Interview mit Raoul Kerr von Bloodywood

With their debut album „Rakshak,“ the Indian groove metallers have stirred up the metal scene worldwide. Rapper Raoul Kerr explains how BLOODYWOOD have achieved international recognition without a label, what role YouTube plays in this, and why BLOODYWOOD don’t shy away from political messages in their lyrics.

You were supposed to be on a European tour right now, which should have started in Germany at the beginning of March. But the clubs are only now opening up again… how does that feel?
When they open up now, it would be ten days after we were supposed to play in Germany. So, I guess it was a good decision. But also a sad one, because we were really looking forward to coming back!

The success of BLOODYWOOD is overwhelming – especially for a completely self-made band. When did you realize that this thing could become big, when did the ball start rolling?
The technical answer is: When we released “Ari Ari”, my first song with the guys – because it went from 0 to 10, so to say. It was the time when Facebook was at an all-time high, with the whole scope of uploading your music and people sharing it and discovering it all over the world. I mean, we have different forms of that till today, like Twitter just exploded for BLOODYWOOD. But at that time with Facebook, it was a great phenomenon. It was just the internet being the internet, you know? The most wholesome parts of the internet came together and pushed us as far and wide as we could have hoped being pushed as an independent band that was just starting out. So, I’d say that “Ari Ari” was the moment when we realized how massive it can be.

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I say that without taking away from what the guys had achieved before I joined the band, because they spent years on working on covers and building an audience and exploring a sound. So the sound which you hear in “Ari Ari” and the sound you hear now is that signature folk metal, that Punjabi metal they discovered while working on covers and building an audience. Our YouTube channel was already about 20.000 subscribers strong when we did “Ari Ari”. The subscriber base itself was very diverse – the guys did something that attracted people from all around the world at that point. So, when we did “Ari Ari”, it was like the gasoline had already been lit by what they had done before… together we just threw a match on it …and it exploded.

„Social Media is just a tool – it’s the people behind it who brought us so far“

So, you’d say that your YouTube channel was the key for your success?
100%. It was like a good partnership between YouTube and social media and reddit as well. So, it was all forms of social media and YouTube, and then again the YouTube algorithm helping us, and we got messages from people who got recommended us by YouTube. It was really the perfect storm. But as much as I thank social media, I really want to point out the people involved. The support people give us just by sharing, by telling other people to check our band out. Social media is just a tool – it’s the people behind it who brought us so far and giving us this explosive success.

So, with the experiences you made: Would you say that record labels are no longer relevant for bands who know how to work with social media? I mean, you did all this without a label – what could they have done more for you?
Honestly, this is something we’re still learning about. We’ve been offered many deals so far, from way back in the days until now. We’ve been in many conversations with labels, giving us offers, and there have been some really awesome names in the list. But the thing is: We know what a record label can offer, but at the same time we’re still seeing how far we can go as an independent band. I still see a difference between what we did before and what we do now with this album. Usually we just hit “upload” and did a little bit of posting on social media and our supporters were the ones who were pushing it as far as it would go. The main difference this time was that we hired a PR company and worked with a distributor who pushed out our music through various channels and someone to do our merchandise and all that – so it’s like the next level of an independent band, where you’re building a team around yourself, but you’re still independent.

So, we’re learning how far we can go as an independent entity. Labels have the experience, the resources, and the disposal to really push it in a whole different, bigger way. But at the same time, we’ve seen enough from our side to be like: Hey, let’s see how much further we can go, and let’s see when we get to the point where we’re like “OK, this is how far we reach independent, maybe let’s try a label deal now.” But right now we’re discovering that, we want to see how far we can get as an independent band. So, I wouldn’t take away labels, but at the same time I wouldn’t take away from what an independent band can archive in the age of digital internet and social media.

You already talked about that process of learning by doing – so what were the biggest challenges on the way to the self-release debut?
It was a fuckload of work, but at the same time for this band, the three of us, it’s never a question of if it’s too much work. There will be a point where it will become too much, but at the same time we’ll push those asses, and we’ll work hard on our music and our craft. But we’re more than happy to put in the work that goes into running the band as a business as well. We enjoy it. Before we signed with a company to do our merch, we built our own store, talked to customers, handled logistics ourselves – that’s something that is in the DNA of the band! Karan, our guitarist and producer, learned how to shoot videos and edit them and how to produce and do mix and master. All this stuff is self-taught through the internet again. So, all of us will handle that and have different roles and will put in the work that is required to run the business-related things as well as the band. So, there was a lot of work, musically speaking about releasing singles, shooting killer music videos, and then learning from those releases and then repeating it.

