Adit (Blackblood)
Adit Khanzode is a familiar face to those in the Bombay metal scene. For the past few years, he has been organising gigs under the Blackblood banner and this weekend will be the 15th edition, no easy task. Find out more about the origins of Blackblood, the Mumbai metal scene and what’s coming up in the 15th edition of Blackblood in my interview with Adit below
Hi Adit, you are gearing up for the 15th edition of Blackblood. How are preparations going?
The preps are going on in full swing as it is our 3rd Year Anniversary gig as well, trying to promote it as much as we can for it to reach the maximum amount of people who have been related to Blackblood since 2016
You started the Blackblood series of concerts a couple years ago. What inspired you to get it started?
There were hardly any venues who were promoting metal music in Mumbai, especially Navi Mumbai, we had a few organizers who tried to create a regular metal gig scene but failed to deliver most of the times due to unforeseen circumstances and stopped doing it after a while, me being a part of an upcoming metal band ‘Orcus’ at that time felt the need to take matters into my own hands.
Looking back, what has been the most memorable edition of Blackblood so far? Why?
I can’t be biased towards a particular edition of Blackblood because all the BBs are my Babies (so cheesy) , but there are a few editions which did leave an amazing imprint of happiness on our minds,
for eg, BB6#Unchained was a special one cause it was dedicated to Unchained, one of the biggest college metal festivals that ever had been in Navi Mumbai , BB7#7meibaj was our first anniversary gig which had a tremendous turn out, BB8#Thankyouchester where we cried our hearts out, BB12 which was a part of Godless’ tour swarm over india, BB13#suarkebacche for the amount of grind it had in it, and BB14 #coremachayeshor for being the most surprising edition with respect to turn outs
How do you select the bands that will perform at the shows?
I have been attending local metal gigs since 2011, and have seen almost every band that’s there in the city perform live, the main criteria for selection of the bands is that, they have to be tight enough to pull off a good enough set and also need to promote the show in a positive manner, it also depends on how much crowd a band might be able to pull off as Blackblood has been DIY since its inception
There are very few metal gigs happening in Mumbai at the moment. What do you feel is the reason behind it?
Its mostly Bollywood, Electronic and Hip Hop music that has taken over the live music scene in general, the logistics/production costs involved in an electronic producer’s performance or a hip hop artist’s performance is much less compared to producing a whole live band, Bollywood still manages to do live band shows as it’s a major platform in india and has a massive fan following, metal on the other hand caters to a very niche audience due to the extremity of the nature of metal music which isn’t very acceptable to the masses
What are you currently listening to?
I have been listening to Gojira, Meshuggah, The Ocean, Veil of Maya, Heart Of a Coward, Napalm Death, Devourment, Cerebral Bore, Animals As Leaders, Slayer, Metallica, Pantera, Widek, Hatebreed, the Contortionist, Lamb Of God, Linkin Park, SOAD, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Algorithm, Whitechapel etc in metal
Daft Punk, Bonobo, FKJ, Porcupine Tree, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, The Doors, RATM, Kings of Leon, anything that’s chill step minimal lo-fi or down tempo
What are 5 bands that the readers should check out?
Again 5 is a very small number to list out for the readers to check out but I personally recommend a few bands from the Mumbai Local Metal Scene that you guys should check out, Eternal Returns, Carnage Inc, Sutledge, Dirge, Pacifist, Atmosfear, Sceptre, Primitiv, Albatross, Stark Denial, Anthracite, Last Ride Home, Festacorn, Death By Fungi, Dionysian, Killchain, Five Of Castles, Labyrinth , Jatin Talukdar Project, System House33
What can the audience expect from the upcoming edition of Blackblood?
Sheer madness as the Lineup this time is RAD AF, we have extreme death metallers Plague Throat from Shilliong, Prog/mathcore geniuses Orchid from Bangalore, Thrash with a mix of groove hailing from Hyderabad i.eHostilian, pure death chops presented by Dead Exaltation and Bloodkill who are an upcoming thrash metal band who have been ruling the college circuits in and around Mumbai, and a lots and lots of happy people in High Spirits (not the venue)
Do you have any more shows planned in the coming months?
We do have shows planned for the coming months, however as blackblood has been always commencing in Mumbai or nearby, we are planning on taking it to different cities in different states and would be looking for collaboration with bands from those particular cities
Thanks for answering all my questions. Do you have anything else to add?
Thank you so much for considering me worthy of this interview, all I want to add is that Metal Music in general is fading away and a lot and lot more people are turning their ears to different genres, I am not against any genre as I myself enjoy music from every aspect of life, but also should not forget that , our upcoming generations won’t even know of this genre if we don’t introduce it to them first hand, I got into listening to metal/rock music because of cartoon network where POA by Linkin Park used to be aired with a cool animated video, got introduced to live metal music through Unchained and chose promoting metal music in everyway as my goal for life, we need to make the younger generation aware of this genre,we need to stop this sub-genre based elitism where people who follow a certain sub-genre of music DISS people who follow a slightly different sub-genre, and unite as metalheads to save the scene and make it progress in a positive manner, I really want to build a community of metalheads who support eachother at gigs and in general in life because there’s one thing common between us, i.e the Black blood of metal that runs through our veins.
If you are in and around Mumbai on 20th of APRIL, do come for the show or you can simply buy the tickets as a donation for this event on this event link
Trendcrusher 
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