With Bangalore band Kryptos heading out for a Europe tour, Indian metal is all set to hit the world stage.

Nigel Britto

Non-metallers who have never ridden the lightning may not have heard of Indian thrash band Kryptos. But come July, the fab four from Bangalore are all set to make their mark when they embark on the first cross-country tour of Europe by any Indian metal band. 

This journey started in 1998, when two 18-year-olds - Nolan Lewis (vocals/guitars) and Ganesh K (former bassist), then students at St Joseph's College, Bangalore - decided to transform their obsession with Iron Maiden and Judas Priest into something concrete. With Assamese drummer Ching Len, the threesome played gigs at practically every college in and around the city. This, when there was almost no metal scene in India and no MySpace or Facebook to help bands reach out to the young, who are every rock band's potential audience. 

The journey was worth it, says Lewis, Kryptos' founder and frontman. "It's been 12 tough years, but we wouldn't have it any other way," says Lewis, who works as an insurance analyst at a financial company to supplement his income. 

Kryptos has been through a number of lineup changes. The most notable one was the addition of Ryan 'Maiden' Colaco in 2002, who is today one of the best metal drummers in the country. The band got more reinforcements in November 2006, when Jayawant Tiwari and Rohit Chaturvedi, formerly of the band Mutiny, joined on bass guitar and lead guitar respectively. In 2007, Kryptos became the first Indian metal band to be signed up with a major international label, Old School Metal Records, based in California. 

So far, the band has played around 300 gigs in every corner of the country. Among its foremost achievements is opening for Iron Maiden at the Rock in India fest in Bangalore in 2008. After the gig, Kryptos presented their band Tshirt to Iron Maiden's frontman Bruce Dickinson, who not only reciprocated but also posted a picture of himself wearing a Kryptos shirt on the band's official website the next day. 

The four now have big hopes of their Europe tour, where they'll be playing in Pecs in Hungary, followed by Frankfurt, Niederkruchten and Stuttgart in Germany, as well as Pfafficon in Switzerland. Apart from the venue, it's the company they're thrilled about. It's no mean feat to be playing, among others, alongside bands like Brazilian metal band Torture Squad and the uber-crazy Mayhem, easily the world's most outrageous metal band (when the band's former vocalist shot himself in the head, the rest of the band made necklaces with pieces of his skull). And if that's not enough, the band's former guitarist murdered the bassist. The band is (justifiably) banned in certain countries. 

Kryptos' music is a juxtaposition of oldschool and the faster, post- '90s thrash metal. "It's a natural progression from the Iron Maiden days," laughs Colaco who doubles up as drum teacher. The band has two full-length albums, Spiral Ascent (2004) and The Ark of Gemini (2008), which are testament to the evolving stature of Indian metal in the world. Both received positive reviews from metal websites around the world, thus getting the band an international fan following most Indian metal bands can only dream of. "We've never compromised on our music to get where we are, and that's something we are damn proud of," beams Lewis. As part of the tour, the band is a special invitee to the Waaken Open Air in Germany, called the Mecca of heavy metal culture by metal historian Sam Dunn. But as optimistic as he normally is, Lewis is practical about the Europe tour. "It's up to us to make things happen." As long as the Icelandic volcano doesn't act up again, Kryptos is sure to show some steel.

This article was first published on The Times of India's Crest edition on June 19, 2010.

Dio, another day

Heavy metal suddenly feels hollow. Ronnie James Dio has passed.

On May 16, heavy metal lost some of its heaviness. The Iron Man of metal, Ronnie James Dio, 68, whose fearsome stage persona won him millions of fans around the world, died of cancer. The rich tenor that soared smoothly into an operatic baritone, the wild hairdo, the over-the-top dressing and commanding stage presence that belied his puny stature (he was shorter than Sachin Tendulkar) is finally still. To the very end, his music was powerful and consistently excellent, with deep lyrical thought pervading every fibre of his being. He was a standard bearer who held aloft the metal pennant with a dignity and integrity rarely associated with the genre. After he died, rock musicians of every hue lined up to pay tribute to the master, the dragon-slayer with a heart, the Michael Jackson of metal. 

Dio's career spanned over half a century, starting out with rockabilly bands as a teenager. His near-classical style of vocal production was developed before the age of amplification, when the singer had to project his voice to the back of the hall by his own strength. Along with Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden and Rob Halford of Judas Priest, he pioneered the semi-operatic style of vocal production in metal, one instance among many of the genre's classical roots. Variously described as a 'class act' and a 'thorough gentleman', there is no record of him ever having refused an autograph. 

Though he started his career in the late '50s, it wasn't until the early '70s that his band, Elf - they used to open for Deep Purple - started getting noticed. In 1975, Purple's guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore, hired Dio for his new band, Rainbow, which brought him fame. It's another matter that Dio's golden vibrato closely resembled that of Ian Gillan, Purple's singer. In 1979, when trouble began to brew in Black Sabbath, the founders of the heavy metal genre, iconic singer Ozzy Osbourne was fired for his drug and alcohol addiction, and Sabbath's manager's daughter Sharon (who later married Ozzy) suggested that Ronnie should head the world's most formidable metal act. 

The three years he spent with the Sabs brought him worldwide renown, as much for his voice as his prodigious song writing. His first album with the band, Heaven and Hell, is still the holy grail of metal. More than merely a singer, he was an accomplished and articulate lyricist with the aura of a troubled poet. Though many think that the band's dark name and Dio's gothic personality - he was obsessed with skulls, chains and occult imagery - indicated that he was a Satanist, Dio was never really a devil worshipper. (He was raised Catholic and thought as a child that nuns were "penguins who would smack you if you went wrong". ) For him, devils and dragons were metaphors of the ancient battle between good and evil. 

It was with Sabbath that Dio popularised the cornuto, or the devil's horns, metal's most enduring symbol. Dio didn't invent the devil horns, nor did he claim to. He once explained that it was an Italian superstition (his parents migrated to the US from Italy) that the devil's horns, called the 'maloik', was used as a sign to ward off the evil eye. 

Widely regarded as one of the most affable and unassuming metal heads in history, he rarely left a performance without posing with every fan who wanted a picture with him. Many fans call him "the nicest man you'll ever meet". He was also closely associated with Children of the Night, an organisation, which rescues America's children from prostitution, and his metal version of Live Aid raised massive funds for famine relief in Africa. 

The metal community is in mourning. Online forums are heavy with tributes in an outpouring not witnessed since Michael Jackson's death. One Mexican fan recalls how he wasn't allowed into the hotel Dio was staying at, and shouted, "Dio, Dio", till Dio himself came out and asked security to let him in. When security refused, Dio walked out in the rain and signed autographs and posed for pictures with everyone present. Metallica's Lars Ulrich credits his entire career to Dio's influence, Killswitch Engage called him "one of the greatest metal singers of all time", and Slipknot's Corey Taylor called him a "great man with a smile and a handshake for fans and peers alike". 

It's unlikely that the metal community will ever forget Ronnie James Dio. The volume of work and reputation he leaves behind ensure that he will always be a Rainbow in the Dark.

This article was first published in The Times of India's Crest edition on May 22, 2010.