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This is an archive article published on January 6, 2010

Laugh Act

It isn’t surprising that Vir Das has started India’s first comedy rock band,Alien Chutney.

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It isn’t surprising that Vir Das has started India’s first comedy rock band,Alien Chutney. After all,the desi stand-up comic has also been at the helm of such interesting projects as the Hamateur Nights,which encourages newbies and wannabes to pick up a mic and let loose their inner comedian. A comedy rock band,one can reason,is but the next step in the evolution of a comic act and hopefully also for the live comedy scene in India.

Forestalling comparisons with Hollywood funnyman Jack Black who’s fronted the wildly popular comedy rock band,Tenacious D,Das admits,“I’ve long idolised Black and it was hearing Tenacious D’s music that first gave me the idea of combining my two passions — comedy and music.” In fact,Das had been in a band in college,which he describes as “an atrocious band where we played Def Leppard and Red Hot Chili Peppers covers”. The nuisance,he says,would’ve ceased after college when most youthful dreams die,but for the tenacity of his vision. “You either get married or you settle down into a serious job after college and then your dreams wither away. Neither of that happened to me,so here I am,writing funny songs and hopefully,still offending people,” he says.

Together with musician Kaizad Gherda and producer Kabir Singh,Das formed the band whose music they describe as “Sting meets BB King meets Jack Black meets five bottles of whisky meets in a dark alley meets with a horrible accident.” As for the name,Alien Chutney,the comedian explains,“The composition is very western,but the content is Indian,so it’s basically a mishmash of the two.” Das is the lead guitarist,vocalist and lyricist of the band; the music is sophisticated but the lyrics are pure,unadulterated nonsense,he claims. “We’ve written some wonderful songs,which Indians can completely relate to. There’s one,a love song to a lady vegetable vendor,called I’m Your Tadka. Then there’s a song called My Girlfriend is a Havaldar and yet another one called Tu Hai Meri Item Girl. It’s all demented and it’s all great fun.”

The band is currently holed up in a studio putting together an album which will be out in June this year. In the meantime,they’re getting set to play a series of gigs across the country. But is the nation ready for Alien Chutney? “Well,we were recently asked to perform at IIT Guwahati and they didn’t harm us or attack the stage,so I guess the country is pretty tolerant now,” says Das.

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