With the album, it was working with a lot of music at once and trying to see it as a bigger picture. On the other hand, it was just more of what we’ve done so far, just on a higher level. But it’s not something that we felt would be beyond our ability. We were happy being able to push it because it is for the music! No matter how much work you have to do, and it’s also groundwork – researching, comparing numbers, looking at all this shit – but what’s behind it is the love for the music and the desire to put out music and the message that goes with it. There is nothing that makes it feel too tiring. But I agree that there may be a point once we become even bigger or the biggest we can be …there will be a stage where it is too much workload for three people to handle. So, we’ll have to manage to find some good people to help us with that. We just take it as it comes.

„The people have held us up – that’s how we do it independently.“

Do you do all that in your free time as a hobby at the moment or did the band already become your fulltime job?
We’re really in a lucky position, mainly thanks to our Patreons – I really have to shout them out! Our Patreon community is so fucking strong, they supported us all the time – those people let us do this as a full-time career. They’re so passionate and dedicated and so supportive, supporting the band every month. And of course, I appreciate all the people who buy digital copies of the album. To me, a digital copy being bought today – something you can just go and stream online – is just pure support. Obviously you get a higher audio quality with the download, but still. People have held us up, from the Patreons to people who buy our merch to people who bought digital copies of our music before and of our new album now – that’s how we do it independently. It’s not a free time thing, but a fulltime thing: All our free time goes into it as well, to be honest. (laughs)

At least in Germany, your album is only available in your online-store – and not on Amazon and so on. Is that a problem for you, or maybe even an advantage in some way?
That’s something we had to learn about. We have someone who is doing this for us, the stores and Amazon in the US, but unfortunately we did not take care of it for Europe and the rest of the world, which is a learning experience for us: OK, we need to specify that we need a physical distributor in Europe. We honestly did not know what to expect in terms of how many copies of the album will be bought physically, so the official stores came into it when we started selling stuff out and we realized that there is a bigger market. We had just planned for minimal amounts before that. So, it’s more about us improving our planning!

For a newcomer band, you rely heavily on the visual aspect with your music videos: Is there simply no other way, do you only reach the young generation via YouTube, or is it also important to you from an artistic point of view to make videos for the songs?
Honestly, it is 100% about the art. You want to find the best way to visually present your sound. We think about what locations, what kind of shots, do we tell a story with this, and so on. But the other part of that is that we try to make something that’s going to get people off their seats and get them engaged. Show them a side of India, expressed in a global way that everyone can relate to. So it is about the art, foremost just to express the music in its most powerful visual form. And then there is the side of it where it is just like: yeah, this is how we can get the music and the message out there. So, of course, this is in the thinking, but foremost it is about the art.

Here, too, as a self-made band: How did you manage doing video clips on this professional level? Did you hire an expert here to help you or did you do that all on your own?
Based on what we talked so far: What’s your guess? (laughs) It was all self-made! I have to give mad probs to Karan, who again learned how to shoot, edit, and calibrate a video, literally through the internet! So that’s something that is done 100% inhouse, as most things in our band: The three of us sitting on a concept, checking which resources we have, scouting locations, planning some shots… we do that as a team. We do hire some videographers from time to time to record us, because there are times when there has to be a band-shot, and as much as we love Karan behind the camera, we love him more in front of it, with us as a band. So, we hire someone to shoot certain scenes for us. But, for example, for “Aaj”, the second single we released for the album, Jayant and I actually shot some scenes – we had to learn that in the middle of nowhere, and it was only Karan and one of us. (laughs) It’s also about creative control: There are a lot of creative individuals out there we respect for their videos, and we don’t rule out to work with such people on videos in the future, but we really like to have control over the creative side of the visuals. We are the people who make the music, so there is something in us that will also tell us how we want to represent it visually. It is about the passion for the music itself which brings out our desire to make the videos, too.

