Through the changing cadences of Indian music which dominates the Bollywood music scene, local rock bands like ‘Bloodywood’ are now laying claim to their own space by fusing heavy metal riffs and distortion, sprinkled with a dash of rap, into popular pop music.
This talented two-piece band has former corporate lawyer Karan Katiyar on guitar and engineering graduate Jayant Bhadula on vocals.
While the duo formed the band nearly two years ago with the motive of "destroying pop songs" as they like to call it, their version of the popular Punjabi track ‘Ari Ari’ into a hard-core heavy metal song has shot them straight to stardom.
"Punjabi music is as close as it gets to metal when you think of Indian cultural music. It's loud, purposeful and doesn't hold back," Mr Katiyar told SBS Punjabi.
"We chose to blend Punjabi music with metal because they work really well together. Plus it was about time somebody did it."
The quirky video of the song which brings the chaos on Indian streets to life was released earlier this year and since then has already clocked in over a million views on both YouTube and Facebook.
These metalheads have also transformed Punjabi pop king Daler Mehndi’s 90s hit ‘Tunak Tunak’ with their hard guitar riffs and a dark voice - which also turned out to be a major hit on social media.
But after creating contemporary parodies and remakes of popular pop music, the band has recently released its first original song, albeit with a serious motto of advocating mental health and fighting depression.
The Punjabi track ‘Jee Veerey’ which means ‘live oh brave one’ also features rapper Rahul Kerr and has garnered a wave of appreciation from metal fans on social media.
Heavy metal is a popular genre of rock music characterised as loud and powerful. Together, the bass, drums, electric guitar and vocals of a band evoke a sound that is loud and generally aggressive.
India exactly isn’t a hotbed for metal music, but it's hard to deny the growing presence and popularity of heavy metal that's refusing to be drowned out by Bollywood tunes.
"Everybody loves metal, they just don't know it yet," added Mr Katiyar.
