GUITAR PLAYER WEEK: SIDHARTH KADADI (ZYGNEMA)

I've known Zygnema since I began attending gigs. My first metal gig was at Musician's Mall and these guys were playing. From then on, I knew there was something so powerful and insane about them. I've known Kadads from then too, and besides being a skilled guitar player, he's an awesome person. You better be there for Control Alt Delete: Metal or you'll miss out on some major groove riffage! An interview with none other than Zygnema's Sidharth Kadadi.

wala wala lai

Full name and age.
Sidharth Sudhir Kadadi. I am not that old. I will be turning 29 soon. (psssst! guitar picks, strings, accessories are welcome as birthday gifts)


What is your favourite dish/cuisine?
Indian, of course. Favourite dish has to be PAANI PURI. No wait, Pav bhaji. Both share the same place I guess. Hot Gulab Jamun with Vanila ice cream deserves a special mention and a place in the hall of fame.


Kindly tell us about all your precious gear! (guitars, processors, software)
Dean Dime shadow ML with DiMarzio D activators on the bridge.
Ibanez RG2EX1 with Seymour Duncan Invaders on the bridge.
Pod X3 bean, Dunlop GCB-95 wah wah, Digitech Whammy DT
Use Line6 UX1 as my audio Interface, Cubase for recording. Got shit loads of VST plugins for guitars, bass and drums.


How long have you been playing guitar?
Started when I was 18. I've been playing for 10 years.


What got you into playing guitar?
I genuinely can't remember, but a friend of mine was learning guitar and I loved the sound of an acoustic guitar. So I started off learning a few basic chords and scales from him and then enrolled for proper guitar lessons.


Have you learned to read music as well, or do you just play by ear?
I graduated from Musicians Institute in 2008 and also appeared for Trinity Grade 8. So it is mandatory to know more than basic music reading to get into any music school or to give any exams affiliated with international institutions. My teachers always taught me music theory and application. They also insisted on reading rhythms regularly if not melodies/pieces. Small ideas help A LOT and I still find time to practice sight reading. I am not GREAT at reading, but I can manage.
I do use my ear too but when you know your basic harmonizing theory, it becomes a lot easier to transcribe or to write your own stuff.


Electric vs. acoustic. What do you prefer?
Sigh! Tough call. It's guitar in the end. Love them all. But yes, acoustic guitar sounds beautiful.
I've been spending most of my time with my classical and acoustic guitar.

What thought goes into riff construction/is there any particular pattern you follow to make riffs?
Zilch. It just flows. I don't follow a particular pattern as such. But it's very important to understand the sound of that particular riff or a song. You can't just push in any chords anywhere you feel like just because it's metal music. You have to understand the voicing and tonality of a song. I also emphasize a lot on groovy riffs. Brain-drilling riffs are not my style.

What music projects are you currently a part of, besides ?
I have been trying to work on my Rock trio project for a while now, along with Aditya Kadam and Pratik Kulgod. Very mid 80s instrumental prog rock vibe like Racer X, Paul Gilbert, Vinnie Moore, Van Halen, etc,. We have two tracks and a lot more ideas flowing. We're also hoping to put out an EP this year once I am done with Zygnema's album.
The other one is purely a studio project along with Reuben from Undying Inc. We keep writing and exchanging ideas. We too have two solid tracks and they require a bit of polishing. We have no clue who will track vocals and drums on it. For now I program drums and record stuff at home and mail it to Reuben. A lot of ideas are exchanged and we restructure the parts. I'm hoping for a proper band rehearsal before we finalize and put our material out. I honestly don't know WHEN this will release, but it will happen.


Do you have a day job? What is it that you do?
I have been working with BAJAAO since 2008 as a Guitar product specialist. I also teach guitars, so yep!

Two jobs to pay the bills and to survive as a musician in this third world country.

Your favorite musicians (Indian)

Guitar: Prashant Shah
Bass: Reuben Bhattacharya
Drums: Nishant Hagjer, Mayank, Rahul, Viru etc.
Vocals: Sunneith Revankar, Bruce Mckoy


Your favourite musicians (international)

Guitar: DIMEBAG DARREL. Mattias IA Eklundh, Vogg, Paul Gilbert, Van Halen, Vinnie Moore,
Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, Guthrie Govan, Alex Skolnick, James Hetfield.
Bass: Rex Brown, Stu Ham, Steve Harris, Dick Lovgren, Les Claypool, Alex Webster, Chris Beatie, Michael Anthony
Drums: Vinnie Paul, Tomas Haake, Dave Lombardo, Vitek, Sean Reinert, Gene Hoglan, Bjorn Fryklund, Morgan Agren
Vocals: Phil Anselmo, James Hetfield, Max Cavalera, Jamey Jasta, Jens Kidman, Chuck Schuldiner, Chuck Billy, Tom Araya, Corey Taylor, Sammy Hagar, Glen Benton, Robb Flynn


Can we expect a release from your band(s) any time soon?
Zygnema's 2nd album and ROKKK trio EP hopefully by December 2014.


