Indian Ocean

About Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean is an Indian rock band formed in New Delhi in 1990, who are widely recognized as the pioneers of the fusion rock genre in India. Susmit Sen, Asheem Chakravarty, Rahul Ram and Amit Kilam were band members till Chakravarty's demise on 25 December 2009, after which Tuheen Chakravorty and Himanshu Joshi were officially inducted into the band as replacements. After the departure of Susmit Sen in 2013, Rahul Ram is the only founding member who appeared on the band's debut album Indian Ocean. Sanjeev Sharma has collaborated with them as a lyricist on many Albums. The musical style of the band can be at best classified as folk and fusion music. It is an experimental genre, fusing raga (traditional Indian tunes) with rock music, guitars, and drums, sometimes using Indian folk songs. It has also been described by some music critics as "Indo-rock fusion with jazz-spiced rhythms that integrates shlokas, Sufism, environmentalism, mythology, and revolution".
Since 2010, the band has moved against the lines of record labels. They released their latest album 16/330 Khajoor Road online for free. The main reason for this move was the frustration over negotiating contracts with record companies and fighting over copyright issues. They have turned to concerts and sponsorships for generating revenue rather than playing in the hands of record labels. For a brief amount of time, they had the sponsorship of Johnnie Walker. They are also a part of the world's first Music Personalisation Initiative named DRP as one of the five Featured Artists. In its 2014 listing of "25 Greatest Indian Rock Songs of the last 25 Years", "Rolling Stone India" featured two songs, Ma Rewa and Kandisa from the album, Kandisa (2000).
In 1984, Susmit Sen met Asheem during a concert. He was a fan of Niharika - a Bengali band Asheem played tabla for. They hit it off right away. Asheem was taken up by Susmit's guitar-playing and his vision to evolve a new sound. Susmit, in turn, learnt the nuances of rhythm from Asheem.
For the next 3 years, every now and then, they jammed as a duo, Susmit on guitar and Asheem on tabla and drums - no vocals anywhere in sight. After a memorable debut concert at Roorkee, there was only the occasional stray performance.
In 1990, Susmit sold his electric guitar to raise money for a demo recording of their band, by now called Indian Ocean (Susmit's dad suggested the name). With Shaleen Sharma on drums, and Indrajit Dutta and Anirban Roy on bass, they recorded the demo, taping an incredible 45 minutes and 7 songs in 1 day. Despite the rushed recording, the quality of the demo tape impressed HMV enough to offer them an album deal. In 1991, Rahul Ram, a schoolmate of Susmit's, joined the band,they both did their schooling from St.Xaviers,Delhi and replacing Anirban on bass.
But, much to the band's frustration, the album took a year to get released. But when it did come out, it sold over 40,000 copies within a year of its release - at that time, the highest selling record by any Indian band ever.
In 1994, drummer Shaleen left the band. Amit Kilam, barely out of his teens and, in fact, still taking his college exams, took his place. This has been the line-up since then: Susmit, Asheem, Rahul and Amit.

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