Bloodywood (left to right): Roshan Roy, Jayant Bhadula, Karan Katiyar, Sarthak Pahwa, Raoul Kerr, Vishesh SIngh
It was the video for Ari Ari that catapulted Bloodywood to the next level. It wasn’t just the visuals of singer Jayant Bhadula riding a horse through the busy streets of New Delhi, or Karan Katiyar playing guitar atop a camel, but their unique, euphoric sound. Fusing nu metal with traditional Indian instrumentation and inspirational lyrics, some in Punjabi, it was a heart-swelling, three-minute experience that marked the band out as a unique proposition. ‘’Cause the desi boys know that diversity’s a gift / And we wanna share it with our people worldwide,’ declared rapper Raoul Kerr. They had previously released metal covers of mainstream pop songs, but this was something new, and reached more than 10 million people on Facebook.
“We had gotten numbers before that on a couple of videos, but what really changed was when people said that this is something they’ve never heard before,” Karan explains today, speaking from his studio. “The covers that we did before were well-known outside India. The point behind Ari Ari is it’s a cover of a folk song that is not very well known outside India. We wanted to do that so we’d know that it’s the sound that’s pushing it. So that’s when we knew that OK, this is the sweet spot.”