Parvaaz is an Indian rock band formed in 2010 in Bangalore, known for fusing Kashmiri folk with psychedelic rock
The podcast opened this one with a very serious question: what did Khalid Ahamed and Sachin Banandur from Parvaaz have for breakfast?
Khalid had a bun omelette. Sachin had an egg puff and chai. Very quickly, that bakery breakfast turned into a deep, funny, and very real conversation about music, money, mistakes, jam rooms, social media, live shows, and the long road of keeping Parvaaz alive.
Parvaaz has spent 16 years building a sound that sits somewhere between memory, longing, rock, poetry, and pure feeling. In this episode, Khalid and Sachin looked back at how it began, how it changed, and why they still feel lucky to do this for a living.
For Khalid, the answer came with no bitterness.
“I mean, it’s been a great journey. I have no complaints because the biggest thing I feel is like I’m still able to survive, live doing what I love.”
Sachin put the early years even more simply.
“Started as a bunch of boys who just wanted to play music.”
That is where the Parvaaz story still seems to live. The business came later. The feeling came first.
Sound First, Words Later
When the conversation moved into songwriting, the heart of Parvaaz became clear. They do not start with a fixed formula. They start with sound.
Khalid explained that melody often comes before language. He may play chords, follow the feeling of where the sound wants to move, and then carry that idea into a jam. Lyrics arrive much later.
“It’s just like when you’re making a song, you think of a melody first.”
He also spoke about the voice as another instrument. Before the words form meaning, they have a shape, a tone, and a feeling. That matters deeply in a band where not every member speaks Kashmiri, but everyone responds to the emotion in the sound.
“Even the word which I used, it’s the sound of the word.”
Sachin described the process as accidental in the best way. The band would jam for hours, record everything, return to small moments, and build songs out of what stayed with them. That also explains why some Parvaaz songs stretch out and move through different emotional rooms.
“One-hour, two-hour jams. Some ideas will be there, then you just keep jamming.”
There is no clean factory method here. They meet, play, listen, and find the song inside the noise.
The Live Band Instinct
Parvaaz still thinks like a live band. Even when they build songs in the studio, they ask one basic question: how will this feel on stage?
Sachin said it directly.
“And we’re like, we’re a very live-oriented band.”
That instinct shapes everything, from arrangements to samples to mistakes. Khalid said most of the instrumentation goes live, and even when they use samples, the band keeps the performance at the center.
The Color White reverse-delay discussion opened a small technical window into this approach. Khalid and Sachin explained how Mir Kashif Iqbal used a reverse-delay style patch and looper to trigger that sound live. It could be sampled now, but the original intent came from performance.
Their live-gigs philosophy also leaves room for mistakes. Khalid does not treat every slip like a disaster. Sometimes, it becomes a variation.
“Yeah. Or like, look at it. Did you see that variation?”
Sachin had the more blunt version.
“I mean, that’s what live music is, you know. You can’t… Things can go wrong.”
That attitude comes from years of imperfect venues, missing soundchecks, technical failures, and gear that never behaves exactly as planned. The band once had a PA conk out during the first song in Pune. These things do not thrill them, but they no longer collapse under them.
As Khalid put it:
“Like, now play with whatever you have.”
Na Gul Na Gulistan and a New Way of Building Songs
The new album Na Gul Na Gulistan changed the band’s writing process. Earlier, Parvaaz would often “season” songs live before recording them. This time, the band worked more through demos, computers, and studio building.
The title track began during the pandemic, when Khalid sent a melody from Kashmir. Sachin said they initially recorded it as a possible single, then dropped that plan and waited until it grew into the album.
Khalid clarified that the computer did not become the writing tool. It became the demo tool – “Not as a writing tool, to record demos. And figure out layers, what you can put up in the studio instead of wasting your time and figuring it out there.”
The album also allowed for small accidents and late-stage decisions. Sachin summed up that studio energy well. “Some things happen in the moment.”
Visual Worlds, Stop Motion, and One-Day Shoots
The Na Gul Na Gulistan video also came with its own unexpected turn. The band first planned a live-action video. Delays changed that plan. Then a friend introduced Sachin to the director and animator, Sharanya Ramesh, on Instagram.
He messaged her, Khalid shared the story, and she agreed to make it.
Sachin still sounded amazed by the scale of the work.
“Yeah, 4 months it took! That’s a lot of work for one person to do it. Every frame is like it’s amazing.”
She handled the animation, puppets, and editing. Khalid gave her references from Kashmiri homes so she could build the visual world with care.
For a band that often thinks in images while writing, the video made sense. Khalid said stories sometimes appear while songs are being written.
“Like sometimes when you’re writing songs, some stories come to your head.”
The video for Kauaʻi ʻōʻō worked differently. Khalid said it was shot in a day, from around 11 to 11:30. Older videos like Color White and Beparwah came together with an in-house effort, Kashmir footage, a drone operator, and a lot of instinct.
Their visual rule matches their music rule: the idea matters most.
“It’s just the idea.”
The Business of Being a Band
The episode also got very honest about money.
Khalid and Sachin said live shows remain the main source of revenue for a band like Parvaaz. Sachin estimated that 85 to 90 percent comes from gigs. Sync deals help when they come. Streaming brings in something, but not enough to depend on.
“And maybe a few peanuts from streaming.”
They mostly play ticketed festivals and standalone shows now, not corporate or college shows. That gives them direct contact with the audience, but it also creates a difficult balance. More gigs mean more income, but too many shows in the same city can reduce the sense of occasion.
Their internal money system also stands out. Sachin explained that bands should save from gigs instead of splitting everything immediately. Parvaaz follows a salary model and keeps money for the band.
Khalid said it with a smile.
“Yeah. We are salaried employees.”
That model helped them survive the pandemic.
“We survived for a whole year because we saved money and we took salaries.”
The band also runs with structure. They created a private limited company around 2013-14, kept accounts, paid people, and used saved money for albums, videos, photoshoots, equipment, and other band needs.
That may not sound romantic, but it may be one of the biggest reasons Parvaaz still exists.
Full Interview Out Now!
Parvaaz has released Na Gul Na Gulistan, and Khalid closed the podcast with a direct message to fans.
“We just released an album a few months back. It is called Na Gul Na Gulistan, and it is out. If you like our music, listen to it, share it with your friends, and break the algorithm.”
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