Tune in: How dance-reggae band The Ska Vengers makes music that's fun, and fearless

“I say, ‘So you can talk about the politics of any country except the one you actually live in?’ I pay my taxes. I’ll say what the f*** I want.” Stefan Kaye doesn’t like when the foreigner card is played against him. The London-bred, Delhi-based keyboardist and showrunner at dance/reggae band The Ska Vengers, which also features French bassist Tony Guinard, has thankfully never been accosted too often for every time they namecheck Bhagat Singh or even the current government in their high-energy sets. One of India’s most fearless yet fun musicians, the six-piece band came together in 2009 after Kaye put up a listing about looking for people interested in playing ska music and found guitarist Raghav Dang. He eventually left the band in 2015 to concentrate on his role as a producer in one of India’s other best known reggae act, The Reggae Rajahs. Dang was replaced with guitarist Chaitanya Bhalla, who now jams with bassist Tony Guinard, drummer Nikhil Vasudevan, vocalists Samara Chopra aka Begum X and Taru Dalmia aka Delhi Sultanate. After building up a catalogue of material that ranged from reggae to dancehall to rock, jazz and even channelled Kaye’s Latin influence with a horn section, the Ska Vengers released their debut self-titled album in 2012, with a few hiccups along the way. The album was initially intended to be distributed by a major record label in India, but they asked the band to do the one thing no band likes being told — to change their lyrics, because they were referencing the Naxal Movement. The album was eventually picked up by another record label who distributed the album as is. Dalmia says, “In principle, reggae music — which is where most of our inspiration comes from, and it’s true for punk as well — has always been anti-establishment.” [caption id=“attachment_2880014” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  The Ska Vengers. Photos by Zacharie Rabehi[/caption] The Ska Vengers don’t have any problems speaking their mind even today. They famously made the inmates of Tihar Jail dance to their music in April 2012, which took place after Kaye had spent three months behind bars after he hadn’t reported that he’d lost his passport. Kaye recalls the show, which later inspired the song ‘Jail Mein’, “People enjoyed it and they were dancing. Many were told not to. Very few of them would have understood what we were singing about, but they just got along with the music.” ‘Jail Mein’, which addresses police brutality and government corruption, is part of their long-awaited sophomore album XX (pronounced as ‘double cross’), which features nine tracks of The Ska Vengers’ rabble-rouser brand of dance and reggae music. Independently released on 1 July, XX showcases an evolved band in terms of widening their sonic influences – fusing psychedelic jam sessions with RD Burman-esque scores to punk rock to party-starter reggae. Three years in the making, Kaye says they didn’t want to work with any fixed deadline. He adds, “Some of the first songs we recorded (as a band), we’re not really like that. There’s punk, there’s Latin, there’s Afro.” While the track ‘Afro-Fantasy’ was mainly improvised, with different takes put together in the studio, there’s Chopra’s powerful range on display, the smooth to Dalmia’s rough and gruff verses on songs such as ‘Double X’, ‘011’ (which Kaye says has a “punk James Bond theme” about it), ‘Shut Your Mouth’ and ‘Kick Up a Rumpus’. Then there’s the trippy Latin psychedelic jazz song ‘El Cumbanchero/Red Fort Rock’, which features trumpet player Kishore Sodha, who was part of Burman’s orchestra. Kaye adds there’s an underlying influence from Pink Floyd as well as RD Burman, whom he counts as one of the greatest orchestrators and bandleaders. “We took some inspiration from the soundtrack to Jewel Thief.” The band first gave fans a taste of the new album with ‘Frank Brazil’, a single that released in 2015 with an animated video showcasing the tale of revolutionary Udham Singh, who assassinated Jalianwala Bagh Massacre’s lead figure Michael O’Dwyer. Dalmia says everything he wants to sing about — from Maoist leader Kishenji’s murder to the Kabir Kala Manch being framed and the story of Udham Singh — is important for all times. He says, “There’s a huge effort by the current government and Hindutvas to appropriate his name — like at Udham Singh’s death anniversary, Modi tweeted ‘Oh great son of India’. The point is, the right wing in India doesn’t have any icons, because they didn’t support the freedom struggle. If those guys were saying what they were saying at that time, today, the same people trying to claim their legacy would call them anti-national. I think it’s important to bring them to light.”

Dalmia goes on to pointedly criticise the current government’s actions and agendas, every word seems to come from an informed view and not very different from the activists who raise slogans. “400,000 farmers commit suicide every year and you’re creating some fairytale about how Musalmans are beef-eaters and Naxals are terrorists?” asks Dalmia. The band has taken this kind of questioning to festivals, corporate shows, private performances and club gigs across the country, in the US, Europe and even Afghanistan over the last six years. But the message is always delivered with the feet moving, Dalmia egging the crowd on to dance to their high-energy tunes. Kaye says they’ve never run into much trouble, except perhaps online, when they released their version of reggae song ‘A Message to You Rudy’ and made it into, ‘ Modi, A Message to You’ just before the 2014 general elections. But as Stefan notes, “If some indignant Modi supporter calls us ‘liberal idiots’ and I don’t think that’s trouble. I just think they don’t like our point of view.” With shows lined up in Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru between 14-16 July, The Ska Vengers are prepping to take their music to the UK, with shows at clubs and festivals across three months, including the prestigious Bestival gathering on the Isle of Wight in September. It’s a true test of how the band’s tossed up version of reggae music will be received in a region that greatly helped popularise the genre. Kaye says, “I think we package it in our own unique way. We’re not a revivalist, retro band in that sense.” People might expect sitars and tablas or a throwback to the fusion electronica sound of the Asian Underground movement (which came under the limelight by the late Nineties), but therein lies the element of surprise for the Ska Vengers, according to Kaye. He hopes that, like the Asian Underground, people will begin to wonder if it’s part of a movement, Kaye adds, “I think if we’re successful with this tour, we’ll create interest in other acts in India. I certainly hope so. We can’t really make a living producing independent music in India. The only way is by looking outwards a bit.”