Paanch Matlab Pralay

One look at Paanch’s manic protagonist Luke played by Kay Kay and you’re looking at a reflection of Adam, who unleashed his wrath at Pralay’s first ever concert at Rang Bhavan. The band’s sound systems were cut off bang in the middle of a track and Adam walked out having flung the microphone to the far corner of the stage. ‘‘Luke is partly me and partly Adam. A few years ago these guys were very self-destructive, and frustrated because there was no room for their music,’’ explains Kashyap. The now mellow band agree they’ve had their share of ‘fun’. ‘‘We behaved like any other regular band, only we didn’t like socialising with other bands, so people thought we had an attitude problem,’’ says Adam, a U2-Jimmy Page-Joe Perry junkie. ‘‘We were blacklisted only because we did more originals than covers,’’ argues Eddie, the band’s bassist and a sound engineer by profession.

But while the rest of the music world shunned Pralay, Kashyap embraced their ideology. ‘‘I can relate to the underdogs and these guys were vulnerable people doing their thing and searching for the meaning of life,’’ philosophises the director.

‘‘Off stage these rockers are as regular as it gets, but on stage yeh paagal ho jate hai.’’ Adam recalls that Kashyap hung around with his band manager Hermito Fernandez, which is how he probably researched his characters. So bassist Murgi is woven around a former band member Sunit, and Joy Fernandez, Luke’s flunky in the film, came easily as it was based on Joy Dattagupta, the band’s drummer.

The band, which has already tied up with Chicago-based record label Sonic Wave and completed a Russian rock tour, is all set to release their album Urban Reality on May 8. ‘‘Our aim was and always will be to get a record deal abroad, because Indian rock bands get a raw deal here,’’ says Adam. Though the long hair, torn jeans, rock star phenomenon is as jurassic as it gets, the band insists that nothing has changed as far as rock music is concerned.

From being conned of $800 by a foreign promoter to being banned at I-Rock for a year, Pralay has had an action-packed ride. And with more than 60 original songs to their name, the band has made a global impact with their videos beaming all over UK’s WAM TV and MCM. In fact, guitarist Brian Soans, who’s also a DJ, has even remixed their tracks Urban Reality, You and Buddha. ‘‘But we’ll never force a remix just because we want it to be heard on the dance floor,’’ he adds.

There’s a message in the band’s story which has also found its way into one of their tracks: Never Give It Up.