Whom do you look up to, as a musician and a band?
There are too many musicians and bands that inspire me. It doesn't matter if the band is established or still struggling, they all have great qualities which we learn from. I really really love, respect and look up to Mattias Eklundh simply because he is a living legend and he has no clue how crazy he is. But more importantly, he is a great and humble human being, an ideal Guru and a crazy Swedish viking with zero tolerance towards seriousness. The happiest guitar player on this planet.


A message to all your fans (hello ladies!)
Hey I am no Val Venis. The towel move thing is a little cheesy though. Skip that bit, but yes HELLO LADIES. Howdy doody!
A message to all my browskis and homies. Believe in what you do and never give up.

Catch Zygnema on Facebook or Reverbnation

Zygnema

GUITAR PLAYER WEEK: KESHAV DHAR (SKYHARBOR)

Keshav Dhar can easily be named one of the pioneers of modern metal in India. Taking his solo project 'Hydrodjent' out of the bedroom and staging one very sought-after modern progressive outfit 'Skyharbor', this man is more than just a guitar player. Having aboard Dan Tompkins (ex-TesseracT), and also drummer Anup Sastry (Jeff Loomis, Intervals) Skyharbor's lineup is now across three continents!

The interview is with the genius behind 'Dots' and 'Celestial', brought to you by the very own me! (ikr?!) Here's an interview many of you might be eager to read. Go ahead, have a look, I'm sure there's something new and unique with every guitar player, especially when it comes to composing music!

Don't forget to vote for Skyharbor at the Metal Hammer Golden Gods in the 'Global Metal' category right HERE.

Photo credits: Pixel Matrix

Full name and age
Keshav Anand Dhar, 27


What is your favourite dish/cuisine?
Indian: Prawn Chettinad curry, Non-Indian: Sushi or Pho


Kindly tell us about all your precious gear! (guitars, processors, software)
I currently have four guitars. My main writing guitar is a gorgeous Mayones Regius custom 6 string. I also have my trusty old Ibanez SZ2020, which still sees a fair bit of use and I absolutely love writing on it. I also have a PRS Custom 24 7 String which I use live. I rarely write songs with it though as I’ve always been a 6 string player at heart. In addition to this I have an Ovation acoustic which I don’t play very often but it’s recently seen a fair bit of use.

My 'rig' at the moment is quite simple, I've never been into pedals and endless knob tweaking, I just like to dial in sounds quickly and jam, and my Fractal Axe-FX II does this job perfectly! The amp modelling is second to none, it's incredibly versatile and responsive to my playing, and the effects are gorgeous. It's also completely midi controllable, so when playing live all my patch changes happen automatically in sync with the click tracks, which is really cool. All I need to do literally is play!

In the studio, I record, edit and mix between Cubase 7 and Pro Tools 10. I've been a Cubase user pretty much ever since I started recording many years ago, and I know it like the back of my hand now. I've started using Pro Tools a little more of late just because it's industry standard and clients send me a lot of PT session files for mixing, but I mostly just consolidate the files in there and bounce them out into Cubase again haha.

How long have you been playing guitar?
About 11 years or so now.


What got you into playing guitar?
Well I started playing guitar casually because I wanted to be able to play Metallica songs. Haha.
But I really got serious about it after watching Joint Family play live in Delhi at the 'Numero Uno Rock Out' festival in 2005. That show really fired me up. It was like, fuck! THIS is what I want to do!


Have you learned to read music as well, or do you just play by ear?
I had 10 years of piano lessons so I can read sheet music, but ever since I started playing guitar I have never ever looked at sheet music. I actually got so fed up of the bullshit that piano lessons involved – reading music, zero room for self expression, so regimented and boring – that when I started playing guitar, I sort of swore to myself that I would only ever play by instinct and only do what sounded good to me, theory be damned.


Electric vs. acoustic. What do you prefer?
I am a terrible acoustic player, and a great many of the songs I write depend heavily on effects, delays/reverbs/choruses/wahs/phasers etc, so electric for sure haha.

Skyharbor live at Moscow (2013)

What thought goes into riff construction/is there any particular pattern you follow to make riffs?
I have a really weird approach to writing riffs. I’m not really that good of a guitar player from a technical standpoint, so when ideas come to mind I immediately record myself bullshitting through it – basically whatever my fingers are able to interpret of the idea in my head. Then I pick apart the notes, phrases, licks etc, and keep what I like and discard little bits in the middle.
Then I fill in those gaps in the middle one by one. Often, I come up with a bunch of different riffs which I have no idea what to do with. Then just for fuck’s sake, I chop them up and paste parts of different riffs together to form new riffs. Hahaha. It’s really weird, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone else do this unless it feels natural to them. It’s just that I started recording and mixing before I started seriously playing guitar, so the computer and the DAW has always been an integral part of my process. It works for me.


What music projects are you currently a part of, besides Skyharbor?
I’m part of White Moth Black Butterfly which is an experimental sort of proggy rock project I have with Dan (Skyharbor singer). I also write music with my old buddies in Another Vertigo Rush, in the background. Apart from that, not much really – Skyharbor keeps me really busy most of the time when I’m not producing.


