Heretic comprises of Arpith Samuel on Drums, Hareesh Kumar and Abhijit Namboodiripad on the guitars, Akhil Unnikrishnan handles the vocals and Jishnu plays the bass currently, who also is the guitarist for the metalcore band Split-Second. Jishnu is popularly known as the Emo kid in the band and Akhil as dyoood, which have long undisclosable stories behind them .

7. Heretic recently performed at JRO 09 and received much accolades, what is the best and worst gig or venues ever? Any memories

Named after the fearless Greek who was burnt alive for voicing his opinion, Heretic believes in speaking out fearlessly and thinking out of the box, unafraid to voice their opinion and standing their ground. They are a four piece metalcore band from Cochin.They are rated among the best bands from Kerala.

IRMP3: Why the name Heretic? How did you guys come up with the name?
HERETIC : Initially when we started out, we were very amused by the attitude of people to our music. So the name Heretic, which stands for the fact that we believe in our music and stick to it despite what anybody else reacts to it.

IRMP3: Introduce band members please
HERETIC: Heretic comprises of Arpith Samuel on Drums, Hareesh Kumar and Abhijit Namboodiripad on the guitars, Akhil Unnikrishnan handles the vocals and Jishnu plays the bass currently, who also is the guitarist for the metalcore band Split-Second. Jishnu is popularly known as the Emo kid in the band and Akhil as dyoood, which have long undisclosable stories behind them .

IRMP3: How did you guys meet ? What inspired you guys to make music together? Have there been any line up changes since you guys started ? HERETIC: Hareesh and Abhijit have known each other from their school days and were part of Sanguinary, one of the first metal bands to have originated from Cochin. The rest of the members met at the various college fests throughout Kerala when they used to play for their respective college bands. Cecil John and David Jacob were the original drummer and bassist for Heretic respectively. Apart from that Benjamin Thomas, whose contribution to the Heretic sound has been critical, handled bass from 2006 to 2008 end before relocating to Delhi. He was replaced by Ben Sam for a few months before he continued with his band in Trivandrum.

IRMP3: How do you categorize the music you play? Is Heretic moving towards heavier sound?
HERETIC: Well the fact is that we have not been able to exactly categorize ourselves. It’s obvious that we have a lot of metalcore influences.
Our influences vary from System of a Down, Slipknot, Trivium, Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God, As I Lay Dying to local heavyweights Avial and Motherjane. Some fans have already come up with the term “naadan” metalcore.
Heretic does seem to be moving to a slightly heavier sound, but there is not much of a difference there. We rather like to concentrate on writing stuff that works, for us as well as the fans, not on just being heavy. Anyway let’s wait and see what turn Heretic’s music takes in the future.

IRMP3:Abhijit , you work in Bangalore for an Artist Management Company and the band in Cochin, how do you guys manage , practice sessions and Live shows? Is the distance affecting the band?
HERETIC: Both Abhijit and Hareesh live in Bangalore. So they meet very regularly and sit and write material which they share with the rest of the band. We have practice sessions twice a month as of now. But the fact that Heretic is a band that used to put in 5 days a week for practice over the past 3 years really helps. The vibe is still the same, maybe better!

IRMP3: Your hit single Reprise is sort of Metal Anthem among Indian Metal Heads, Are you guys planning to record an album? Do you have a record label?
HERETIC: Yeah, Reprise has been the best received Heretic song till date. Never thought that the track would make it to a French Metal Radio Station when we completed Reprise in a small hotel room in Manipal 2 years back. We think we have better songs up our sleeves to offer than reprise. There is one particular track, which is Heretic’s favourite song, The Choice, and also a new track called Thoughts which is very different from the rest of our songs.

We have been approached by Road Crew Records from Chennai. We have enough material written for an album and are considering releasing our album through the label. We will be hitting the studio later this year to start the work on the album.

IRMP3:Heretic recently performed at JRO 09 and received much accolades, what is the best and worst gig or venues ever? Any memories
HERETIC: JRO’09 was a nice experience. It was our first performance with Madhav Ravindranath from Road Crew Records who handles Heretic now. The Palace Grounds in Bangalore and The Bolgatty Palace Island in Cochin are our favourite venues till date. Though there have been a lot of memorable performances, we think our best gig has been at the Cochin University festival in late October’08. We never knew Cochin had such a great crowd until that show. Worst gig was at a competition in IIM Bangalore in early 2007. There were no monitors on stage, a horrible drumkit and to add insult to injury our slot was at 5 am in the morning.

IRMP3:What is the ’scene’ in Cochin generally? Cochin has produced some top bands like 13AD , Motherjane, Heretic to name a few, How has the scene evolved since Heretic began?
HERETIC: The scene in Cochin and throughout Kerala has evolved considerably well in the last 4 years. When we started out, we were one of the few bands concentrating on writing originals. Now the bands are putting in the effort writing original material which is a great improvement. For instance, last year at Kerala Rocks, 6 bands performed on the final night at Cochin to a crowd of 7000 people without a single cover played. The crowd’s support for original material was really heartening to see. We feel Cochin has amazing musicians but only a select persevere to stick together as a band. There are bands like Crimson Wood, Soul Burn, Hush, Whitesugar, Samhara and many more who have great potential and great music.

IRMP3: What do you think of Rock competitions, or say reality shows like Launchpad or Rock on ! , Do you think it’s helping Indian Rock bands?
HERETIC: Oh yeah, definitely! It is the ultimate dream for any band. Especially since the Godmother of Indian Rock, Kareena Kapoor is in it.
F*&#$ off Posuers!!

IRMP3: Forming rock bands in bands in India isn’t possible without a ‘helping hand’, anyone Heretic would like to thank for the emotional or financial support?
HERETIC: Definitely our families for the undying support as it’s very difficult  pursue anything in India without family support. Everybody in Motherjane has been a major source of inspiration and have showed us the way with great mentoring. And of course each and every fan and admirer of our music who have given us the strength to overcome all the obstacles.

IRMP3: What is the future ahead of Heretic? What are the goals and Challenges ahead?
HERETIC: Future ahead is definitely bright. At least we feel so since we are very comfortable the way we work now. The balance is just about right.
Our prime focus would be on the album ahead followed by live performances. And as every band knows the challenges are many. But we would rather talk about what we have rather than what we don’t and try to do the best with whatever resources we have.

IRMP3: How can fans get access to Heretic Music? Do you have a webpage?
HERETIC: Heretic’s music has been put up on gimmesound.com,  where you can download our music for free. As you may know, we get paid by gimmesound.com for every download. So people, the more you download, the faster our album comes out!
Apart from that our myspace page is www.myspace.com/hereticindia .

IRMP3: Heretic, Thanks for the interview, wish you guys all the best , Your message to ‘Heretic’ fans …
HERETIC: Support Indian Independent music, where music is the ‘main’ thing, not anything else.
Do watch out for our album, we’r sure you would love it. Thank You IRMP3.com. Keep up the good work.

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