to collect their 'Global Metal' award few in the crowd (including us at CB) knew very much about them. We decided to find out more, so via the wonder of the internet we arranged an interview with the driving force behind the band, Singer / Guitarist Sahil Makhija.

For us in the west, India is not thought of as a hot-bed of Metal music. So first off we asked just how big the scene over there was in the 80s ? Sahil started off with a history lesson... There was a scene in India which existed in the 70s and 80s which was mainly cover/tribute bands, and this trend continued till the late 90s. However there were a few Rock and Metal bands that did manage to write, record and even release albums on major labels here like Indus Creed, Millennium and Pentagram. It was against this background that the young Sahil started to develop an interest in rock music ? In the early years when I got into the scene there was maybe 1 or 2 local clubs where bands performed and would get anywhere from 60-100 people and a few festivals and university shows which had anything from 3000-7000 people turn up.

So the roots for your kind of music were already well established ?

In the late 90s/2000s around the time the internet was becoming big and music was easily available to people. One or two Indian websites for music came into being we kind of got a feeling of having a scene, and with a bunch of bands all playing original music it started to develop. I must say though the Metal scene has kind of piggybacked with the rock scene in India so it's all one giant Indie scene.

And apart from the obvious ease with which the Internet makes getting hold of the music accessible, did you get to see many of the bands live ? We have some good promoters like DNA, RSJ, OML etc. who bring down big bands like Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Enslaved, Satyricon etc and there are lots of festival and university shows who have presented acts like Opeth and Porcupine Tree. To cut a long long long story short, from getting 1 retro international act a year we get 2-3 metal bands coming and playing now. From maybe 10 shows in a year we've gone to at least 50. So the scene is growing slowly. I could do a good 2 hour presentation on this but lets just say things are looking up for Indian Metal.

And are home grown record labels helping to fan the flames of this emerging scene ?

We've gone from no Indie labels to having a few hard working ones like Counter Culture, DSR, GnS etc and so on and so forth.

It's interesting how the internet has levelled the playing field across the world when it comes to accessing music. Sahil's musical journey, like so many of ours, started with two bands in particular....

My introduction into metal was by my school friends through bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica, which seems to be the story of a rather large number of metal fans. I later got into Pantera, Sepultura, Fear Factory, Devin Townsend etc and since then I've gone through a big black metal phase listening Dimmu Borgir, Emperor, Old Man's Child, Cradle Of Filth (ok so maybe they aren't black metal) and this was around the time when I started DR.

And now, I guess from the influences on the new record you listen to a wide range of stuff?

Power metal, death metal and many other kinds of metal. Anything that is metal and sounds good to my ears, I listen to.

Can't argue with that :)

I had this idea that to make this sort of music in a country like India must be fairly difficult. Ok, India is a democracy (biggest in the world) and secular. Are there any difficulties doing what you do in a country that is perceived (at least in the West) as being fairly conservative ? Yes it is very difficult but honestly my folks are super cool so I've never had any issues with the style of music I play. But do you have the other problem for budding musicians the world over, with parents not seeing music as a 'real' job ? I think with India the kind of people who listen to metal on average their parents expect to become lawyers, doctors, engineers etc so any career path that is unconventional is always a problem.

And there are other aspects of the scene that may cause them concern too...

Some kids parents have problems with their long hair and the fact that they smoke, drink, do drugs etc which I think parents all over the world have issues with.

The main problem being a metal musician in India is the fact that you can't make a living because of the way the scene is, you can do things related to music and have a band on the side or you can have your day job and be in the band. If I try and explain this in further detail I'm going to need a whole week. :)

With this in mind, was it difficult to find like minded musicians with enough talent to put together a band like DR ? It has been hard because over the year DR has had a significant number of members come and go from the band for various reasons. The main problem has always been finding drummers because most Indian drummers are stuck at 170bpm :) and our songs are much faster. Thankfully Husain (Bass) and Mephisto (Keys) have been in the band almost 8 years now and I'm really lucky that they joined. Viru (Drums) joined us in 2007 and I feel he was the drummer we needed, he's probably the best metal drummer in India in my opinion. And lastly we got Daniel (Lead Guitar) who joined us in 2008 when he was just a baby (18 years old) and he's really talented so luckily its all worked out for the best.

So there are some talented musicians out there then ?

When I started the band I spent almost 2 years just trying to find a drummer to jam with. Today its probably much easier than it was. When I started you couldn't even get double bass pedals in India, but now we do so everyones pretty much playing it.

