A night with Peter Cat Recording Co., the New Delhi band that’s found global appeal
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) — There’s an unspoken reverence emanating from the crowd as Peter Cat Recording Co. begins to play the blend of disco and jazzy psychedelic melodies that intro “People Never Change.”
All of a sudden, singer and guitarist Suryakant Sawhney launches into the melancholy, self-aware lyrics that contrast the upbeat track. Cheers erupt from the sea of fans packed like tinned fish inside the intimate West Hollywood, California, venue, swaying back and forth as Sawhney’s crooning, Frank Sinatra-esque vocals wash over them.
It’s an August night at the Troubadour, and music lovers have gathered for a seemingly spiritual experience in the form of an album release party. Phones are out for only a few songs. “BETA” has been out for less than 72 hours at this point and already fans are singing along to almost every word.
“I think ultimately the kind of people who come to the shows end up being people who have actually had deeper connection with the music itself,” said Sawhney. “It (the music) requires people to know them, have heard them, internalize them, know the lyrics so then they can enjoy themselves.”
The New Delhi-based band has quickly risen from its status as an indie band popular among South Asian audiences to embarking on a 77-stop headlining world tour through December. The tour titled “Good Luck Beta ’24,” is hitting North America, Europe and India, while Peter Cat is also opening for Khruangbin during select dates.
“It felt like a good place to start,” Sawhney said of the West Coast choice.
“I mean, at least in the U.S., really, it was very organic,” he said with respect to the band’s rise in popularity. Peter Cat Recording Co. was born on New Year’s Day 2011 and emerged onto the music scene with their debut album, “Sinema.” They’re named after the Peter Cat restaurant in Kolkata and Sawhney’s “desire to be a businessman rather than just a musician.”
After a 2012 tour through India, their first show outside of the country was in Berlin, in 2015. Four years later, the album “Bismillah” launched them onto the radar of global audiophiles, generating a new strain of fans.
Sawhney and his bandmates — Karan Singh on drums, Dhruv Bhola on bass, Rohit Gupta on keys and wind instruments and Kartik Pillai on guitar and various instruments — have a self-proclaimed “laidback energy as a group,” creating an atmosphere similar to a theatrical performance. As the band transitioned from song to song with very little banter, fans listened to hits from “Bismillah” and 2018’s “Portrait of a Time: 2010-2016,” along with newer tracks from “BETA,” like “Suddenly” and “Flowers R. Blooming.”
Their synergy is evidence of the current band members’ dynamic. Since its inception, Peter Cat Recording Co. has had members come and go, but the current lineup has been working together since 2018.
“I think if you want to stick together as a band, there are some things that would seem to be fundamental where you have to be able to split a lot of your success equally, regardless of how it works,” Sawhney said. “So, sometimes you need to operate more like a family, just in order for it to work, actually, because I think all this stuff gets complicated.”
While Sawhney’s vocals can be heard throughout most of the album, “BETA” also highlights the voices of Bhola and Pillai on “I Deny Me” and “Foolmuse.” During their performances, each band member gets the spotlight as they shuffle throughout the stage, playing different instruments depending on the track.
Sawhney says the group aims to transcend labels like “band” or “collective.”
“They’re just terms. They mean nothing. In reality, you just at each step, assess whether working together is mutually benefiting everybody. And you’re all moving ahead in some form,” says Sawhney.
When recording, the band says they all take part in production. The band describes the 13-track “BETA” in a press release as “a collection of stories about the future told 50 years in the past to make sense of the present on our only home, planet earth.” It transitions from genre to genre, ranging from alt-rock to disco. The band prefers to avoid being boxed in.
“Sometimes it’s nice to not be easily reducible,” said Sawhney.
The album was recorded in various locations from Goa, India to Joshua Tree, California. Its title is Hindi for “son” and was announced by Singh’s six-month old son. In an Instagram post, Singh is shown laying out folded pieces of white paper in front of the crawling baby, who grabs one of the pieces, unveiling the title for the album. The other titles were in the running?
“They weren’t good enough, I guess, to even share,” Singh said.
When first crafting “BETA,” Sawhney and Singh said that “Flowers R. Blooming” was the track that cemented the beginning of the album and the first they completed while recording during their last U.S. tour.
“I think it sums up that little trip we took, starting from India and going all the way through America,” said Sawhney. “The spaces we chose to record these songs just naturally lend themselves to be those spaces to record that song, whether it was because of the acoustics, whether it was because of the surrounding environment or just general vibe, for lack of a better word.”