The Young Drug is a four-piece band of indie music. They rose to fame for their unique style infusing various styles. Their song ”Beautiful” became a national hit and a YouTube sensation.
Interview
Questions and answers
Do all of you have a similar taste in music? How do you resolve any conflicts that arise?
We have diverse preferences when it comes to music—like, Abhijeet, our beatboxer, prefers various genres like Dubstep, Trap, EDM, Lo-fi, Vaporwave, Jazz, Blues, Hip-hop, Rap, etc. Similarly, Aniket, our vocalist, listens to a lot of pop, RnB, classical music. We, therefore, make a lot of experimental music because all of us have diverse tastes. We combine our ideas.
Talk to us about the Extraction Project
We never thought that “The Extraction Project” would become a series. We were inspired by a beatboxer named Colaps. So we thought, “why not try it out?” Choosing Lisa Mishra’s video as our first contract in the series was a well-prepared idea. When she shared it on her wall, we couldn’t believe it! As the first video got a significant response, we turned it into a series.
Your originals have a lot of heart and passion poured into it, so could you walk us through the formulation of lyrics down to the final edit?
We always wanted to represent independent music, and therefore the concept of originals. People can relate to it. We just sit and jam to come up with something. A melody may strike someone’s head, and then we build a song. Sometimes, we think of an incident or a memory or we have rough ideas which we patch together.
You guys have covered songs from Bollywood. Perhaps we could expect a cross-lingual song from you guys?
We are working on it. We hail from Maharashtra, so we want to write something in Marathi, an original. We have many ideas on which songs to cover, and you’ll see something soon! Our favorite languages to cover songs in other than Hindi would be Marathi, Malayalam, Bengali, and also Gujarati.
How do you manage to strike a balance between producing a type of music you want and the type the audience wants?
It’s a conflict, choosing between the music we want to do and the audience wants to consume. If we are covering a party number, we try to give it our touch. The audience then gets their request fulfilled, and we have the pleasure to perform it. Another thing we are trying is the 2:1 algorithm, where two songs will be for the audience, and another one will be for us.
The band name gives a feeling of youth and addiction to music. What was the idea behind naming it, and who came up with it?
Before the band began, Aniket and Vinit (our vocalists) were a duo named “Anivin.” Ayush and I joined later. We always wanted to include the word “Young” in our name. We came up with ridiculous names like “Youngblood” or “Young thug,” which aren’t very memorable. Vinit came up with the idea of “The Young Drug.” When asked about our name, we say, “Come listen to us jam, and you’ll be addicted.”
What was your parent’s reaction to the band initially? Have they listened to your songs?
They didn’t oppose us, but they weren’t supportive either. Only after RedFM and the whole extraction project, they were in. We think that India is a country where competition is immense. Parents feel skeptical when we say we want to take the road less taken. If you confirm that you can grow and earn with your talent, your parents will support you eventually.