William McCray Sutherlin
It’s putting rain in New York City, and Mercury Lounge is jam-packed wall-to-wall with a couple of hundred 20-somethings — so firmly that Peter Cat Recording Co. need to clear a course through the Lower East Side rock club to journey from the front of your house to the phase.
Fans base on couches to see the New Delhi-based five-piece as team members climb up over the audience, shuttling beers from the bar to the band. During the program, followers hand presents to the artists and shout ask for deep cuts. Afterward, frontman Suryakant Sawhney, masked in a black button-down and eye liner, smokes cigarettes outside with fans excited to shake his hand.
So why the hubbub? For years among India’s best-kept music tricks, Peter Cat Recording Co. is lastly digging its paws into America. Upon revealing their first U.S. tour, the band offered out 3 nights in New York and 4 in Los Angeles almost immediately — and they didn’t spend a cent on marketing. They associate their growing appeal in the West partially to individuals finding their music throughout the pandemic, boosted by positioning on numerous popular Spotify-curated playlists. It’s been a long period of time coming for Peter Cat, whose 2020 trip strategies were scuttled by the pandemic, and who, due to the unforgiving financial landscape of Delhi’s music market, have dubbed themselves “one of the last few remaining bands in India.”
“We’re an anomaly,” Sawhney says, referencing the band’s unusual capability to earn a living in their home nation, which they state does not have a genuine indie music scene. But if this trip is any sign, Peter Cat is poised to trade underground cred for international success. When I ask if they’ve thought about vacating India, multi-instrumentalist Kartik Pillai doesn’t think twice: “We want houses all over the world. We don’t want to live in one country.”
With 30 programs in simply over a month, Peter Cat is not utilized to the non-stop nature of touring — and the mindful silence of American audiences compared to rowdy Delhi crowds. “The quietness is cool,” Sawhney says. “It’s like sharing a weird spiritual thing together.” In their minimal New York downtime, the band made certain to do some “standard tourist shit” and see “Wicked” on Broadway, which, according to the vocalist, was “very disappointing.” They haven’t been composing brand-new music while on the roadway, however Sawhney assures there will be a brand-new Peter Cat album within the next 365 days.
When I visit them in the basement of Mercury Lounge prior to the group’s 3rd sold-out program in the city, I being in a confined green room reverse Sawhney, multi-instrumentalist Katrik Pillai, drummer Karan Singh and bassist Dhruv Bhola. Rohit Gupta, who plays secrets and trumpet, is taking a cat nap in between Sawhney and Celeste Yumara Barbosa, a videographer who is recording the band’s very first stateside jaunt. The band likewise brought with them from India their own lighting and sound directors, Abhinav Khetarpal and Deniz Sagdic; and their group spirit appears in their ask for this post to likewise call the rest of their “Recording Co.,” that includes artist supervisor Jaivir Dhruv Singh, trip supervisor Patrick Higgins and keeps an eye on engineer/production supervisor Prathik Nedungadi.
Peter Cat is brand-new to the U.S. however has actually been around for rather a long time. While the existing lineup formed in 2017, Sawhney embraced the name in 2009, launching Peter Cat’s launching album “Sinema” on Jan. 1, 2011. Listeners battle to classify the band’s noise, which’s okay with Sawhney, who happily declares, “We don’t belong to any particular scene.” Their 2019 development, “Bismillah,” is emotional, dynamic and completely loose. Psychedelic disco-rock fulfills turbocharged gypsy jazz as trumpets skyrocket over relaxing chord developments and swinging drums. What grabs you, however, is Sawhney’s voice — a nimble, silky croon that seems like Sinatra on 2 tabs of acid.
The band’s specific impacts vary from Sam Cooke to Hindi movie music to Bangkok browse rock. Says Pillai: “I listen to Marian Anderson gospel music and [Shanghai harsh noise act] Torturing Nurse, and everything in between. I like to watch multiple screens at the same time and torture myself until something slips out of my head. Just put on metal in the background and try to write.”
Sawhney discusses the Velvet Underground and Neutral Milk Hotel as examples of do it yourself bands “who had this mixture of making beautiful music that was a little dirty — it was never fully polished.” And Singh, who utilized to be a metal drummer, informs me about his love of jazz as he clutches a book about Buddy Rich.
But regardless of their diverse motivations, Sawhney says crooner music is among the band’s typical interests.
“That style of singing is really emotional,” Sawhney says. “I also enjoy it in this weird masculine way. I was drawn to that strong, macho voice when I was younger. But it was conservative, you know? Those guys couldn’t sing sleazy shit. They had to come up with cheesy ways of saying, ‘Hey, we’re gonna fuck tonight.’ So I like the idea of it being grimy.”
He’s right. Sinatra never ever sang, “They can all suck my cock,” as Sawhney announces in the booze-soaked “Shit I’m Dreaming.” And in “Heera,” a “My Way”-esque goodbye to a world that has actually abandoned him, Sawhney croons perversely, “This is how it ends / No money / No friends / And I just got a hard-on.”
The band’s funny bone shines on phase, too. On Sunday night, as a front-row fan handed Sawhney an envelope, he asked, “Is this a vape?” When she informed him it was a letter, he reacted dryly, “Thank you, I’ll smoke it later.” When a cable television passed away and cut off Sawhney’s microphone mid-song, Pillai broke the uncomfortable silence by shouting throughout the phase at Bhola, “Bass solo!”
Before leaving the green room, I ask Sawhney to explain the origin of the band name. “I was in Calcutta and some guy sold me some weed in a meat market — I didn’t even realize it because he got me high,” he says. “I started pulling the sheets down and seeing the carcasses and was like, ‘I gotta go.’ So I ended up at this restaurant called Peter Cat. I don’t like the name, personally, but many years later I found out that the Japanese author Haruki Murakami opened a jazz club in the ‘70s called Peter Cat, so that was reaffirming.”
And why Recording Co.? “It’s nice to think of ourselves as entrepreneurs, like a business,” Sawhney says, then pitches his voice up mockingly, “rather than like, OMG we’re a band!”
