BETA’s day out with Peter Cat Recording Co

The birth of a musical idea

Peter Cat Recording Co.’s latest album BETA has a common theme running through its tracks. “Somehow diverse ideas found a single expression in the songs. Through the making of the album, as songs were being written and tuned, themes kept popping up,” says Dhruv Bhola, the Delhi-based alternative rock band’s bassist.

The themes range from the philosophies of life to love stories and from childhood memories to having children. The band members dealt with a wide range of subjects. Even for the title of the album, they came up with several options, wrote them on pieces of paper, put them in a hat and made drummer Karan Singh’s six-month-old son pick one out. That was how BETA serendipitously emerged.

The album’s first single, ‘People never change’, attempts to bring together diverse cultures and forms of music. With more than half a minute of bhangra beats, it slowly descends into a mellowness with Suryakant Sawhney’s velvety croon. Contrary to its name, the song ironically underwent the maximum number of changes. With several versions, it also took the most amount of time to finish, recorded as it was over five years in three different continents. 

Their anomalous sophomore album, Bismillah (2019), too took a long time to create. Often emerging from expression of momentary thoughts and feelings, it changed and evolved much like the people who wrote it, collecting and discarding ideas and themes along the way, until all the songs sat together and seemed to be talking to each other. Coupled with frontman Suryakant’s marriage, a celebratory mood enveloped the music.  

Since it was formed in 2009, Peter Cat Recording Co (PCRC) is known to blend various influences in their music, such as psychedelic, jazz, alt-rock and others. “Years of listening to music and imbibing it, subconsciously pinpointing elements that make certain music tick, experimenting with our own method, simultaneously paying homage to older sounds and forms, trusting our instincts but also doubting them,” is how Dhruv summed up the band’s musical inspirations.  

PCRC is gearing up for one of the largest tours by an Indian band. The 77-concert ‘Good Luck Beta 24’ run will kick off in August, covering North America, Europe, the U.K. and India (December). The tour will have the band performing new music after a gap of about five years. 

India schedule