When I spoke with Sumit, the frontman and, lead guitarist and composer of the band Easy Riders, that has been on the road since late 1990’s before the digital revolution, he said: “there’s a lot of flexibility in playing in a trio band with a bassist and a drummer, and, a lead guitarist because one can play as one wants”. To create the charm of a strange trip and wander into Alice’s land, one needs imagination and freedom, at the same  time, technical virtuosity to implement it day in a day out at live performances. Easy Riders from Kolkata, is not a traditional band in any sense, their lyrics is very magical that often confronts the past living in the present, a relativistic adventure into an unknown territory much like Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle where the possibilities are very much seeded in the beginning when the band started jamming on their own. When Sumit started the evening at Someplace Else on 8th July to commemorate their three track 20 minutes EP with a live performance of their track “Sweet Leaf Like Thing”, the audience didnt  know which way this would go as the band made it a point that they will play tracks differently every time they go live, something which Grateful Dead and Phish had done in the past. An instrumental piece to be included in a three track EP, is a courageous act in itself, and, Sumit always had the full repertoire to play bluesy, jazzy, and even folk rock – a combination of different sounds. An avid listener is often mesmerised because it seems they have heard it somewhere – it’s embedded in their neurons – an artwork of many styles encrypted, something one has heard in the past like a passed-on CSNY bootleg, or, a Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Maha Vishnu Orchestra and Dave Matthews live record, but, still distinctively original, where Sumit’s lead guitar would create a wonderful space where Soumyajit, the eclectic bassist, and Arka, the drummer, would ease into their acts, playing a pretty thing, that takes off your mundane load, rambling into a “Stange Land” – “Yes, I was in a strange land, I would like to go back there if I can, I felt like, little hobbit there”. A lyrical charm that often reminds one of the psychedelic era – is it the same quantum weirdness in the lyrics that Grace Slick so mastered in the White Rabbit song one really doesn’t know, but, the certainty of Easy Riders music is that you have something you can connect with irrespective of space and time, either, you are growing up or feeling bluesy about the past you have traversed : ” I have been walking a while now, up the winding road, hoping to lose this city, hoping to shed my load”. (Mr. Mountain, Easy Riders)

Reviewing a 20 minutes listening time Virtual Lives EP released this month by Easy Riders would have been very easy thing to do, but, it isn’t since ticking the boxes and giving them 8/10 is not really doing justice to their musical endeavour. They have been there in this music scene before the digital era began, in the late 90s, and, often bands get lost as we have seen in the past because music demands a change based on the listeners choice or preferences. But they have evolved as a band, no doubt, but, the music they jammed in their heydays is the same music they are doing even now, their ideology of playing long instrumental sessions coupled with songs with vocal harmonies, bluesy riffs and a structured bass rhythm and drumming pattern remaining much the same, albeit in a refined way, and, the alchemy happens spontaneously where they play differently each time they hit the stage. This defining music – to create a genre of its own, is a very hard thing to do these days, and, it all goes back to being open to various influences, either, eastern or western, to come up with something as original as what Easy Riders have done – they don’t compromise with their music. They play with passion, they have brilliant ideas (time signatures, harmonies contrapuntal ) which they execute in a fresh way, their music really makes one fall in love with music more. I would recommend every listener to hear their EP Virtual Lives, which is available online, listen to them patiently and you will be hooked on to their type of music.

The pictures of the band published here are from their recent performance at the Someplace Else, the Park for the launch of their EP Virtual Lives, credit to Spandan Roy Choudhury for the pics.

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– Joy Roy Choudhury