Interview / Sahil Makhija (Demonstealer)

Demonstealer is the stage name of Sahil Makhija, veteran metalhead from Mumbai, India, who has been in the Indian metal circuit from early 2000s. Sahil wears many hats, he is the vocalist and guitarist for the band he formed, Demonic Resurrection (DR), he also has his solo project Demonstealer (DS), started and owned India’s only metal focused record label (now defunct) and a keto cook.

DS released its latest album earlier this year (Propaganda Machine), which we reviewed and loved and thought this would be a good opportunity to hear from him about his journey so far, his thoughts on being one of the first Indian bands to tour Europe, insights into the current Indian metal scene, his plans going forward.

Through DS and DR, Sahil has explored various themes, ranging from the more gothic imagery in his early years to religion in Dashavatara and now with Propaganda Machine, the current socio-political environment.

Sahil, first of all thanks a ton for agreeing to interview with us, it means a lot. Both to Decibel Warfare and to me personally, as I grew up in India listening to DR. And you’ve been at the front and centre of the Indian metal scene for more than 25 years now. Tell us how has the journey been so far?

Wow that’s a very difficult question to answer. I mean how do you consolidate 25 years into a short answer. I would say it’s been a long journey and one with a lot of high moments as well some extremely low lows. I would say that at some point that the journey has worn me down as a person, however, at this point in my life I am little bit separated and away from it and not as affected as I used to be.

Is that because the Indian metal scene is a difficult place to be?

Partly, it’s the music scene in general and India is one part of it, but we, as a band (DR), have always looked beyond India in terms of audiences and for touring. Of course, being an Indian band, the journey has been especially hard. Sometime things click for you and sometimes they don’t and for our us, a lot of things didn’t click. The ability to tour outside India is extremely difficult, even in India it has also become harder. However, we have somehow managed. My personal journey with the band as well plays a part, what with constant line-up changes, the kind of music we play, all of this has culminated in my disconnect from the scene.

That is an interesting perspective, is the kind of music you play, also a factor? I mean, both DR and DS play a form of extreme metal, which means you will be playing faster, its more technical than other sub-genres. Has that made it harder for you to find musicians who can play this kind of music?

Yes. And our biggest struggle has always been finding drummers. For starters, double bass drummers in India were a handful to begin with because of a lot of factors like equipment shortages. Drums are an expensive equipment, so even if you have an interest in drums and unless you have a good amount of disposable income or your parents are rich, you really can’t get your hands on a decent drum kit and start playing. Also, in India, metal is more a phase for younger people, so you reach a point where you have to either take a job to earn money on the side, in which case it is hard to practise up to the skill level required, especially to the skill level DR requires. Or if you play drums for a living, then our kind of music doesn’t play the bills. So once again you have to learn 3-hour Bollywood sets and those kind of cover songs and you don’t really get time to practise your death metal chops. It definitely is harder for us to find musicians when they sort of step down from their roles. With guitar players we have been lucky, but we have always gotten young talent. When Daniel Rego joined us, he was 16 years old and was really talented. When he left, again a young guitarist, Nishith Hegde joined us. Luckily guitar is a little more accessible instrument, it has a little more potential to practise to become good at and you know, finding guitar players hasn’t been as difficult. Drummers and bass players have been harder to find, especially for our kind of music. Viru (Virender Kaith) was the last full-time drummer we had, he was with us for 12 years.

Yes, I remember meeting him with the rest of the band back in 2017 in Delhi. So, you and I pretty much grew up around the same time, with majority of our teens being in mid to late 90s. Given how closed off India was at that time, how did you access metal back then? I think we didn’t even have MTV at that time.

