Blood Lust

Hurricane Bells are now on an India tour,sponsored by the American Center. The performance by the quartet — with Steve Schiltz as frontman — at the Hard Rock Cafe in Delhi on Friday was intimate and heartfelt,much like the songs written by Schiltz.

“I’ve been playing the guitar since I was 10. I’m 31 now,so there have been a lot of influences in my songwriting style,” says Schiltz,dirty blond curls falling over his forehead. He put together the band last year with a group of friends. If you don’t like love songs,then Hurricane Bells is not for you. But these love songs have an edge and guitar solos that present themselves towards the end of the songs are like frantic pleas to nonchalant lovers.

Schiltz delivered mail,then held a bank job before he decided that music was the only way to be. “Wilco is a definite influence,so are The Flaming Lips,” he says. He is also the frontman of another band,Longwave,the sound of which is completely different from Hurricane Bells’s; it is more rock,akin to Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine.

Schiltz is not new to film deals: in 2007,Longwave’s song There’s a Fire was used in Adam Sandler’s screwball comedy,I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. “My agent sends out songs to studios for soundtracks and the Longwave song was used in the beginning of the film,” says Schiltz. But New Moon was a breakthrough. “My manager had asked for something exclusive last summer. Hurricane Bells had their record out but I had Monsters left over,and I sent it. I told him I didn’t want to know what it was for,but when I found out,I was excited,” says Schiltz,who then read all the Twilight books.

Hurricane Bells have been performing all over south India,in Chennai,Mahabalipuram and Pondicherry,and will be heading now to Hyderabad,Pune and Mumbai.