The Bombay Royale

May 2012 - The World
The songs on the new album “You Me Bullets Love” sound like the soundtrack to a long lost Bollywood-James Bond film.

But there is no film and the music is new.

The soundtrack to this imaginary film is by the Australia-based band, The Bombay Royale. Lisa Mullins speaks to three members of the group. - PRIs The World

May 2012 - Exclaim
By Nereida FernandesBombay Royale's cinematic Hindi funk channels Ennio Morricone and John Barry into a Bollywood montage of frolicking outlaws transported into a spy thriller. The sound, like the imagery it conjures, is both gritty and slick – the pounding rhythm that might back a train robbing chase scene also features blasting horns and a '70s disco groove. The result is a bombastic hybrid that honours the musical theatrics of vintage Bollywood soundtracks. Aside from two Film City covers (their modern reworking of hit song "Jaan Pehechan Ho," from the 1965 movie Gumnaam, is especially noteworthy), You Me Bullets Love puts the spotlight on their original material. Featuring mainly high-energy cuts, with some pretty cool surf guitar, the momentum can be a tad overwhelming. When they do insert a breather, in the form of a slower-paced duet, lead vocalist Parvyn Kaur Singh's vocals reach such a high pitch that they can easily become grating to those unaccustomed to them. These drawbacks take little away from the album strengths though. Hailing from Melbourne, the 11-member outfit whip up such a refreshingly festive splurge of East-meets-West influences that they're sure to win a sizable following beyond the British Commonwealth. - Exclaim

June 2012 - Beat Magazine
Has Tarantino heard of the Bombay Royale yet? If not, he should really pull his finger out as their theatrically spectacular musical melodrama would slide right into place on one of his famous and perfectly devised movie soundtracks. The band has '70s cult/exploitation clearly written all over them but there’s a thick velvety texture to the Bombay Royale. Their debut album, You Me Bullets Love sees them incorporate a range of influences into their core Bollywood inspired sound – making for one exciting sonic journey.



Piercing organ starts Monkey Snake Fight, closely followed by some surf/spy guitar work and horns that descend imposingly upon the soundscape. Immediately the realisation that the players in The Bombay Royale are masters of design occurs – they deftly craft a sound that is scene setting and engaging from the onset. Title track You Me Bullets Love continues with reverb soaked surf guitar and the dual vocals of Parvyn Singh and Shourov Bhattacharya are in perfect compliment. Sote Sote Adhi Raat is a psychedelic space freak-out that works traditional tambla into the equation while Perfect Plan is stealthy in its delivery and full of sneaky rhythms.



This more modern sounding number features Singh singing in English over a mash-up of wah heavy funk guitar and trailing horns – crazy in description but completely feasible and successful in execution. Bobbywood is a return to more old world and traditional Bollywood sounds and Mahindra Death Ride whisks you away into a world of wonder and intrigue. The horns in particular drive this track; sonically depicting the peaks and troughs of an imagined plot line­ – one can only ponder the wild storyline and visual that would accompany.



The Bombay Royale are experienced musicians; who play with soul, flair and panache. Their debut album You Me Bullets Love brings a style of music out of the catacombs, dusts it off, dresses it up and readies it for the dance floor. Lose yourself in the mystery, theatrics and adventure of the Bombay Royale.



BY KRYSTAL MAYNARD


Best Track: Mahindra Death Ride

If You Like These, You'll Like This: Traditional Bollywood Movie Soundtracks from the '60s and '70s, LINK WRAY, ROYAL CROWN REVUE, QUINCY JONES, JAMES BROWN

In A Word: Vivid - Beat Magazine

May 2012 - The AGE
A Bollywood-inspired band pens its own score, writes Andrew Drever.

THE Bombay Royale's riotously colourful live show is a visual feast, a masala perhaps, with duelling male and female singers of Indian background in traditional dress, a finger-snapping band leader in full ship's-captain regalia, a blasting horn section and band members sporting Zorro bandit masks.

Although it's a spectacle, the 11-piece band comprises some of Melbourne's most seasoned musicians, playing, or having played, with the likes of Illzilla, the PutBacks, Diafrix, Paul Kelly, C.W. Stoneking, Blue King Brown, Black Cab, Tex Perkins, LABJACD and Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.