As far as I remember MTV was around India in mid 90s and I remember them playing Millenium at headbanger’s ball. But then again awareness wasn’t there at that time (that MTV played metal). Also, MTV was a rich man’s channel back then and the average Indian wasn’t watching it. You had to be privileged (at that time) to have a cable connection and to have MTv and to be awake late at night to listen to metal. Personally, I got into metal through my friends in school, who in turn were introduced through older cousins or their friends. They shared CDs with me and somebody in the family was always travelling abroad, so you could get a couple of CDs that way as well. Also, I remember the internet had just come and I was able to download stuff using MIRC and websites. It would take 12 hours to download a single song! That’s how I accessed the music. There was this used bookstand near one of the colleges here in Bombay where I would buy a metal hammer magazine for 150 Rupees, it would always come without the CD, but the poster was intact. I would always see these reviews of bands like Emperor (that’s how I discovered Emperor) and I would go away and download the album.

A few years later I remember that my mother or someone was travelling to the US and I had saved up a lot of pocket money over the years and I asked “buy me these 20 CDs”. Then all my friends would come and borrow my CDs. I wasn’t very careful about it, so I ended up losing most of them.

I think we have all been there. I got into metal quite late, around late teens and in the early days I was all about rock, till I attended the Great Indian Rock (GIR) festival and saw Acrid Semblance (death metal act from Delhi, since defunct) get on stage, it was about 7 o’clock in the evening and Anubhav comes on stage and growls “Good evening, Delhi”. That got my attention! Something just clicked and I was hooked. Was there an “a-ha” moment for you as well that got you hooked?

For me, it’s hard to remember if there was such a moment that got me hooked man, it’s been a while. For me it was just the energy in the music, something about the rawness, the aggression. I remember hearing Iron Maiden for the first time, songs like Running free (which was the first metal song I heard) and Phantom of the Opera. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the complexity of the riff, how heavy it (Running free) sounded. And then my friends gave me some Metallica. It was so heavy, I couldn’t understand a lot of it, but I loved the power, the energy. Cannibal corpse back then sounded noise and I was like “this is noise”. Today, if I am listening to Slayer, I can go back and figure out “oh they are playing a little sloppy here, Dave Lombardo is really whacking the kit here”. Back then it sounded like a robot playing, because it sounded so fast and unreal. As I dove deeper into the music, a lot of messages resonated with me. The sort of atheistic view, anti -religion views as well. I really latched onto the anti-Christian sentiment in Black metal as well.

I had some first-hand experiences too which turned me towards it, we had a maid at home who had been completely brainwashed by her Christian friend (nothing wrong with being a believer though) and her whole day became just Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. As a teenager I couldn’t get over how blinded people were by religion, particularly by Christianity (this was a period of heightened activity of evangelists and priests to convert to Christianity). I just found the whole thing (religion) strange, like how can you have multiple gods etc. Just couldn’t understand people following the religion blindly, so I was particularly hostile towards that as a teenager. I resonated a lot with the messages. Also bands like Sepultura with their songs like Refuse resist and Biotech, had strong political messages. It was all about, “don’t trust your government” and “stand up for the meeker people”. Those messages really resonated with me. But it has changed since, also given how many bands have turned out to be right wingers and Neo Nazis. All those illusions got shattered later on and I realised that metal heads are just part of the society and represent the good and the bad. Its just that we dress a little differently than most.

On the topic, what do you think of the band Rotting Christ?

The funny thing is, I met Sakis some time back (Sakis was interviewed for Headbanger’s kitchen back in 2014). What he says that his message is more spiritual now. Earlier, when he had formed the band, he was young and he went for a name that sounded more controversial. He isn’t really anti Christianity, but he believes in spirituality and he said this before, that Rotting Christ represents the rotting part of the society, the world and humanity and of all religions. When I first heard of the band, I too thought, “wow rotting Christ” but once I got to meet him and talk to him, his view was totally different. It’s a bit like how Slayer looks anti- and Tom Araya is a practicing Christian.

Pivoting a bit now, how would you describe the music of DR or DS?

