Chandigarh band Rawmats’ ‘refix’ music recaptures the 1990s vibe

The band’s latest romantic single ‘Kyu Kehti Ho’ is a big hit online

Growing up in Ludhiana, vocalist Krishna Singh dreamt of having a musical band. “I was never interested in performing solo. It’s magical to see a group of musicians performing together,” says Krishna. His journey began with drummer Robin Raturi in 2015, with guitarist Amit Rawat coming on board two years later. The trio formed the band Rawmats, that saw a steady rise in the indie music circuit. Rawmats derives its name from the concept of ‘raw materials that are ready to be processed and packaged to reach perfection’. That, essentially, is how they create their music as well, taking inspiration from the musical 1990s. “We love to create a retro vibe,” says Krishna on the band’s love for music by Lucky Ali, Mohit Chauhan, Euphoria and Falguni Pathak. Their idea is to recreate songs that were huge hits but are forgotten now. Named ‘refix’, this experimentation with retro tracks has so farworked like magic. Krishna explains, “We play ’90s hits with a new sound set.” The band also creates ‘reply versions’ to songs sung by female singers. For instance, a reply song for Falguni Pathak’s Choodi Jo Khanke presented a boy’s perspective. “We used to do covers thinking that will make us popular. But the 37 million views for ‘Choodi...’ was an encouragement to explore,” shares Krishna. Rawmats has created more than 25 refix and reply songs to date.