For nearly 23 years, Euphoria has epitomized the independent pop music scene in India. These were the guys who jumpstarted hundreds of thousands of people’s foray into homegrown pop music. In short, they’re simply the icons who shaped the future of popular indie music with classic songs like Maaeri, Aana Meri Gully, Dhoom Pichak Dhoom, Mehfuz, and Bewafaa, among others.
However, it’s only unfortunate that the band doesn’t have exclusive rights to any of their works. This means that it hasn’t been able to earn money from its own songs being played on different platforms.
Sadly, the music industry has always made more money for record labels than it has for artistes, said Palash Sen, the lead vocalist of Euphoria. “I plan to re-release our old albums simply because we don’t have rights to any one of them. I will tell you the greatest truth of my life which is I have never made one rupee out of Maaeri. Never! Everybody sings Maaeri. It’s played everywhere and I don’t even get one rupee out of it. It is unfair. This system is unfair. The only reason I’d like to remake our songs is to get rights to them and claim them,” the singer told us.
Sen, who recently performed in Delhi along with his fellow band members Debajyoti Bhaduri, Rakesh Bhardwaj, Prashant Trivedi, Vishal Mehta, and others, as part of The Doers Club’s marquee event, came down heavily on Bollywood and big record labels for making music a commodity.
“The problem in this country is not music being free, but Bollywood and music labels. Bollywood makes music according to films and because they have so much money they will promote that music to the maximum but that is not music being made for music per se. It’s just the music to promote a film. Whatever is leftover from the films, labels will take out their sums. So, unless you really go and search for Euphoria or Lucky Ali or any of the independent artistes online, we are not in your face. Ninety-eight percent of people will watch what’s in their face, they don’t have the time or energy to go and search except for the people who were there in the 90s because they know what real music is all about,” Sen said.
Sen, who’s been a torchbearer of independent music, further said that we need a fair way to compensate musicians in the country. “You can’t fight the monster. It’s very difficult. Last year, I started this petition called ‘India for Indie’ where I requested people to sign it so that I could take it to the government of India and the Prime Minister. I asked them, ‘When the pandemic hits, who’s looking after the freelance musicians?’ The first thing that people fall back on during these trying times is entertainment. A couple of people signed the petition but then you need money to reach everywhere,” he said.
Talking about his experience collaborating with The Doers Club, Sen said, “It’s an amazing platform for independent music artistes like us who have no support. I have always believed that if you have the talent and goodness, people will recognise you because primarily they are looking for genuine and original stuff. My association with The Doers Club started in 2014 when we did a song for them and it was shot in Pondicherry. It was a beautiful experience. It’s wonderful that they have approached us again to play music. It’s truly an experiential platform with so many things involved from music to food and comedy. They are trying to set entertainment back on its feet and it’s great. I think they are setting an example by bringing people back to clubs and concerts and getting artistes back to playing.”
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