DR – I’ve always had certain bands and sounds that I have followed and aimed to sound like, and I say that in a very broad sense. For example, when I started the band, I was very influenced by gothic and black metal bands like Lacuna Coil, Drisdania, a bit of Nightwish, Theatre of tragedy. At the same time Dimmu Borgir, Death and Cradle of filth. I knew that I wanted to have all those influences in my music. While I would say that the first album is in the Gothic + Black metal space, maybe the next one is more black metal and then it evolves into more Death metal. I would say that DR is a mishmash of all these sub-genres, that is why when I started out, I called it “Demonic metal”. I thought to myself, you know, if bands can call themselves war metal, holocaust metal etc., then I am just calling it Demonic metal. I see terms like Extreme metal and Demonic metal as more encompassing, but I’d say Death metal is the common theme in our music so we are more or less settled for symphonic death metal. But you know, when we talk to magazines, they put in whatever genre they think we are, which is why you see us being referred to as Blackened Death Metal etc.

One thing that has been common across all your albums, from the first one to Propaganda Machine, is the use of clean vocals alongside growls. In Propaganda machine it feels like equal time goes to clean vocals and growls. Is that something you always wanted to bring into your music or just something you tried a few times and thought this really captures the essence?

For me when I’m working on music, I’m rarely ever thinking or working in a calculated sense, I’m not thinking “oh let’s throw in 50% clean vocals because of XYZ”. Ever since I have been listening to metal, I have been listening to bands with clean vocals like Iron Maiden, Metallica, Judas Priest and then I got into death metal, so bands like Cannibal Corpse, Death, Hate Eternal, among others. But I also loved bands like Fear Factory, Soilwork where they use a mix of clean and growling vocals. Bands like Tristania, Theatre of Tragedy, where they blended female vocals with male, heavy vocals. Even Lacuna Coil, where they have Christina’s voice and then you have the other vocalist’s voice which is heavy and rough. I have always enjoyed that contrast and that makes the music exciting for me. And I find that a very good way for me to express myself. When I am working on a song, I am thinking, “what is the best way for me to express myself, how is this part making me feel? Does it make me want to growl or does it make me want to do record clean vocals”. I do it from a very organic perspective. Though maybe over the years I have become more confident with my singing. I am not a very good singer, and it has taken a lot of practise and effort. Being afraid to open-up and say “let me just sing even though I am not as good as I would like to be”, I think that has allowed me to add more clean vocals in the newer stuff compared to earlier, if there is a marked difference.

Around the 2004 DR line-up, my bandmates were like “yeah dude your singing voice is not good”, so a lot of my clean vocal ideas were rejected. And that’s what made me work towards it, so after 10-15 years of being a musician and actively working at it and I feel confident that I can put it up. Maybe taking the extra effort of hiring Daniel to produce my clean vocals where he can tell me you need to sing this line again and keep making me do it till the time I actually nail it. So, I think all those things are factored into where the music is going and what determines the balance of clean vocals against the harsh vocals.

You said you have a very organic approach. Can you elaborate a bit more on that, like how or where do you get your ideas from or how long a song should it be etc.

None of that is on my mind when I am working. Things like song length, all that stuff. Again, because I have had 25 years of doing this, the process has varied across this time. E:g – the first DR album I put out, I literally wrote everything, drums, keyboard, bass, guitar and I played, recorded, mastered it, basically did everything. When I record a song, I don’t think like “this is too long”, I record and put it out there. But when the DR line- up changed, the band said they want to write songs from scratch and there was a lot more collaborative writing. A lot more voices in the picture that made me tweak my writing skills as well. That process is what worked for DR. But with my other band Workshop, all ideas came out of jamming together and from jokes, because it was a comedy rock band. So, a lot of stupid ideas got turned into songs and we, as a band worked on them.

