Chick chick bang bang: Rocker women

Women are breaking through the strobe-lit glass ceiling of the metal music scene too. DNA profiles some women who have been growling and snarling their way to stardom.

If your idea of a metal band consists of some ugly headbangers with long hair and unkempt beards growling and spitting into the mike, think again. And this time, make place for plenty of women too, who are holding their own in the world of rock in technique and ferocity.
Take thirty-year-old Yasmin Claire Kazi. Having dabbled in singing and playing some instruments, Kazi found her calling as a drummer.

The only woman in the Bangalore-based extreme metal band Myndsnare, Kazi feels at home every time she gets behind her skins. And this completes the image: The rocker, an avid motorbike enthusiast, can be spotted zooming around on a Royal Enfield Bullet.

“I have been singing for many years,” says Kazi. “But I reached a point where I felt I wasn’t expressing myself fully with my voice. So I picked up the keyboard and then the guitar. But it didn’t feel right. Ten years ago, I sat behind the drums and I instantly knew I had come home.” What about the choice to play in a metal band? “I have always been attracted to physical challenges, and was also keen on sports. Being a drummer with a metal band seemed the right level of energy for me,” she says.

For Shazneen Arethna, playing with a band is where all the fun lies. The Mumbai-based vocalist performs solo too, but insists that she truly comes alive while performing with a band. “The atmosphere is electrifying and the jamming fun. Also, the feedback from audiences to a band with a female singer is the same as what it would be with an all-male band,” says Arethna who has performed with Zero, Soul Curry and Three Guys And A Girl.

Bangalore band Venator have created waves within a year of their arrival on the rock scene. But adding to the curiosity about them is the fact that they are fronted by a young woman, 21-year-old Akshaya Srinivasan. The vocalist is touted as the ‘first growling female’ in an Indian metal band. “I just grew into metal,” says Srinivasan, whose guttural singing was discovered quite by accident.
“One day, during rehearsals, I screamed at the guitarist, and that’s when I realised I could growl.” Since then, Srinivasan has been regularly entertaining crowds with her powerful stage presence and strong vocals.

By contrast, Nikhila Krishnamurthy, 22, is shy and reticent. But hand her a bass guitar and a mountain of stored energy just flows out of her. Krishnamurthy plays along to Akshaya’s vocals in Venator. “I really enjoy playing bass because it suits the kind of person I am. I don’t like being in the spotlight,” she says.

Being a ‘minority’ in a male-dominated heavy metal scene does not affect these women’s talent or position in the band, they say.
Jayashree Singh, 54, singer in the Kolkata rock band Skinny Alley, has been singing professionally for 32 years. With hundreds of gigs behind her, she says: “I have never known any kind of gender bias throughout my career and it has never been an issue. I have never projected myself as a solo singer with a group of guys backing me; I am one of the ‘guys’ in the band,” she says.

Kazi, on the other hand, has gradually and symbiotically grown to this. “In my early days as a drummer, there was a lot of scepticism about me. People wondered who this girl, bashing away at the drums, was. Then it became a freak show, where people came to watch a female drummer play, rather than focus on the band. But now, people accept me for what I do. Once the novelty wears off, being a woman drummer doesn’t matter. I have faced more problems in public than within the industry,” she says.

Adds Srinivasan: “People are finally beginning to accept the fact that women can be part of the metal scene too. Just look at how many girls turn up at a metal concert these days.”

Arethna feels that she has nothing to worry about as the “dirty socks and bottle thrown at me will be the same as what would be thrown at a male singer,” she jokes.

Krishnamurthy, however, is not too sure if the audience is ready for women rockers. “People are surprised to see my vocalist and me on stage. They are confused and wonder what two young women are doing there. But the moment Akshaya lets out a loud growl, people realise we aren’t kidding and that we are serious about the music too.” They have received many thumbs-up for venturing into a domain that is primarily considered male, she adds. This should be motivation enough for more women to begin to take centrestage too. Rock on, girls.

With inputs by Aniruddha Guha