Unknown Artist The Band is an independent multi-genre rock band from the land of Gods – Uttarakhand. Ardent devotees of Lord Shiva they are considered to be the new face of Hindi and Sufi rocks. The founder of the band Shubham Pathak, in this exclusive interview talks about the band’s Unknown Music, its philosophy, dream and mission
What’s the story behind your band’s name?
- Our band is made to show the world a different taste in music and its uniqueness. We prefer to stay ‘Unknown’ and create ‘Unknown Music’ similar to Lord Shiva who lived with all the poison in his throat to save the world. We realized that the whole world is looking at our country for answers. No doubt, our country may appear poor, but we are rich in our culture. Countries like the United States of America may be developed in all the ways but they are amazed at our ‘sanskaar’. People from different parts of the world come to India to seek answers to their problems. They learn our Yoga, meditation and music. For us, all these are part of our culture and lifestyle and we grow up learning them. It’s high time we should be proud of our culture and this is what we want to spread through our band.
The band always performs “Bhole Baba Shiva’ in all your concerts. Why this fascination for Lord Shiva?
Shiva is called ‘Vishwaroopa’, which means that the entire universe is his form. The world we live in is a mix of good and the bad like we have water and fire. Shiva is in everything, the negatives and the positives alike. If we call him Rudra, the fiery, then we also address him as Bholenath, the innocent. He is called sundaresha, the most beautiful and also as the aghora, the terrifying one. A famous Shiva prayer describes Shiva as gowram (fiery), and in the same sentence, he is called karunavataram (the embodiment of compassion). So we perform Bhole Baba as an ode to this great God.
Do you think a rock band singing about Lord Shiva will be more acceptable to youth?
Today our youth is responsible for various crimes. This is happening because they are strongly influenced by the Western culture and less aware of their own rich culture. As the youths are crazy about rock music we decided to choose this as a medium or a tool to make them aware of the greatness of the Indian culture. Interestingly, whenever our band performs Bhole Baba at concerts everyone in the audience sings along.
What are your plans for Maha Shivaratri?
We have been performing for the last one month as it is Shiva’s month. Through our performances, we will celebrate this festival and spread Shiva’s message – to overcome darkness and ignorance in life and the world.
What does the band do when it is not performing?
We visit orphanages and government schools. We counsel and teach students yoga and meditation. Our band believes that sensitizing them at the tender age is the best way to cleanse the society of its evils. Some of the street children want to learn yoga but it is not accessible to them so we try to teach them yoga because Shiva was a yogi in penance.
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