Do you have a day job? What is it that you do? 
Yes! I have my studio Illusion Audio, where I record, produce and mix bands and also generally do any and all music production related projects that come my way. Apart from working with bands which forms the bulk of my work, I also score for documentary films and ad films from time to time, although I always come back to working with bands. It’s what connects the most with me.


Your favourite musicians (Indian)
I’m guessing it wouldn’t be fair to name my own band members…

Guitar: Vishal J. Singh/Prashant Shah
Bass: Nikhil Rufus
Drums: Jivraj Singh/Jai Row Kavi
Vocals: Sunneith Revankar/Siddharth Basrur


Your favourite musicians (international)

Guitar: Ben Sharp
Bass: Jon Stockman
Drums: Steve Judd
Vocals: Ian Kenny/Devin Townsend


Can we expect a release from your band(s) any time soon?
Yes definitely – Skyharbor is wrapping up recording our second album and it’s off to mixing soon. There’s a pretty big PR campaign that will surround this release, so it won’t be before this fall, but it will definitely be this year. Probably around October or November.


Whom do you look up to, as a musician and a band?
Ben Sharp and Devin Townsend are my heroes!


A message to all your fans (hello ladies!)
Thank you all for the love and support through the years – we’ve got a lot of new music coming your way and we can't wait for you to hear the new album!


Visit Skyharbor on Facebook and Soundcloud
White Moth Black Butterfly on Facebook

Photo credits: NAD Visual Art

GUITAR PLAYER WEEK: SANJU AGUIAR (DEVOID, THC, ETC ETC.,.)

The best part about this interview is that Sanju's real name is Sanjeev! YYYeeeEEEV! On a more serious note, SANJEEV is a great guitar player. I play in a band with one of his students too. Sanju is the guitar player for Devoid as all you metalheads know, and also has bands and projects like The Hoodwink Circle, Far Travel music and The Mihir Joshi band.

Another thing about him is that he can eat a lot. And I mean, A LOT.  It's sad he couldn't be there himself on the Headbanger's Kitchen season 3 premiere episode with Devoid (WATCH IT HERE), because there wouldn't be any pie left for sure! Fun-loving happy guy as he is, let's take a look at some of his favourite things.

Full name and age.
Sanjeev Aguiar, 26


What is your favourite dish/cuisine?
Scrambled eggs with bacon, ham, cheese and Tobasco.


Kindly tell us about all your precious gear! (guitars, processors, etc.,.)
Guitars: Ibanez RGD2127z Prestige and a Fender American Stratocaster.
Processor- Line 6 Pod HD500


How long have you been playing guitar?
I've been playing music for the past 9 years


What got you into playing guitar?
While growing up I was heavily influenced by Bon Jovi so I guess the solo that Richie Sambora played in 'Bed of Roses' on the mountain is the reason why I first picked up the instrument!


Have you learned to read music as well, or do you just play by ear?
I'm primarily self-taught, but I also had a year's training in Western Classical with Ashley Quiney.


Electric vs. acoustic. What do you prefer?
At this point, electric.

Photo credits: Adityaraj Mehta

What thought goes into riff construction/is there any particular pattern you follow to make riffs? 
As far as riff writing is concerned, I find playing over a metronome or keeping a drum pattern is what works for me. The rest happens as it goes over this.


What music projects are you currently a part of?
I'm currently a part of Devoid, The Hoodwink Circle, Mihir Joshi band, Far travel music and I'm also doing some session work here and there.


Do you have a day job? What is it that you do?
I would have to say my day job is guitar classes at this point.


Your favourite musicians (Indian)

Guitar: Floyd Fernandes
Bass: Sheldon D'silva
Drums: Debashish 'Debu' Banerji
Vocals: Gareth Dmello


Your favourite musicians (international)

Guitar: Guthrie Govan
Bass: Victor Wooten
Drums: Marco Minnemann
Vocals: Maynard James Keenan


Can we expect a release from your band(s) any time soon?
As far as releases are concerned for now,
Devoid should be done with an album by the end of 2014
Far travel music will be done with an EP by July
Both The Hoodwink circle and Mihir Joshi band will be done with debut albums by June.


Whom do you look up to, as a musician and a band? 
I look up to many vocalists like Maynard, Ian Kenny, Steven Wilson, Dave Mathews, the Zero 7 chick (Sophie Barker), Myles Kennedy and as for guitar players, there's Guthrie Govan, Tosin Abasi, John Scofield, Allan Holdsworth, Frank Gambale and my new found favourite Derek Trucks.


A message to all your fans (hello ladies!)
The message is to my male fans as there might be a total of 5 female fans at best obviously: Please come to watch me live with artists that I play for/with and support all of them by buying their merchandise.

Hello ladies!

Devoid on Facebook and Soundcloud
The Hoodwink Circle on Facebook and Reverbnation
Far Travel Music on Facebook and Soundcloud
Mihir Joshi Band

JAI IPL!