''We are pretty conscious about not turning it into theatre,'' the Bombay Royale's co-lead singer, Shourov ''The Tiger'' Bhattacharya, says. ''For us, the most exciting thing is to sit down and write [the music] and then bring it to life on stage. The whole thing is really a bit of an experiment.
Musical masala
May 18, 2012

Bombay Royale in costume, but it's about the music, not theatre. A Bollywood-inspired band pens its own score, writes Andrew Drever.

THE Bombay Royale's riotously colourful live show is a visual feast, a masala perhaps, with duelling male and female singers of Indian background in traditional dress, a finger-snapping band leader in full ship's-captain regalia, a blasting horn section and band members sporting Zorro bandit masks.

Although it's a spectacle, the 11-piece band comprises some of Melbourne's most seasoned musicians, playing, or having played, with the likes of Illzilla, the PutBacks, Diafrix, Paul Kelly, C.W. Stoneking, Blue King Brown, Black Cab, Tex Perkins, LABJACD and Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.

''We are pretty conscious about not turning it into theatre,'' the Bombay Royale's co-lead singer, Shourov ''The Tiger'' Bhattacharya, says. ''For us, the most exciting thing is to sit down and write [the music] and then bring it to life on stage. The whole thing is really a bit of an experiment.
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Bombay Royale.

''We're writing nearly all of the music ourselves now, and I don't know how many Indian-language songs get released on to the indie-music scene in Australia, but I would say it's probably zero.''

The brainchild of saxophonist-band leader Andy ''The Skipper'' Williamson, the Bombay Royale formed in 2010 to cover classics from the golden era of '60s and '70s Bollywood cinema, while infusing it with their own influences - go-go surf guitars, psychedelia, disco grooves, spaghetti-western-style drama and even loungey trip-hop.

With Bhattacharya complemented by vocalist Parvyn ''The Mysterious Lady'' Singh, the Bombay Royale have wowed festival goers at the Australasian World Music Expo, WOMAD and Woodford, while supporting Nigerian Afro-beat star Femi Kuti and even playing the French colony of La Reunion island, off Madagascar.

Although keeping some covers, the band now writes and performs its own material, with recent debut album You Me Bullets Love containing eight original songs and just two covers, with the bulk of the lyrics sung in Indian Bengali and Hindi.

Bhattacharya says Melbourne's Indian community hasn't quite worked out what to make of the Bombay Royale.

''With the Indian crowd, it's their music, so they often come along expecting a certain thing,'' he says. ''There's a proportion of them who love it and there's probably others who think it's not the traditional way it should be covered. Non-Indians don't really know too much about the music so they come along with a blank slate and that's kind of cool.''

Bhattacharya admits the Bombay Royale's next challenge will be to evolve musically beyond the Bollywood novelty or the visual spectacle of their live show.

''If someone had said to us three years ago that this project would be at the stage where we're releasing this music on to the market, we would have thought that's pretty crazy,'' - The AGE

May 2012 - Vulture
The Skipper. The Mysterious Lady. The Tiger. Chip Chase, Tennis Ace. The Leaping Shaman. The Boatswain. The Kung-Fu Dentist. The Jewel Thief. The Railways Mogul. Dr. Electrico. The Bandit Priest.

These are, in fact, not exotic sex positions, but the stage names of the members of Melbourne outfit The Bombay Royale, who launched their album You Me Bullets Love on Saturday night in front of a packed-out crowd. The dark cave of Melbourne’s Hi-Fi was the backdrop for the night’s theatrics, involving saris, sitars, Zorro-style eyemasks, a life-size inflatable baby elephant (trunk erect, thankyouverymuch) and some disturbingly tight white shorts.
As it turns out, The Bombay Royale’s sound isn’t easy to describe. “Go on,” we hear you thinking, “you call yourself a fucking music magazine”. Well –

it’s sort of Bollywood surferbilly psychedelic disco porn funk, and it’s campier than RuPaul. The band performed songs from their debut album, including “Monkey Fight Snake” and “Sote Sote Adhi Raat”, against a backdrop of vintage Bollywood film clips, as if providing the soundtrack to scenes of old-school sex, suspense and intrigue.
Featured
Blow-Up Elephants and Sitars: The Bombay Royale @ Hi-Fi
May 21, 2012 by Jennifer Down in Featured, Gig Reviews with 0 Comments

The Skipper. The Mysterious Lady. The Tiger. Chip Chase, Tennis Ace. The Leaping Shaman. The Boatswain. The Kung-Fu Dentist. The Jewel Thief. The Railways Mogul. Dr. Electrico. The Bandit Priest.

