Exactly a month ago — on August 11 - Chris Adler made a post on his Facebook page — ‘Whoa! First ever Lamb of God cover played on #bagpipes!’ And he shared the Youtube video of a young woman playing the bagpipe, covering six songs of the legendary heavy metal band. Archy Jay was on top of the world when she saw that post. The drummer of the band sharing her video made it worth all the effort. And it’s been a tremendous lot of effort for a young woman to learn this Scottish instrument without even a teacher in India.
But Archy was single minded and four years and many performances later, she came to Kerala to play it for the first time in the land of her parents (her dad was from Mavelikkara and mom from Palakkad), as part of the Alt & Pepper Music Fest. On a bench alongside the stage at Pepper House, Kochi, she sits to narrate the story that led to her picking up this instrument and getting known as The Snake Charmer. “A name I chose, to show those people who think of India as a land of snake charmers. To show them the progressive part of India. I also liked the ‘charmer’ part of it,” she says. Looking at this petite girl, it is hard to imagine her lifting this heavy instrument with its many reeds and a bag for the air.
But there was a time she walked two kilometers up and down the roads of Scotland, carrying the bagpipe, to learn at the National Piping Centre. That was towards the last half of 2014. Before that, Archy taught herself to play it with an e-book and Youtube tutorials, and a guide in the US. The obsession began in 2012 when she saw a bagpipe artist play with the Swiss metal band Eluveitie. “It hit me instantaneously. The sound of the bagpipe was so unique. And I want to mention here that a bagpipe is not like the flute.” She explains the complex process of blowing air into the bag which can then be used to regulate the flow and the sound. It has not been easy. At all.
“India has a bagpipe culture but the Scottish instrument was different. I couldn’t find a teacher in India and I began sending random emails to people who played the bagpipe. A lot of them, who are my friends now, thought I was an Indian girl trying to get a visa. Finally one person — Sean Folsom — responded and he guided me on what to do. I first practised with a chanter that my brother bought me, learning from an e-book. I knew how to read music.” She didn’t just know to read music, she was the vocalist of a metal band called RogueSaints. “So yes I used to scream a lot,” she laughs.
As a young girl Archy learnt to sing classical — at first Carnatic, then Hindustani, and when teenage came, she drifted to pop and rock. Because of her dad’s job in the air force the family had moved pretty often through Bengaluru, Delhi etc. But then her singer mom made sure Archy started her music lessons early. The singing has been on hold ever since she took the bagpipe. She has plans to come back to it. But for now, her focus is on that bagpipe, for which she even gave up her full time highly paid job at an MNC. “I began playing two to three hours every day..” She put online the cover of the song that first attracted her to the instrument — Inis Mona by Eluveitie. Her cover of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck — called Dubstruck — got a lot of attention. Then came, of course that Lamb of God medley covering Walk with me in hell, Again we rise, Laid to rest, Broken hands, Hourglass and Descending.
There have been a lot of frustrating times through all this. When she finally spent a lot of her savings to buy a bagpipe, no sound would come out of it. She figured it out finally from online bagpipe communities. And then there were times when she’d cry to her friends. But then persistence would always pay off. “I still remember the time when I made a post on my Youtube channel TheSnakeCharmer reaching 100 views. Now I have got seven and a half lakh views and more than 6000 subscribers. One of the biggest highs was when Chris shared it. And also when Peter Dinklage who plays Tyrion Lannister in the popular TV series Game of Thrones shared my cover of its theme song (on the character’s Facebook page). I was also happy to be interviewed by BBC Radio Scotland.”