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„It’s more about the birth of something new rather than the death of something old“

Also, your music is quite “independent”, so to say: In the past, all bands worldwide tried to sound more or less exactly like US metal or UK metal. The successful bands of our days are bands like Alien Weaponry with their Maori Thrash or you guys with vibes of Indian Folk in your sound. Would you say that the time of classic genres and idols over?
If someone wants to sound like a US or a UK metal band or something that is associated with traditional metal, that’s because they want to do that. But all those bands who are fusing their own cultures with traditional metal do that because it comes naturally – because it sounds good. It is something that represents themselves, their idea of what their music should sound like. It’s coming from a base where people are appreciating this kind of music: people are really enjoying that. So that’s encouraging a lot more people to try that. But I don’t think it’s because the genre is dead… I think the genre is as alive as it has always been, but there is this whole new subgenre of fusing your own culture, your own folk music with metal. It’s more about the birth of something new rather than the death of something old.

Are there nevertheless some classic metal bands or also rap artists that influenced you or inspired you to make music yourself in the first place?
Yes, of course! And you know, funnily I realized that even more when I started working with the band for the first time. I was always into bands like Linkin Park, Rage Against The Machine, Limp Bizkit. All three of those in no order. But the first band I fell in love with was Linkin Park – “Meteora” was the first CD I bought. And in an indirect way, in terms of the hip hop relationship, System Of A Down. Those are my influences. I always liked those bands growing up, but I only realized how naturally it came to me to fuse hip hop with metal when I started working with BLOODYWOOD. This is a part of who I am! I never really explored that, but I have always listened to this music, so of course this came naturally to me – I love this shit, I grew up on it!

Your band name BLOODYWOOD is a play on words with Bollywood, the Indian movie scene that is broadly ignored outside of India. Is there an active Indian metal scene that we just are not aware of here in the West as well – like it is with Bollywood?
I would describe it as a small, but very strong and proud scene. We always quote a statistic; we don’t say it’s accurate but it feels like, and it’s been given to us by one of the godfathers of Indian metal, Sahil “The Demonstealer” Makhija: He told us that in our country with one billion people there are 10.000 metalheads. So, it’s a very small ratio, but it is a tightened scene. You quite regularly see members from other bands being part of the audiences for other shows and people are supporting each other. We have also felt support from other bands in the country. There are nights, though, where the whole scene will come together and literally everyone you know from the scene will be at a gig and make it a special night. But I think it’s growing: One thing we noticed from our personal point of view as a band was that some people commented after one of our shows – we played a few warm-up shows in India before we left for our first tour – and what they pointed out was that the audience they saw was not the crowd they see at other metal gigs. There were quite a few new faces. So that’s a good sign that new people are getting involved and interested in metal. So, our scene is growing – slowly but surely! One of our plans is to play at college festivals, which is another big opportunity in terms of getting in front of a huge audience in India. College kids are wild and open to hard stuff like metal, which a lot of people in our country aren’t necessarily. So we’re looking forward to the opportunity to play in front of a young audience and showing them some Indian folk metal – and to help growing our community!

In Germany you hear lots of negative comments from the scene about modern bands – stating that they are not “true”, “real” or “metal” at all. Are there also those “metal purists” in the Indian scene for whom you are not “real” metal because of the rap and electronic parts?
Honestly, I think that’s just a thing in the metal community. You find it everywhere that people feel like “Oh, this is not metal” or “the rap is not metal” or “the electronic instruments are not metal”. But those “gatekeepers” will never succeed: They can say whatever they want to, but the music everyone loves will find its way to the top. It is a known phenomenon everywhere, but honestly it does not make a difference at all.

„We’re taking India to the world, and the world is responding“

Normalerweise beginnen Bands ihre Karriere in ihrer Heimatstadt, werden dann in ihrem Land berühmt und werden später international bekannt. Da ihr über das Internet groß geworden seid, habe ich mich gefragt, ob es bei BLOODYWOOD vielleicht andersherum ist? Würdest du zustimmen, dass BLOODYWOOD international Berühmtheit erlangt haben, bevor ihr in eurer Heimat berühmt wurdet?
Honestly, you nailed it. I won’t take away from our Indian supporters, because you have seen them in the comments and they express themselves and their love for the band and are telling everyone about it, but at the same time, we have so many supporters from the US! Percentagewise we’re in a single-digit percentage for our followers from India. It’s a very small part of our support base. But again: it’s growing, and they are really passionate. At the same time, this is what‘s so special about the internet: You need that hype from your community and surroundings to expand in a traditional way, but thanks to the internet our community is the world. We may be an Indian folk metal band, but our message and our music is universal. We’re taking India to the world and the world is responding. They are a community – people, no matter where they are. They are the ones holding us up. There have been the ones supporting us from the first day, all the way from back in the days when the band was doing covers, to our four successful singles, and there are people who just found out about us two weeks ago or this morning – they all are our community.