But as DR evolved, a lot of the writing became very individual, for example certain songs were written only by me, some by Mephisto, and we would get together work on them and tweak them a little. On DR there was a little more focus on how we can make this song better or bring everyone’s point of view when it comes to writing. But for Dashavatara, I just sat with the stories, I wrote the whole album in just 20 days or so. I wrote the lyrics along with the music whereas earlier, on all the DR albums we would write the full song and the lyrics would come at the end. All your lyrics and vocal patterns would come at the very end. But for Dashavatara, everything had to be done together because I had to tell a story. It was structured in a way that I was writing the song part by part, whereas earlier I would sit with the guitar and jam on some ideas, maybe write a whole song or half a song. But you know, It basically has evolved over the years.

On my solo material, however, I would sit with the idea, play, finish my part and leave it blank and then give it to the musicians I am collaborating with and see what they come up with. Once they are done with their ideas, coming up with stuff and I have okayed the stuff and they have sent me all the files. Then I may make some changes and I may end up re-recording some of my final parts. Then I am working again on the lyrics based on ideas. I would write down song names, lyrics a lot of times randomly on paper and then collate it all later. So, you know, there is no fixed process, but the main thing is expressing myself and being true to what I want to express, at the end of the day through my music.

You have toured Europe extensively (with DR) and have played at some of the major metal festivals like Wacken (2014), Bloodstock (2018) among others. You’ve pretty much been the band that has paved the way for the likes of Bloodywood.

I think Kryptos were there first, they started before us and even played Wacken before us. I would say Kryptos were a little ahead of us. (Both bands featured in the documentary, “Global Metal”, sequel to Metal: A Headbanger’s journey).

Tell us a bit about how has your experience been, as an Indian band, touring across Europe.

Been absolutely great, did things we never thought possible, played at places we never even knew existed. I’d say the reaction, response, all of it has been great. What has not been great has been the ability to book big tours, to support bigger bands on tours, to be able to make the logistics and finances work, to not just be completely bogged down by the inability to break into the scene there like we would have wanted to.

Any plan on touring as DS to support your new album?

(laughs) that’s another dream that will not come to fruition. Unfortunately, all said and done DS isn’t popular, it’s not mainstream and it’s not at a point where I would be able to even break even to do a tour. To put together a line-up that can actually play this music, given that I have hired the top drummers in the world, I would need at least a 1000 Euros a show to just pay the musicians and I wouldn’t get an offer of more than 100 Euros from a pub in Europe to play a show there. That’s not even going to cover the fuel costs. Let me just break it down for your readers.

For a single club show in Europe, you are looking at:

-150 Euros to hire a basic 9-seater van

-100 Euros for the driver

-100 Euros for fuel

-100 Euros for the hotel rooms as most places cant give you a room

So, you’re looking at a cost of minimum 500 Euros to just get to a venue and play. Even if I could find a band member who could drive and not charge for it, I would still say I would still need at least 250 Euros to just get there and if I’m not getting that 250, I’m making a loss. If my musician cost is going to be 1000 Euros, then unless I sell merch worth 1000 Euros every gig, it’s just financially not possible. You’re taking a hit of 10k-15 Euros, which I don’t have.

I have also had offers to play for big bands and the offer is ok, you get to sleep on the nightliner and maybe something other perks as well. But for this, you have to pay 600 Euros a day. Now if you’re playing 10 shows with them, that’s 6000 Euros. So when you see posters with 3 small bands playing for 10 days each, it’s because they can’t afford to shell out 30k.

And when DR has to come to Europe and if I’m using all Indian musicians, I’m spending at least 4000 Euros to fly them to Europe. The sheer emotional damage of procuring a visa for Europe is staggering, you have to provide 3 years Income tax returns, 6 months of bank statements, you need a minimum balance in your bank, show every place you are travelling to, etc. At this point I can’t even dream of putting myself through that process. I have even stopped taking vacations to Europe, just forget it dude. I would much rather go to Vietnam, Bangkok where I can get visa on arrival. Not happening for Europe.

And DR, where are you with the band now? Is it defunct?

