From releasing its first acoustic song, to dabbling in Bengali music, Euphoria has been stepping outside its comfort zone, says frontman Palash Sen
Sonia Lulla (MID-DAY; January 11, 2021)

Away from the razzmatazz of commercial music, Euphoria seems to be reinventing itself. The 22-year-old band, fronted by Palash Sen, has dabbled in a wide array of genres in the past few months, crafting its tracks with deftness such that several have emerged to be among its biggest hits, already.

In an interview with mid-day, Sen discusses the band's upcoming releases, including an elaborate 16-track album.

We've seen a spate of new releases from Euphoria recently. Many of the songs have become big hits in a rather short period of time.
They did. A one-minute track that we created called I Like It, earned 850 million views, and that is a first for our band. Another memorable one is a song that we made for, and with indie artistes, because they were facing several problems during the lockdown. Seventy-six indie artistes recorded their portions from their homes or gardens, and created this beautiful piece. We also had many firsts. We created an acoustic version of Kisi ki muskurahoton pe, which was a tribute to those band-mates who play at weddings.

You are also set to release your debut Bengali track this month.
On the 14th, we are bringing out our first Bengali song by Gurudev Rabindranath Thakur. The current generation doesn't know the kind of music that our elders created. We wanted to [put the spotlight on] the sangeet that deserves attention. It is a song on the beauty of mother nature, and how human beings have destroyed it.

We know that indie artistes are among those who have suffered immensely in the pandemic. Could you reflect on how this phase has been?
All of us depend on live gigs. We don't make money from our recorded songs. They may make money for music labels, but not for the artiste. We need an indie industry that takes care of the needs of all artistes.

But, taking to virtual gigs has been gratifying. A live set-up has a lot of distractions. Virtual gigs helped us connect with listeners in their personal space. We've [been able to reach out to] those listeners who don't care about the frills, and listen to us only for our music.

We are also set to bring out an album which will be a collection of songs that we have been creating for six years. It will have tracks based on love, self-belief, and expression, and will include folk, rock, qawwali and acoustic music. There will be something for each kind of listener.

You've stated that you believe India has a film industry, but not a music industry. Why do you think this industry failed to flourish when it was celebrated in the 90s?
In the '90s, there were artistes like Daler Mehendi, Lucky Ali, and Alisha Chinai, who were superstars. For the film industry, nobody apart from an actor should be a superstar. You may not know this, but there was a time when Daler Mehndi was paid a large amount of money to feature in a song with an actor, because he was not saleable, but Mehndi ji was.

The film industry realised they had the resources to dismantle this system, and did. It was easy for them to promote their music because they had budgets, and would recover costs. Think about the indie music being created by these labels — it sounds like film music anyway. India doesn't have an independent music industry. I wish someone like Mukesh Ambani decides to invest in it and enables India to have a music industry. That will bring about change.