Abhaya And The Steam Injuns: Hear their train comin’

by KASHISH D SHRESTHA

FROM ISSUE # 111 (March 2005) | IN THIS ISSUE
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Women singers and musicians had long stamped their marks in the classical music world but it was in the mid 1900s when female crooners broke into the popular musical genres such as soul, R & B, gospel and even pop and rock and roll. Then in the early 1960s, the folk music trend started in American colleges in the East and West coasts. Soon female vocalists went on stage playing guitars while singing. In 1967, a band called Jefferson Airplane released an album titled Surrealistic Pillow. The record produced the legendary singles Somebody to Love and White Rabbit, along with rock and roll's first female rock star - Grace Slick. Soon there was Janis, and the rest as they say is rock history.

Asia too has seen a string of female rockers, be it the eccentric sounds of Japan and Hong Kong or the powerhouses of Indonesia and Bangkok. Nepal has tried, with Sapana Thapa in the 80s. And now, almost 40 years after the first female rocker surfaced, Nepal's 25 year- old rock arena has seen the emergence of two rock bands fronted by female vocalists. Abhaya and the Steam Injuns and Exit are the beginning of a new chapter in our rock history. Although Exit has released a few successful singles and is currently in the studio working on a full-length album, Abhaya and the Steam Injuns have recently released their self-titled debut.

Abhaya and The Steam Injuns is the female rocker Abhaya Subba Weise on vocals and keyboards, Ritesh Pradhan on lead guitar, Rajiv Paljor on bass, Punnu Rai on drums and Subash Rai, who joined the band after the album was already recorded, is on rhythm guitar. They launched their debut album on 18 Feb. 05 at the Rox Bar in Hyatt, KTM and their singles and music videos are already making the rounds on the airwaves. Although Exit bagged the prize, Abhaya and The Steam Injuns' single Here I Come, a powerful blend of Tamang selo and hard rock, had also earned a nomination for the category of Best Song in Foreign Language in the 8th Annual Hits FM Music Awards held in Jan. this year.

The story of Abhaya and The Steam Injuns started two years ago when Abhaya left her "umpteenth" band Punchtatva citing creative differences, and started looking for musicians to start anew. Ritesh had come to KTM on a break from college where he was studying Physics, but when he heard about an opening for a guitarist's position he took it up. "It's been two years now that I keep telling my parents I'm coming back to Darj next week," he laughs. Rajiv had just finished his Bachelors and he too decided to join the Steam Injuns when he too came to KTM on a travel trip. Ritesh and Abhaya had been looking for Punnu to be their drummer for awhile before they found him, and he agreed to keep the beat. Subash was the guitarist for metal outfit Brutal. Abhaya, the veteran in the band, has been singing ever since she was a young schoolgirl. She later went on to perform with a host of bands, including the Indian rock group Parikrama amongst others here in Nepal. Although she shies away from it now, Abhaya earned a reputation of a rocker performing covers of Janis. But just before the Steam Injuns, her sound had shifted considerably, covering a wide range of artists including Christina Aguilera, mostly for the hotel and party audience to which Punchtatva had to cater.

About 18 months ago, the band started working on their album. Despite it being seemingly rock-ish, almost every other track is of a different genre, from funk rock to jazzy tunes and pop rock mixed with rap. "It's a matter of economics you know," Abhaya explains. "We wanted to try all sorts of sounds because financially it's not possible to release an album every time we want to try something."

The band does, however, have mixed feelings about the whole process of making the album and the end result. "I am quite satisfied with the final cut," Ritesh says. "It was great fun being in the studio. I experimented with the guitar sound a lot. I even tried several different guitars on different tracks." It's no surprise that he should enjoy the studio experience. After all, he does plan to complete his bachelors in Physics and work towards becoming a sound engineer while maintaining his passion for playing the guitar. It was a problem at times though, because the recording company would tell us to write and record two songs in a week," Rajiv adds. "The songs would be recorded even before I could figure out my parts properly." Perhaps it is this that has led to it, but there are parts in the album when it feels like the band could have done it better. "I am actually not really satisfied with it," Abhaya moans. "I had been waiting to record an album for a long time, and here came the moment to finally record and release it. But there were too many technical things with which I wasn't satisfied, such as the microphones used in the recording studios here," she continues. "None of them had good mics. And I am not happy with the drum's sound that the studios have captured either."

The band had originally written and recorded 12 songs of which only 8 are on the album's cassette version and 11 on the CD. They hope to begin their promotional tour after a few weeks and look forward to playing in their hometown Darjeeling and a few other neighboring North Eastern states of India.

So how would WAVE define for its readers Abhaya and the Steam Injuns in a nutshell? It's a band fronted by a powerful female vocalist who is very comfortable on stage and backed by a group of talented musicians who share a strong passion for music. To come out with this sort of a band setup with distinct sounds of some of the most popular musical eras of the last four decades is a breakthrough in mainstream Nepali music. Their debut album Abhaya And The Steam Injuns is definitely worth checking out, although one only hopes that the band will present a musical identity when and if a follow up is released. After all, it is the discontinuation of Abhaya's many partnerships with all the bands from her past that has led to the formation of The Steam Injuns. And the other members are after all only exploring their musical avenues. "It's good to be finally working with progressive men," Abhaya says. "Sure, we plan to be a band for a long time," Rajiv assures. What's next in line for the group will be largely determined by the band's creative chemistry, and of course, the popularity of their debut release.

Bottom line: in terms of its line up, musical inclinations and stage presence, there is no band like Abhaya and the Steam Injuns in Nepal. Their album is available in music stores nation wide and we do recommend their live performances. And as Janis once sang, get it while you can.