‘Indian metal bands are good for the world’

Metal Hammer editor Alexander Milas,talks about promoting home-grown talent at the sidelines of the recently held SoundBound music conference organised by British Council, Goethe Institut and Only Much Louder.

Demonic Ressurection, Scribe, Bhayanak Maut and Undying Inc are some of the most amazing bands I’ve heard. They are comparable to international metal acts,” says Alexander Milas, editor of

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Metal Hammer

magazine, an institution for heavy metalheads.

In town to give a keynote address on day one of SoundBound music conference organised by British Council, Goethe Institut and Only Much Louder at Ravindra Natya Mandir, Milas announced that Metal Hammer is looking to promote Indian talent world over. “We will be curating a compilation of Indian metal and distributing it worldwide alongwith the magazine,” announced Milas. The towering figure with long hair and sporting a T-shirt paying allegiance to Iron Maiden (the band that pushed him to music writing), says it was the band that made him discover talent in India.

“It was the Iron Maiden documentary,

Flight 666

, that was shooting their world tour and I was amazed with the excitement and energy of their fans in India. That got me curious and I was blown by the talent in India. Indian metal is good for the world,” Milas says. One of the first steps made to promote the metal scene in India was to give Mumbai band, Demonic Resurrection, the Metal Hammer Golden Gods award for Best Global Metal.

“Indian metal is very real, extreme and edgy. That is something that we keep looking for. Plus we realise that there is a lot of potential in the Indian market in terms of an artiste exchange. We want to bring international acts here and take Indian talent overseas,” adds Milas.

Metal Hammer is hoping to launch a website in India sometime next year and hope to extend their readership to the nation as well. “If an Iron Maiden can play to an audience of some 5000 people in India, that is a huge number. I am here to do business and investigate India as a potential market,” says Milas.