These are, in fact, not exotic sex positions, but the stage names of the members of Melbourne outfit The Bombay Royale, who launched their album You Me Bullets Love on Saturday night in front of a packed-out crowd. The dark cave of Melbourne’s Hi-Fi was the backdrop for the night’s theatrics, involving saris, sitars, Zorro-style eyemasks, a life-size inflatable baby elephant (trunk erect, thankyouverymuch) and some disturbingly tight white shorts.



”Maybe it sounds easy to write The Bombay Royale off as a novelty act, but they’re all skilled musicians and make up a tight ensemble.”



As it turns out, The Bombay Royale’s sound isn’t easy to describe. “Go on,” we hear you thinking, “you call yourself a fucking music magazine”. Well –

it’s sort of Bollywood surferbilly psychedelic disco porn funk, and it’s campier than RuPaul. The band performed songs from their debut album, including “Monkey Fight Snake” and “Sote Sote Adhi Raat”, against a backdrop of vintage Bollywood film clips, as if providing the soundtrack to scenes of old-school sex, suspense and intrigue.



Ably backed by a mean brass section, guitars, sitar, tabla and keys, The Mysterious Lady (who also goes by the name Parvyn Kaur Singh) and The Tiger (Shourov Bhattacharya) sing in a mix of Bengali, Hindi and English. The Skipper (alias Andy Williamson) keeps things moving like a cruise director on LSD.

Maybe it sounds easy to write The Bombay Royale off as a novelty act, but they’re all skilled musicians and make up a tight ensemble. Singh’s vocal arpeggios in ‘Phone Baje Na’, echoed by Bhattacharya, are incredible. The Jewel Thief (Josh Bennett) slips effortlessly between instruments, trading sitar for tabla, and tabla for guitar. Finishing with the album’s title track a swansong from the blow-up elephant, which squeezed in through what appeared to be a fire exit, the band returned to the stage for a brief encore.

More than anything, The Bombay Royale look as if they’re having a pretty damn good time on stage. Although if you’re wielding a seedy ’70s sailor getup, aviator sunnies and a saxophone, you’ve got no excuse not to, really. Namaste. - Vulture

May 2012 - The Wall Street Journal
What is this I’m hearing? It’s funky, surfy, brassy and definitely danceable. Is it the soundtrack to a 1970s masala gem I’ve somehow overlooked? No, it’s the brand-new album “You Me Bullets Love” by The Bombay Royale, an 11-piece ensemble from Melbourne, Australia. India Real Time spoke to vocalist Shourov Bhattacharya about how the band has built on its love of vintage film music to create a unique sound. Edited excerpts:

IRT: Did all of your members grow up loving (or even knowing about) vintage film music?

SB: The two Indians in the band (Parvyn Kaur Singh and myself) grew up listening to this stuff because it was always on our parents’ stereos. Andy Williamson came to it later but immediately fell in love with the sound, and proceeded to put together the band! For the others in the band, it was new in varying degrees. But it only took a few rehearsals playing a couple of covers of “Jaan Pehechan Ho” (“Gumnaam,” 1965) and “Dum Maro Dum” (“Hare Rama Hare Krishna,” 1971) for them to be infected by it and buy into the project.
IRT: What composers and singers of historical filmi music have been most influential on the band?

SB: Definitely Kalyanji-Anandji for their out-there psychedelic stuff and crazy synths. Ilaiyaraaja from the south for being funky as hell, R.D. Burman of course, S. D. Burman, Sapan-Jagmohan and Shankar-Jaikishan. Being a Bengali, I’ve also been heavily influenced by some of the Bengali composers like Salil Chaudhry. Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle are an inspiration and, apart from the obvious Rafi, I also love the feel of Hemant Kumar’s voice.

