BENGALURU: In their decade-long existence so far, the quartet behind The Local Train has played all kinds of gigs, from college fests to big music festivals. But the Hindi rock band’s dream-come-true moment came recently, at the OnePlus Music Festival in Mumbai. “This was it... Our first stadium gig,” says Raman Negi, vocalist and acoustic guitarist, who along with other members – Paras Thakur (lead/acoustic guitar), Ramit Mehra (bass guitar) and Sahil Sarin (drums/percussions) – were in town recently for a performance at Fandom at Gilly’s Redefined.
He is the youngest member of the band at 28 (Negi, 35, is the oldest) and was the last one to join, completing the quartet in 2011. While Sarin is an arts graduate, the other members are engineers, who turned towards their true calling: Music. “I met Ramit at a studio in Chandigarh. He told me about a drummer, who turned out to be Sahil. In 2011, we found out about this kid going to Musicians Institute in Los Angeles,” Negi says, nodding towards Thakur. “We tricked him into staying back and that’s how the lineup was finalised,” adds Negi, as Sarin recalls how Thakur was a baby when the band started out.
This banter continues through the course of the conversation, which steers towards their living arrangement. “Sometimes it’s difficult living and working together,” says Negi, as Mehra adds, “We’ll probably die together too.” Thakur concludes, “It’s like a four-way-marriage.” But the arrangement, interjects Sarin, helps with the creative process since they feed off each other’s energy too. “We don’t even fight, we have debates. That’s the saving grace,” says Negi.
The band’s music deals with a range of topics like love (Choo Loo), hope (Aaoge Tum Kabhi, Aaftaab) and self-belief (Khudi). They have over 90,000 followers on Instagram, and were named the best-emerging band of the country in 2015 by German music equipment company Sennheiser. The Local Train released their first album, Aalas Ke Pedh, in 2015 and Vaaqif in 2018. Fans have now been enquiring for six months about a new album. The musicians confirm they will release a new album late next year. After jamming for six months, they finally heard the recordings of their experiments a few days ago. “I went to sleep happy that day,” says Sarin.
The band performed as part of OkCupid’s #MyKindOfScene campaign, which has a lineup of music gigs through December. “Some of the questions on the app are about what you’d like to discuss on the first date, or the things on which you’d like to bond with your potential partner. In Bengaluru, overwhelmingly, the answer to that is music,” says Shruti Gupta, brand manager, OkCupid India.