Bhayanak Maut’s Rahul Hariharan on performing with Diljit Dosanjh at Coachella 2023: ‘It was pretty cool’

So of course, the self-taught drummer was “blown away” when he found out he’ll be part of Coachella music festival. “I got the call a couple of months ago and the feeling was surreal. I kept telling my near and dear ones that till I get on that flight, let’s assume this is not happening. I announced that I’m going to Coachella literally a night before leaving for the US. Because this is too good to be true, right?!”

A comprehensive technical rehearsal on April 9 in Mumbai kickstarted the pre-Coachella week for Hariharan and other band mates who were going to be part of the performance. On April 13 and 14, the band did a rehearsal with Diljit in the US and then came the April 15th performance. What made the practice sessions seamless, Hariharan says, was his familiarity with Diljit’s songs. “I have played with him in India, Kuala Lampur and Muscat in 2019. Then in December 2022, I played at the Jaipur leg of the Born to Shine tour and now Coachella has come. So it has been a pretty good run with him,” he said.

Performing with Diljit, Hariharan says, has always been “pretty cool”. The drummer praised the singer-actor for his infectious energy, quick wit and seriousness when it comes to performing and being present during practice sessions.

But how does a musician with a metal band play a Diljit Dosanjh set? By being a sessions drummer. “I have been freelancing as a drummer since 2010 and my job is to understand the sensibilities of a set. I have played for Pritam in 2014, recorded in the studio with Shankar Mahadevan, performed live with Neha Kakkar. So I have learnt to be versatile enough to play a Bhayanak Maut set one day and a totally different genre on the next,” Hariharan says.

And then came D-Day, April 15, which saw Diljit Dosanjh and his group making history at Coachella 2023. It was the first-ever Coachella performance by a Punjabi singer. Hariharan says it felt like a “huge festival” when they reached the venue and the tent, with the expectations and anticipation of millions. “When I woke up the next day, my inbox was exploding. People are tagging me, people I haven’t spoken to in years. People expressed their love and pride. It took a couple of days for that to simmer down.”

The drummer also says he is glad they’re playing twice at Coachella. “We were all a little anxious at the gig that we played last Saturday. We knew it’s a historic gig and we wanted to deliver a flawless performance. At the April 22nd performance, I can just focus on having a blast at the show, really soaking in and absorbing everything that Coachella is.”

While Coachella has been ticked off Hariharan’s list of iconic venues to play at, a place that remains unticked is the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, where Prince played his last show. “Have you heard of Suriname?” he asks, talking about a show he played with Neha Kakkar in the country in South America, which has a sizeable Indian-origin population. “People who moved there from India have lived there for generations. Their only connect to India is music. This was one of those live examples of how music transcends language, boundaries, barriers.”

While living the dream of being on the road, performing his craft and visiting exotic places is a musician’s reward, it is this very travel that is the worst part of the job for the drummer. Missing important milestones in one’s own life and that of near and dear ones comes as a part of being on the road, he says.

Hariharan has come a long way from being the Class 12th boy who watched other drummers, imitated them, asked questions to learn the craft, to becoming a sessions drummer only a decade later. It was after Class 12th that he joined his first band Bhayanak Maut. The band, he says, was named after a horror film with banal visuals and dialogues. “The original members started it as a troll band and named it Bhayanak Maut as a parody. The name then just stuck.”

After Hariharan joined the band in 2003, when it was a “bedroom band”, Bhayanak Maut started playing various shows, winning competitions and recording albums. “The first milestone for the band was in 2007, where we finished runners-up of Channel V Launchpad. Another milestone in 2011 was when we got to play in Oslo, representing India at a metal festival called Inferno,” he recalls.

Being in a metal band, however, was not as easy or cool as it may seem, especially back in the early 2000s. “All of us at Bhayanak Maut held day jobs. I worked in advertising. Plus, people would earlier judge metal bands more – for making noise and there being no technicality to our music, etc. Younger bands now get the opportunity to play gigs, there is better infrastructure and better sound. So it is natural that many Indian metal bands are making waves abroad, like Sky Harbour, Gut Slit and Bloody Wood,” Hariharan says.

However, all a musician wants is a stage and Hariharan has made the most of his performances, from the Great Indian Rock shows for Bhayanak Maut to playing for a sea of four lakh people with Neha Kakkar in Odisha. In more testing times, he has toured across the US with Kakkar and even played shows while suffering from jaundice. During such tough instances, the perks of being a seasoned musician of over two decades shows. The process to create and perform music is second nature to the drummer.

What also sails him through testing times is the best advice he says he ever received – “Serve the song”. “You might be the most talented musician, but if it is not doing justice to the song, it is taking away from the song. That’s always something that comes with experience, or if you have a really keen ear for music, then it comes naturally,” Hariharan says.

Hariharan, though, expresses relief that he has not had his share of crazy fans. “You have to understand that people don’t really stalk the drummer, just the vocalist and the guitarist,” he cracks a long-standing drummer joke.

While the dream for Bhayanak Maut will always be to play at international festivals, Hariharan’s personal dream is to collaborate with AR Rahman, a musician he has grown up listening to. One of his other pursuits in the future includes teaching drums.

Like every musician, Hariharan’s listening list is varied. “Meshuggah and Tool are two of my favourite metal bands. I listen to a lot of Slayer, Metallica, Pantera. I’ve been really enjoying this drummer by the name of Youssef Dayes and a New York-based drummer Mark Guiliana, I love all of his music. But I don’t listen to a lot of EDM music,” he says.

Hariharan advises aspiring musicians to start somewhere. “Hope for the right opportunity, work hard, that’s the only way to do this. There’s no shortcut. You have to kind of go through every single level to value the previous level to understand what you have.” In the current scenario, virtual presence has become important, especially for musicians looking to monetise their music. “You have to have your hands in several different baskets. Playing shows, merchandise, putting out content regularly that can be monetised as well as putting out music. It has to be the entire package. Gone are the days when bands can just go into a studio, record an album, and the record label will do everything else for you,” he says.

What would Hariharan be doing if he weren’t a musician? “I was really into cricket between 1995 to 2001. And I do feel like if I had continued playing, I would have reached probably some level of professional cricket.”

Hariharan will be part of Diljit Dosanjh’s second performance at Coachella on April 22.