IRT: In what ways do films and/or film songs influence you?

SB: Unconsciously we’ve all picked up the feel and aesthetic of the music, but Andy has consciously learned some lessons from the compositions of that era. Some of the devices they use, like 6-bar sections, are really groovy and out of left field. And I’ve definitely taken what I love about filmi music — the melodrama, interplay between courting lovers, some of the structures of melodies — into my own writing for melody and lyrics. At the same time, others who write the music draw heavily from their own experiences in other styles like funk, surf, Latin and Ethio-jazz. I’d like to think that we’ve now taken the filmi songs of old and gone somewhere new with them. I don’t think you’d mistake many of our songs for actual vintage songs; there is a lot that is new. We feel like we’re striking out and creating our own genre. And that’s what we find exciting.

Initially I think the idea was to do a pastiche of old 70s films, especially the typical party scenes with the band, people standing around in suits drinking, the gogo dancers, etc. It’s all so damn entertaining. Also, Parvyn specifically loves the look of the old mujra scenes in movies like “Mughal-eAzam” (1960) as well: that blend of mystery, seduction and grace.

IRT: Your website describes your music as “cinematic.” What does that word mean to you — for example, to me it connotes epic, sweeping, a big sense of time and place — and how do you translate those concepts into music and performance?

SB: All of those things, but also that the music must evoke its own world, a fantasy world. We want people to be drawn into our vision the same way they are drawn into a film. So apart from the aesthetic, we’d like the music to tell a story, even if people don’t understand the words. We try to bring that out in our performances too.

IRT: Are there any composers, singers, and/or songs today that you feel embody some of what you love about vintage music?

SB: What I miss about the vintage compositions are those complex, gorgeous melodies that were full of hooks. You don’t hear that as much anymore. I sound like my parents! Some of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s work, such as “Tare Zameen Par,” has that quality still. Or the soundtrack to “Raincoat” (2004) with all the classical beauty. I actually hear some of - The Wall Street Journal

April 2012 - Herald Sun
SOUNDING gaspingly authentic, the Melbourne nine-piece, badass Bollywood, spaghetti-funk, disco-schlock band have only been around two years. Two years! The reason for that exclamation mark will become apparent as soon as you hear the crazed collision of styles on debut album You Me Bullets Love. More an imaginary soundtrack than an "artiste" record, The Bombay Royale's rollicking, more-is-more approach works consistently over 10 tracks, eight originals and two re-worked classics. Monkey Fight Snake sends us into battle with descending trumpet stabs, Jaan Pehechan Ho gets all From Dusk Till Dawn double-time, and only The Perfect Plan feels a little undercooked. Check them out at their album launch and, wa-hey, read about their genesis in Rock City this week!

Sounds like: Asha Bhosle teamed up with Tarantino's dream band

In a word: relentless

Rating: 3.5/5
- Herald Sun

April, 2012
It makes sense that a Melbourne outfit in thrall of Bollywood excess, both musically and visually, would pit their debut longplayer as the soundtrack to a fantastical Bollywood romp. Over the past few years this mysterious, masked nine-piece (plus singers) have been honing their sense of the dramatic, of the exotic and the majestically kitsch around town. We’re talking surf guitar melding into jazz, exotica and rockabilly, with searing synth injections and of course the more traditional sitar, mandolin and tabla. Live they’re a party machine who play up the more fun and kitsch elements of their sound, yet this recording adds extra depth where you can ignore the theatrics and hone in on the musicality, the strange genre mashes and wacky compositional decisions.

With a three-piece string section, big beautiful brass, and those ultra funky basslines, if you close your eyes you’re knee deep in curried funk, thanks in the main to vocalists Parvyn Kaur Singh and Shourov Bhattacharya, who both sing in Hindi. Their interplay in particular provides much of the narrative to the music. That said, the opening track, Monkey Fight Snake, an instrumental, is an epic that initially sounds like garage rock until these descending horns blast the tune apart, opening up room for the tabla. Just when you think you have the tune worked out it moves into very strange mariachi/Morricone territory.

Increasingly there’s something of a faux world music scene happening in Melbourne, though few do it with as much exuberance and inventiveness as The Bombay Royale.