I think that’s a testament of the fact that the internet has created a global community, like a generation that has grown up in roughly the same environment, created by the internet. No matter how our cultures bring us up in different ways, we’re all being brought up in a similar way at least on the internet – that’s common ground there. So, our community is worldwide. I mean, also the two of us are part of it now, doing an interview via Zoom. Or let me give you another example: We saw comments on an internet community like “When I see this band becoming successful, I see them as representatives of me” – when you see that, it is the most soulful thing ever. And they posted it from the US or somewhere in Europe. But they talk about us like we’re their neighbors, people from down the street who you’ve grown up with. That’s why it is a global community!

In general, you interact with your community very actively – doing live-chats with your fans and so on. Is that also part of the secret of your success?
We do our best in responding to messages we get, in terms of keeping your finger on the pulse of the community and interacting with them – this is something we definitely plan to keep doing as long as we can!

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Your lyrics are sometimes very clearly political. What about the freedom of art in India in general? And are there topics you have to leave out in order not to get into trouble with authorities, is there some kind of censorship in India?
We haven’t been threatened anyway at all in that sense. The threat always exists – it does exist. Censorship is a problem in India, and we are seeing this taking place all around the world was well: People are trying to silence stuff that is not in line with their thinking or their view. But I think we are trying to say something that matters, and we do it in a respectful way.  So, it is a problem, but there are points where you just have to speak out and take whatever comes with it – because it is something that needs to be said. So, it is a problem, but it’s not gonna stop us. Again: We have to do what we have to do! What we’re trying to do is to put the point in the most wholesome and heartfelt way possible. The consequences may be there, but we have to speak that truth.

„You just say what you have to say“

That’s really commendable! In Europe, many bands try to be considered decidedly as “non-political”: Instead of using their reach for important messages, many of them try not to make any noise to not offend anyone. Why is it important to you that your art is also read politically?
Censorship and people being worried about making a political statement exists everywhere in the world – as well in India. But I haven’t really given this much thought in that sense, it comes back to speaking your truth and singing what you think needs to be out there. The things that aren’t being spoken about. You should talk about them. You just say what you have to say.

Which are the most important – political – topics for you to write and sing about?
I would not list it out because we talk about whatever we feel the strongest about in that particular moment. It’s also about the way the music speaks to us. So, on the album we’re talking about the use of religion in politics, corruption, sexual assault, mental health, bullying, the lack of integrity in journalism today. On the album, we speak about what we decided to talk about now – but that is not necessarily the most important thing to us. I’d say – personally speaking, and I won’t speak for the band here – one the most important things that need to be spoken about is climate change. That’s something we’ll do in the future, and I feel that is the biggest issue, because it threatens the future of the whole world, it threatens our very existences. So, it is definitely the most important thing to be spoken about. But I feel like we have to overcome all those other issues to be at a place where we can have a collective desire, compassion to attack the climate change. So, I would not give any issue more importance, it’s more like a ladder – you have to get up there before you hit the biggest. But if there was one I would name, it would be climate change.

Is there a big awareness about that climate change disaster in India?
I think it’s everywhere. The awareness is there, but the action is what we all have to do more of. It is happening, people are taking good steps for sure, but at the same, time we need unbelievable steps. We need to take insane measures to stamp out this problem or to even have a chance of tackling it. All the world’s scientists are telling us that we’re getting to a point of no return, there is only so much we can do, and we may have already crossed it… it’s so much information out there! They are warning us so we should try anything and everything we can to make it happen. The first steps are taken, but of course it’s so much more. It’s a long shot, but you never know. Maybe we will do it!

That’s a beautiful, encouraging conclusion. Thank you for your time, Raul – and good luck with „Rakshak“!
Thank you very much! See you next year in Munich!

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Publiziert am 26. März 2022 von Moritz Grütz