Easy Is Not So Easy

One of the first bands to officially offer music free on the internet,the first to be sponsored by the ICCR to play in an international festival,Menwhopause’s latest album,Easy ,is a sequel to their previous album,Home ,and is a part of a trilogy which includes the Haze,to be released next year. “While Home was personal in many ways,Easy is a person’s encounter with reality and how he/she deals with. Haze is about the madness that follows once you’ve encountered reality,” says Kutty,as the men lounge in Kava in Sector 26.

Making Easy wasn’t easy,say the band members. It took them four years,a makeshift studio in Hartola,Uttarakhand,countless sessions of recording,re-recording,editing,checks and designing before they finalised 14 tracks for the album produced by EMI Music. The music,as always,is non digital,more earthy and analogue. “It’s old school for we need some space for human errors,makes it more personal. It’s the errors that makes music,“ says IP. On of the songs,Brimful ,is rumoured to be dedicated to yesteryear’s pin-ups like Parveen Babi and Zeenat Aman.

As the men lounge in Kava in Sector 26,Laxman pushes the recording button for more information on the band’s tie-up with NGO Swecha for the Green the Gap campaign. “Through Swecha,the band will be selling its branded merchandise like funky bags,ashtrays and hip flasks,” says IP. “This is how bands in the West sustain themselves,” says the band’s manager Satish Warier,adding that it was in 2007 in Austin,Texas,USA,when the men realised the importance of merchandise. “ Thanks to downloads and piracy,CDs don’t sell and mass markets don’t work. We are eager to weave in ideology,art,philosophy and music through merchandise,live shows,collectors’ editions,” says Kutty.

The band has stayed on top for 10 years,so we ask them the secret. “The second one stops being mama’s boys,everything follows fine,” they sign off.