I honestly don’t know myself because the band line-up that stands as is, is myself and Aditya (guitarist) and we put out an EP last year, which is called Decades of Darkness. I do have plans for some more material but haven’t had the chance to pick up the guitar in about a year now. Just haven’t had the motivation. My time these days is spent on my food channel, which has literally taken over my life. I never imagined that I would never be making music in my life, and I would like to think that even if I don’t do it for a couple of years now, it will just be a temporary hiatus and at some point, I will find the drive and desire to get back to it. so, I will never say never, but for now I can’t say that I see anything coming up in the foreseeable future

Talking about Propaganda Machine, we heard it, reviewed it, and loved it. You have worked with some 10 odd musicians from Europe, some of them very well known. How has that experience been for you?

Its insane man! It’s a lot of work coordinating with 12 musicians, all in different parts of the world, with different schedules. That’s why the album took 3 years to get everyone’s stuff recorded. So after I put out my album in 2018, The Last Reptilian Warrior – where I also worked with 12 or 13 musicians, I immediately started writing the songs and contacting musicians. It just took so long because there are so many moving parts, everyone has different schedules. I actually started working on Holocene Termination (released in 2021) soon after The Last Reptilian Warrior, so I am working on Propaganda Machine, maybe spent a year or so and by 2020 I had started and written the Holocene Termination, which was also taking time because I collaborated 8 or 9 musicians there. I thought screw it, I will get the EP (Holocene Termination) and the other album “This too shall pass” (released 2020), where I recorded all the instruments myself, so that I could get something out in 2020. And then Holocene Termination came out in 2021 and then I spent time recording Propaganda Machine, which finally came out in 2023. There was a lot of work that went into it and I reached a point where I thought that I don’t want to rush into it, because when you’re pursuing something with so much effort and passion and putting in 110%, it can be very mentally draining when you don’t meet deadlines that you’ve set because you’re dependent on other people. The biggest problem for me has been finding people with similar vision and passion as me.

Who is the artist you enjoyed the most collaborating with?

That is so unfair man (laughs). For me, I would say the most memorable has been George Kollias, when he was still with Nile. In fact, he was the first big name I had on my food channel, Headbanger’s Kitchen, back in 2016, I think. After that I collaborated with him on a full album, he loved the album, loved the music. So that experience has a very special place in my heart. I’d also add that once you’ve worked with someone like George, you become a little more confident that other musicians are going to work with you because you’ve worked with the legend himself.

Alright, lets talk a little about the album art covers. Who did the cover for Propaganda machine?

I think the artwork is as much part of metal as the music itself. The artwork of all the bands I used to listen, Slayer, Metalica, Immortal, Emperor, Old Man’s Child, Dimmu Borgir, these artworks are so vivid and eye catching. I mean look at Blind Guardian. Its all such incredible artwork and catches your eye first. I think I bought Iced Earth just because of the artwork. So, it was always something I took great pride in having artwork that reflect and represent the music appropriately. I think for the last 10-13 years, or even from early on I think we really invested in artwork. I mean for the first album, I could only shell out so much money. But finally, once we were able to start making a little bit money, we could invest a bit more into the band. We really put a lot of effort and time and money to get good artists to work with us to have great artwork to go with the music. For Propaganda Machine, it’s an artist from Ukraine called Daemorph, who has done the artwork for the album. He is a fabulous artist. In fact, he was done with the artwork in 2020 and I was sitting on it for good 3 years.

Just to touch upon all the other things you do, besides music. How many channels do you have now on youtube?

I have 4 channels at the moment, Demonstealer & Demonic Resurrection are my music channels and Headbanger’s Kitchen where I cook food and share recipes and Headbanger Eats, where I post restaurant and food reviews that I haven’t cooked myself.

Which has been the biggest band that you had on Headbanger’s Kitchen?

