Bend it like no other

Street pups know how to get around. This little black puppy made its way into the otherwise heavily-guarded green room of Texan instrumental rock band Polyphia during a recent concert in Guwahati — and became an instant celebrity on Instagram. Band co-founder and guitarist Timothy Henson posted the pup’s picture on the popular website with the message: “If you ever want to sneak your way into our green room, that’s a pretty good trick.”

For the group’s die-hard fans in India, though, the good fortune was in being able to listen to them live. The February 24 Guwahati show at the G-Shock Fireball rock festival was, as you would expect, a smash hit.

Henson and the other Polyphia stars — bassist Clay Gober, guitarist Scott LePage and drummer Clay Aeschliman — were on their first India tour, with concerts in Silchar, New Delhi and Bengaluru, apart from Guwahati. A progressive rock metal band inspired by math rock, electronic rock, hip-hop rhythms and other forms of music, it has won global acclaim in recent years.

Guitarist Timothy Henson

The albums Muse and Renaissance , released in 2014 and 2016 respectively, underscored the band’s inclination for non-rock forms such as hip-hop and EDM. But its 2018 album, New Levels and New Devils , not just catapulted it to big time, but also proved it could bend musical genres with remarkable ease.

“We like to keep it catchy, memorable and be conscious of that process. Many have asked the definite character and aim of our music, we still have no f****** answer. We just love doing all the new stuff,” says LePage.

Polyphia has a sound all its own, packing a punch that buzzes in your head long after the music is over. Many believe this brand of music is an acquired taste, as most of their instrumental melodies fall between genres.

Many of the tracks have intriguing acronyms for names. There’s one called G.O.A.T. , and another titled L.IT . The music videos too are full of surprises, and even defy comprehension, according to many fans. So you have to interpret the music the way you want to; the band is not going to help.

But what kind of a market does instrumental music have today? “The common perception is that we are just a team of four musicians with a missing vocalist. In many tours, we still have people asking us when our singer shall be introduced. But that’s the point, you see. We are also producing badass music which has a signature of its own. Either way, we like to let our harmonies speak — that’s truly cool,” LePage says.

There is certainly an element of drama in their music. Along with the smoothness of tracks such as Nasty and O.D. , there are heightened tunes that emerge suddenly. Once the notes fall, they tend to leave you in suspense, as if hanging from a cliff.

“When Tim first showed me the initial draft of G.O.A.T. , I thought of its sassiness. We thought of taking that leap, as instrumental music has definitely got more recognition over the years,” LePage says. “It’s more socially acceptable now — especially if you have balanced tunes. But we try to focus on writing melodies and there are struggles with crazy riffs all the time.”

The journey of Polyphia, set up in 2010, has also been one of interesting collaborations. Some say Henson is borrowing heavily from the legacies of master guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Joe Satriani. But writing the riffs — repeated musical phrases — in a particular composition, he told Amit Sharma on the website MusicRadar, was the key to good music. “YouTube has plenty of lessons on technique, but there’s nothing really on writing. So I made two videos on my Instagram on how to make a riff with a simple melody,” he said.

LePage and his team are now writing a single for their next tour in the US in April. “Playing with sounds requires good writing, first and foremost. All of us are pretty stoked about our next album. It will be way more badass, rest assured,” he says.

Heading back to his green room, he says, “We never thought we are this big in India. These are the wonders of social media — and that’s f****** amazing.” Sure! Even little black pups know where the music is coming from.

Rini Barman is a Guwahati-based independent writer and researcher