Taking It To The Streets With JAYANT BHADULA From BLOODYWOOD

Interview by Kris Peters
Billed as an Indian folk metal outfit, Bloodywood are a band much
more than that. They are an amalgamation of hard rock and metal,
mixed with traditional Indian elements, who create a sound
comfortingly similar but also fresh, new and exciting.
While the folk metal element is there, labelling them as such is
doing the band a disservice musically.
Bloodywood first landed on the world's sonic radar with the single
Ari Ari in 2018, a Punjabi folk song made famous in the early 2000s
remix boom in India by hip-hop act Bombay Rockers. The band pushed
it further with help from the gritty New Delhi-based conscious
hip-hop artist/rapper Raoul Kerr, offering a cultural musical
alternative to the mainstream acts that were dominating the
charts.
Since then, Bloodywood have taken the world by storm, with their
debut album Rakshak solidifying the band's growing
reputation.
Bloodywood have been on the road pretty much ever since, performing
to packed crowds and at major global festivals, including
Lollapalooza India, Download Festival, Bloodstock (UK), Hellfest
(France), Summer Breeze (Germany), Brutal Assault (Czechia), Fuji
Rock (Japan) and American mainstays like Louder Than Life and
Aftershock.
Their sophomore album Nu Delhi came out on March 21 this year,
marking a new landmark in the band's short history and proving
emphatically that Bloodywood are more than just a metal band from
India. They are now a world-class band in their own right.
HEAVY spoke with vocalist Jayant Bhadula to get the rundown.
"Very, very well," he smiled when we asked how the album has been
received. "In terms of numbers, it's doing very good, but in terms
of people showing up for the shows and singing our lyrics back from
the new album, it's a great thing to see. Honestly, as an artis,t
the greatest level of validation I can see is when people are
singing your lyrics for you, especially the ones that are not in
the language as well."
We ask what Bloodywood were going for musically on Nu Delhi.
"In terms of music, we tried to represent the sense of New Delhi
where we come from," he mused. "It is a very realistic and metal
city where we come from. If you give it love you will get love 100
times back but just like we say in the album, if you fuck around
you won't be found and that is what we were trying to capture. That
is why this album is more in your face rather than being as subtle
as the last one."
In the full interview we talked more about Nu Delhi, Bloodywood's
collaboration with Babymetal and how it came about, the cultural
dynamics present in their music, blending Eastern and Western
cultures together musically and how difficult that is to do, how Nu
Delhi differs musically from Rakshak, being labelled as a folk
metal band and more.


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