Meet 'Jalebee Cartel', the electronic dance music band named after the sweet, twisty and ubiquitous delicacy, which has stormed into the global music arena and was featured recently on the cover of the Indian edition of 'Rolling Stones' magazine.
Moreover, the quartet does not want to be reduced to just another Bollywood jukebox.
"Our music is a product of our lives- our experiences, our influences. But, always remaining a desire to create some transcendental experience for the listener. And we knew at the very inception that we did not want be some DJ jukebox, playing out latest groovy tracks from Bollywood films. We wanted to be original," says Ashwin, band member.
Launched in the year 2003, the musicians say their music has found more acceptance and endorsement from outside the country than in India. But, they say they want their music to "talk to the Indian soul" just like how the "sweet and complicated jaleebee has been ruling the Indian taste buds for ages."
"Music is a food for the soul. Ours is sweet,complicated, twisted and experimental very much like the Indian sweet. But we definitely went through at least 25 menus for naming our band before settling on 'jalebee'," says Ashwin whose band performed a gig recently here.
Apart from Ashwin and Ash on the vocals, other band members comprise Arjun Vagale from Pune, who helms the laptop and mixer and G-Force Arjun from Bangalore who provides backup vocals. Madhav/DJ Kohra also chips in, intermittently.
'Jalebee Cartel' has a packed lineup with performances from Canada to Australia. In between they have also enthralled and entertained millions of fans in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, among others.
"Not just our major fans but our first label also was from outside India. 'Helvetica Records' of Switzerland in 2004 gave us our first recorded label. In fact, India is a very small part, vis-a-vis our larger fan base globally," says the 36-year-old Ashwin. MORE