How important was it for you that DR wouldn't follow the 'Covers / Tribute' path but instead strive to produce something new and unique ?

To be honest right from the time I started learning to play the guitar I always liked writing my own music. In 1998 my friend Sunil, who I had planned to form a band with, taught me to record my songs at home and there was no stopping me. I just wanted to write and play my own music.

Although you write your own stuff, there must be a few songs by other people that you enjoy playing ?

DR has played a few covers over the years though not really at my insistence. We did a medley of songs which included Black Sabbath, Metallica, Sepultura, Slayer, Obituary and Misfits excerpts. We also did 2 Dimmu Borgir covers from around 2004-2005 and finally we did a cover of Slayers 'Anti-Christ' for their 25th anniversary CD which we never played live nor do we plan to.

Do you think being called an 'Indian metal band' may somehow be limiting, as people who haven't heard your music will instantly make assumptions based on preconceived ideas about what that may mean ? It all depends how you look at it really. For me that is how I'm going to actually get someones attention. I'll be brutally honest that if I go around telling people we are a 'metal band' they probably won't care but when you say 'Indian Metal Band' they go really? Indian? There is metal in India? Ahhh, I hadn't thought of it that way. There is a pro and con to everything and I guess it's all about how you make the most of it. I think all said and done it boils down to what people think when they hear the music and watch us live. It is the fact that we are 'Indian' that will get them interested enough to do that.

The new album beautifully merges a whole range of styles and influences, do you think that having less access to Metal compared to the West when you were starting out meant that you were more appreciative of what you were hearing, and less likely to adhere to one Genre ?

I don't know really because when I got into metal the Internet was at my disposal and I had access to Metal Hammer, so I'd read about a band and if I couldn't find the album I could download it and listen to it.

But you're clearly not slavishly devoted to one genre or style ?

For me because I've always listened to anything that sounded good to my ears I never restricted myself to only black metal or only death metal. With the new DR album Viru's drumming style has contributed a lot to the sound, along with Daniels solos and my guitar playing style which has changed since the last album. What you are hearing now is 5 guys putting all their influences together and creating something out of it.

At the moment you are huge in the Indian scene, but (relatively) unknown outside of it, do you think the Golden Gods win and your new album will help you to break through in other markets ? It will definitely get us noticed to some extent. After that its up to us to work our asses off and get out there and tour and promote ourselves because there are so many bands in the world who are all fighting for the same space.

But your recent success will certainly help. When did you find out you were going to the Golden Gods ?

A week before the awards and we had to get our visa's and all sorts of shit in place. We were very lucky to be supported and helped by the British Council in India and our good friend Vijay Nair.

And how did it feel as a musician and fan to be in the room with Tony Iommi, Tom G Warrior and all those other legends ? Like a kid in a candy store. Hahaha.... It really was surreal I mean these are guys we've grown up listening to and now we are walking around them. I saw Vinnie Paul, Silenoz, Abbath, Iommi, Phil Demmel etc. It was quite something else.

You all looked so delighted to win the award. Nice feeling ?

Well yeah I was on top of the world. I mean when I started DR 10 years ago I was a 16 year old boy in a scene that seemed like a dead end where bands died out in 5 years, where people said you'll never make it and metal was not really an option. Now I'm on stage at the fucking Metal Hammer awards winning a Golden God. Fuck yeah!

You had to be happy with the reception you got? The response you got from the crowd was amazing for a band I thought not many people would have heard of.

Totally happy with the way people received us. I mean I though you might all be dead silent going like WTF but you were probably all drunk enough to cheer hahaha. So yes it was fantastic and a big thumbs up to everyone who cheered! 

We cheered, and we may or may not have been drunk ;)

It's taken DR 10 years to get to where you are today, what's been the highpoint for you so far ? Well since we've just won at the Metal Hammer Golden Gods I have to say that this has been the high point. Though we are playing Brutal Assault in August and maybe after that I might have a different answer. :)

What does the immediate future hold for DR ?

The immediate future will see our album release worldwide on 12th July via Candlelight Records and in August we shall be playing the Brutal Assault Festival in Czech Republic. We are going to plan some festival dates and tours so we'll update everyone when those plans materialize.

Will you be touring the UK anytime soon (please say yes)?

Yes.... hahaha. I'm kidding. Nothing concrete yet but we are in talks with 1 or 2 festivals so if all goes well we'll come back to the UK really soon.

We'd like to thank Sahil for taking the time to speak to us. When Demonic Resurrection make it to a venue near you we strongly suggest you go and check them out.

Dizzy