All You Need To Know About The Local Train's Vaaqif Album Tour (And An Interview!)

Known for their hit singles, and edgy dance videos, The Local Train has come to be the genre-defining new face of Hindi rock. Their debut album, Aalas Ka Pedh was released in September 2015, which eventually became one of the highest selling independent albums of the year. Sennheiser ranked The Local Train as the number one rock band of the country in 2015.

Slated to release in September, they're embarking on a nation-wide tour with their second album Vaaqif. Check out details of the Bangalore show here (29 Sept).

Insider caught up with the band to talk about the tour and their music.

Congrats and best of luck for your new album, guys. We're looking forward to it. As you hit the road, could you tell us a few things about this album? Was there an inspiration or theme for this?
Thank you and yes, this new album was quite a challenge for us. Our debut album, 'Aalas ka Pedh', took us over 4 years to bring out, when we were figuring out the way of things. This time we were a little more prepared and hit the drawing board for months on end and decided on September as the launch month. The album is named 'Vaaqif' and hopefully we've become more aware of our capabilities as well as our shortcomings. We're all evolving as people and hopefully our music will keep growing with us.

Expect a heavier sound for sure with this album. We've just tried to write honest music the best we could.

How is this album different - musically and thematically - from your first album?
Expect a heavier sound for sure with this album. It was composed a little differently. Basic lyrical ideas or guitar riffs were the starting seed. Raman and Paras would sit with just a pair of acoustic guitars and work on a structure. Then we'd all jam on it. Then hit our work stations at home. The songs are an amalgamation of ideas that we wanted to talk about or that inspired us to write about. So while there's a song that talks about hope and overcoming challenging phases in your life, there's others that question authority and others that talk about self-actualisation. We've explored new sounds as well so expect some heavy riffs and powerful vocals and we've also try to fit songs in acoustic spaces. We've just tried to write honest music the best we could.

It's been close to a decade as a band - how do you guys see yourselves now as artists? What's the journey been like?

Stop reminding us! 'cause honestly it doesn't feel like we've been at it for so long. It honestly feels like we were finding our footing all this while and hopefully there's nothing stopping us now. We've just taken every day as it comes and of course we have so many stories from over the years but it doesn't yet feel like a journey. More like the beginning.

Over the last few years, you've grown to one of the country's most popular bands. Any particular fan moments or interactions that come to mind?
We are very grateful to our fans cause they made us who we are. We all hail from small towns and we just followed a simple rule of making music as well as we can and making music videos as best as we can. We're so glad so many people have been so receptive to our music and honestly nothing gives us a better high than an entire crowd singing our songs word for word! While it's true some fans sometimes get carried away when meeting us but honestly we're just glad they're fans of our music. That's what matters to us the most.

We're so glad so many people have been so receptive to our music and honestly nothing gives us a better high than an entire crowd singing our songs word for word

And finally, what's next for The Local Train? You finish your current tour in mid-September. Any gigs after that, or is it back to the studio? Or chilling for a while for a well-deserved break?
The season has begun and we have so many shows lined up! The tour is helping us promote and eventually launch our album. But we foresee a lot of travel ahead of us. Although we really enjoyed the torture that was recording the second album, we've decided to not put a hold on composing and keep making music alongside whenever we can. Of course, our fans can now count music videos as a staple from us as well and we just finished shooting for 'Dil Nawaz' and that's our next single release. During the Diwali break we're trying to run away from the noise and pollution as well but we haven't decided on the location yet and we're open to suggestions!

Although we really enjoyed the torture that was recording the second album, we've decided to not put a hold on composing and keep making music alongside whenever we can.

Check out some tracks by The Local Train below!