Lamb of God. Along with Gojira. I had started with the simple intent of having another creative outlet for the cooking that I was doing, and it just morphed into a show. It was quite a big production, we had to move all the furniture in my living room, set up lights, shoot with 2 cameras etc. Don’t get me wrong, in the beginning it was fun, and I thought great, people will come and its free publicity for my band. But after 4 years when it stopped growing and it required the same amount of effort, I thought to myself, why not focus on the band itself. And I will shoot whenever I have time and if I feel like interviewing someone, I will call them. But I stopped interviewing bands some 9 or 10 years ago.

Then I got into the keto diet and thought hey, if I am making pizza out of this cauliflower, then why not put it on the channel? And the next thing you know, since Keto was trending in US, my video quality is good and there was a gap in the market, people are flocking to my channel and I am making a career out of youtube doing Keto recipes. And I never thought of going back to the old format as it had no potential and this literally pays my bills and I have to focus on this now. (Headbanger’s Kitchen has 687k subscribers).

Going back to the Indian metal scene now. How are things now? How has it changed from the glory days (2002 – 2010). Events like GIR and I-Rock had a huge part to play and they are no longer there. How are thing in India now?

That’s a good question. I have an interesting take on that. I think we say ‘glory days’ because we are in a certain age group, and we grew up during a certain time in India. Hence, the nostalgia factor is quite high. I meet a lot of people every day who say, “hey man I used to be part of the scene, it was so great back then, nowadays there is nothing”. I would tell them that the metal scene is definitely there and thriving, but you have grown up, you’ve gone to office, have friends who are not metalheads and you go for things like comedy shows etc. Back when you were in college you had time and were at every gig. If you look at the audiences at GIR and I-Rock, yeah, we had big numbers back then, but how many were real fans? How many bought merch? How many of them stuck around once things moved ahead? In those days you had nothing to do but go for those gigs. Today in India, you can go for a comedy festival, Gin festival, Food event, theatre, movies, concerts happening in people’s houses – small acoustic gigs. The sheer volume of activities you can do in India has gone up exponentially. The crowd as a result has dispersed. I mean, you can go to the NH-7 weekender festival, Lollapalooza, even literature festival. Then there is a whole host of festivals in the northeast where you can camp for the duration of the festival and the experience is amazing.

Back then (early 2000s) it was just one festival, and everyone congregated there, but now people have dispersed. With this however, we are witnessing the evolution of a true industry, where you are actually building quality audiences who will hopefully stick around when they grow up. Most people, when they grow up get a job and move into a social circle where everyone is not a metalhead or people move outside the country. The vast amount of metalheads from our generation are now living abroad and they are going to Wacken, Bloodstock etc. Most of the people who’ve stayed back, their social circle has changed so much that they are no longer part of the scene.

Having said that, the scene has slowly picked up after covid. It’s definitely changed where now it’s not 1 big event where everyone plays. Now bands have to make effort to build tours. In the old days, we needed a sponsor to have a concert who would pay for flights etc. but that has all gone, all has been crushed and destroyed.

Now the bands have to work on gate deals, how many people can they pull, they have to book their own stay, flights etc. and are given a lump sum amount. So, what we are building now is an actual touring circuit. A band is going to work on an album, when it is ready, they will tour and won’t play for a while. Earlier, it was every month we will play a show. All that has changed. Now there are proper concert venues in most cities. You are now seeing regular metal shows every month or two and this sort of touring circuit forming. Is it amazing? is it jam packed every time? No, but it is getting better. Also, so many more international bands are coming here, and they are also doing small venues. Vader came to Mumbai and along with 2 Polish bands and Inner Sanctum, played a small gig with 350 people, that’s it. Bangalore 500 people. So it is becoming more of an industry but is far from being profitable or enough to sustain a livelihood.

Do you think there is still a place for a GIR or I-Rock to come back?

100%. I-Rock came back last year and sold out all tickets. But basically, it did a repeat version and it worked because of the nostalgia factor. But they now have to do a lot more work to make it work year after year. Because now, what are you bringing to the concert table which doesn’t already exist. Like I said, every kind of concert is happening these days.