Proving their metal'

The prestigious Wacken Metal Battle in India, in which many prominent bands competed, has ended with city-based Godless emerging victorious. Their win at the country’s biggest heavy metal event, which took place in Bengaluru, has given them the golden chance to represent India at the world’s biggest Wacken Open Air Music Festival in Germany on August 1.

The band’s founder and bassist Syed Abbas Razvi is thrilled. He says, “Winning the Wacken Metal Battle is overwhelming! More than 40 bands have participated in the competition across eight cities. We generally don’t take part in competitions, but since Waken is the biggest in the world, we gave it a shot. We only dreamt of going there and watching the festival, but now we’ve got the opportunity to perform alongside the biggest bands across 40 countries.”

The band, which was formed in 2015, had performed four of its original tracks (Infest, Replicant, Onerous and Infected by the Blacks) in the final. “We had to perform them in 20 minutes, so the challenge was to get the entire set-up (sound system and instruments) right. We planned well in advance and that was the key to our success. We were confident and our rehearsals too helped us,” shares guitarist Ravi Nidamarthy.

Apparently, Godless played at the most number of metal shows last year in India. “We never wrote music to please anyone, but purely out of passion. Fortunately, people have been appreciative,” Ravi adds.

The biggest challenge for the band over the years has been finding passionate musicians. “Our vocalist Kaushal is from Andhra Pradesh, but he has settled in Bengaluru,” explains drummer Aniketh Yadav, adding, “Also, the metal music scene is in the nascent stage in Hyderabad and there aren’t too many venues that support metal music. Hence, most of our shows are held in other cities. Hopefully, the government supports us in the future.”

Vocalist Kaushal states that to raise the quality of music and to cater to a global audience, the band gets the final mixing and mastering of their tracks done in Poland, Australia, etc.

Explaining that the preparations for the German event are in full swing, they say, “We have been rehearsing but we just want to go and enjoy ourselves. Wacken is a city that’s only built on the heavy metal music festival and we are excited to go there,” shares Razvi, adding, “Since music is powerful, I wanted to name my band in a way that the name has its own source of strength; hence I named my band Godless.”

It’s their passion for music that brought the band members together. While Razvi runs a sound system firm and Kaushal works for a content management company, Ravi works for a company that develops video games for mobiles and Aniketh teaches drums at a music school.