Bob Baker Fish - Inpress

May 2012 - The Music
Some smells are so intense you can taste them. You Me Bullets Love, the debut from Melbourne outfit The Bombay Royale, is music so intense you can see it. There is an immediate enticement to take a visual flight of fancy and enter into their world of full-blast fuzz horns with precision sharp shots and shrill twee vocals accompanied by the occasional Barry White baritone.

The title track had me crouched as a ninja, moving stealthily from corner to corner through some generic bad-arse neighbourhood, while JaanPehechanHo suddenly placed me at the beach, catching gnarly Bombora waves with The Atlantics. The futuristic funk of a seedy but legally legit exotic dance establishment came through on SoteSoteAdhiRaat, while the amazingly ear-flinching note reached in The Perfect Plan was climactic to say the least.

Most songs are sung in another language (lyric translations available on their website if you’re curious), so they could very well be singing about everyday mundane things such as cheese or shoelaces, but the entire album has a tension to it: it’s poised at the cusp of some unfolding piece of drama or action, and it holds that suspense strongly from first to last.The album rounds out with some sweet oasis relief in the middle of a psychedelic desert called Phone BajeNa; allow your shoulders to relax as you slip into the cool.

There are occasional moments of funk that Jamiroquai would aspire to, there’s a beach party feel that The Break could play alongside of, and there’s the inescapable visual nature of the tracks. Their sound is total Bollywood Bond.

Kristy Wandmaker - The Music

May 2012
THIS debut from 12-piece Melbourne wunderkinds the Bombay Royale could be the soundtrack to a Tarantino film. Behold its kitsch action-movie cover art, the cast of masked, sharply dressed and cheeky-looking characters who grace the back cover, the kaleidoscopic soundscapes that range from surf rock (opener Monkey Fight Snake) to bent spaghetti western (eponymous track) and everything in between ('60s garage, bossa nova, soul/funk, schlocky lounge, you name it). Led by Parvyn ''the Mysterious Lady'' Singh and Shourov ''the Tiger'' Bhattacharya's bewitching mix of Hindi, Bengali and English vocals, the Bombay Royale deliver a frenzied feast of genre-defying sound against a backdrop of authentic golden age Bollywood. Utilising strings, sitars, horns, funk bass and driving rhythms, You Me Bullets Love is delightfully busy and hopelessly eclectic - an off-kilter masterpiece that sounds like both a relic from the past and something entirely new and exciting. The band launch the album at the Hi-Fi bar on Saturday, May 19.

MELISSA JANE FULTON

- The Age

May 2012 - Platform
A 10-member Australian band, The Bombay Royale is an absolute blast from the past! Donning a vintage-Bollywood persona, their music is reminiscent of a time when Shammi Kapoor’s frenzied head-shake was the hottest thing going. A tribute to the 60s-70s ‘filmy’era, the band’s debut album, You Me Bullets Love has already generated quite a storm down under. Started by Andy Williamson aka The Skipper (saxophone + flute) who leads the pack, the band has two vocalists of Indian origin, Shourov Bhattacharya (aka Tiger) and Parvyn Kaur Singh (aka the Mysterious Lady). Apart from their original tracks, the album also features their own rendition of Mohammed Rafi’s Jaan Pehechaan Ho from Gumnaam (1965) and an English song titled, The Perfect Plan. Creating music that is a blend of surf, funk, disco and jazz, here’s the story behind The Bombay Royale from The Skipper…

To someone who is yet to hear your tracks, how would you describe your music? Imagine the Don meets James Bond; then they spend the afternoon smoking cigars, surfing and drinking mojitos. At some point there would also be a gun battle, a car chase and some sexy times with lady secret agents. And of course, a huge dance scene with funky horn riffs, surf guitars and pounding drums!

Your debut album, You Me Bullets Love seems extremely promising and its title track has got most of us playing it on repeat. What’s your album about? The album is really the product of the last two years of hard work (and a lot of love!). We started out doing live versions of tunes by composers like RD Burman, Illaiyaraja, Anandji and Kalyanji and so on, but we pretty soon started to write our own material. This album is mostly new, original music. We hope that it pays homage to the sounds of vintage Bollywood but also creates something fresh and different.

A ten-member band, how did you guys meet each other? What led you to form the band and give it a ‘desi’ persona? Originally I, (The Skipper) put together the band to play vintage Bollywood tunes live. So obviously, the band was always going to have an Indian focus. Many of the musicians already knew one another from the Melbourne music scene, but both the Tiger and the Mysterious Lady were drawn from outside this circle. I think we all feel lucky to have stumbled across one another! Of course, it is ‘desi’ because of the music, but with the variety of backgrounds and influences in the band, it’s really more of a melting pot.

Which is the one track you can’t wait for the Indian audiences to hear? The tunes on the album are pretty eclectic – so there’s pretty much something for everyone! But if we had to pick one track, we would say that Bobbywood is definitely something new – surf beats, big horns and poetic Bengali lyrics – we don’t think it’s been tried before!

What is the future for The Bombay Royale? Cocktails, jet-setting, vast sums of money and unimaginable fame! (at least that’s the plan!). But really the main thing is the music. We are keen to keep striking out in new directions creatively. Also, hopefully we’ll make it to India for some live shows. Whilst there is interesting musical territory to explore, I think the band will continue to prosper and find an audience. - Platform

May 2012 - Tone Deaf
YOU ME BULLETS LOVE” Album Launch. The magic and mayhem of vintage Bollywood collide in spectacular fashion whenever Melbourne’s own uncanny crew of masked marauders, The Bombay Royale, hit the stage.

The Bombay Royale’s dizzying blend of haunting Hindi vocals, Tarantino-esque surf guitars, wild disco rhythms, shimmering sitars, flamboyant theatrics, kaleidoscopic colour, outrageous costumes and irresistible dance moves that sweep entire crowds off their feet. The Bombay Royale’s debut album, You Me Bullets Love (out April 6 on HopeStreet Recordings through Fuse Music Group) is a revelation of a rare new sound that instantly bewitches your senses: exotic, teasing, cinematic and utterly exhilarating.

Starring vocalists Parvyn The Mysterious Lady Singh and Shourov The Tiger Bhattacharya and led by musical director Andy The Skipper Williamson, The Bombay Royale’s madcap mashup of intoxicating rhythms, seductive lyrics (in Hindi, Bengali and English) and fantastic — bordering on surreal — performances makes them a wonder to behold. Born out of the cultural melting pot of Melbourne’s music community, The Bombay Royale has brought together a dozen supremely talented individuals from very different backgrounds, whose collective individual tastes and expertise cover a mind-blowingly eclectic amount of musical ground. This meeting of musical minds is a perfect match for the anarchy of Bollywood’s long-lost production numbers, which slam together everything from classical Indian music and dance to spaghetti western cinemascapes, surfadelica, bossa nova, every dance craze that once swept America, and knowingly kitsch, lounge retro-cabaret theatrics.

The Bombay Royale was originally conceived as a vehicle to bring the marvellous but hitherto obscure songs from Bollywood’s golden era of the 1960s and ’70s to a new audience of Melbourne clubgoers and festival audiences. The band morphed into something new when they started writing original music, and things took a new, magical turn. This evolution is brilliantly captured on The Bombay Royale’s debut LP You Me Bullets Love, featuring eight original songs (including the two above), plus two fascinating re-workings of old Bollywood classics. The Bombay Royale has brought the mysterious sound of Bollywood’s Golden Age back to the future — where it belongs — and created a music that’s never been heard before: inspired by old Bollywood, but sounding entirely, invigoratingly fresh and new.

You Me Bullets Love will be released on HopeStreet Recordings via Fuse Music Group on April 6 (CD/digital) and May 4 (vinyl + worldwide release). To quote the Herald Sun, The Bombay Royale know how “to turn a timid gathering into a full-blown PARTAAAAAAAAY”. - Tone Deaf

Hung around after...absorbing...sufficient time for a band to kick off on a nearby stage that were simply outrageous...and demanded a look...The Bombay Royale..."a mixture of funky, bizarre and mysterious music" from 1960s & 1970s Bollywood soundtracks...made it one hell of a fun show...pretty whacky...brilliantly performed. - Travelblog