Going Backstage With Hindi Rock Band ‘The Local Train’

In 2015, Sennheiser (the German music equipment company) ranked ‘The Local Train’ as the number one emerging band in India. They went on to release their first album ‘Aalas Ke Pedh’ after that. The album was their official entry into the online music scene - till then, the Delhi-based Hindi rock band was only famous for their live shows in colleges and cafes. The album went on to become one of the highest selling independent albums in 2015. In 2018, they released their second album Vaaqif to enthusiastic response from fans.

The Local Train came into existence almost eight years ago when Raman Negi, Paras Thakur, Ramit Mehra and Sahil Sarin came together with the sole purpose of making music. When asked about how their name came into existence, the boys had a nonchalant answer: “We needed a name to upload our music on Myspace and this name came up randomly,”says Ramit Mehra.

And they are probably of the few people in the business who are not eyeing Bollywood. They say they are focusing on their music and if someone would be interested in their songs then they would consider it. Their song “Aaogey Tum Kabhi”’ was featured in Pan Nalin’s Angry Indian Goddesses in 2015.

While they were performing at the Redbull tour bus, The Quint spoke to a few people from the audience who have been following the band for more than 5 years.

The orchestration and lyrics define the passion of The Local Train for me. Sahil’s enthusiasm and Raman’s depth make me fall for them every time I see them perform and as for their audio albums, seldom does a week go by when I don’t tune into them. ‘Aaoge tum Kabhi’ and ‘Bandey’ are my favourite songs! My favourite Independent band in India along with a couple more. 

Aakash Dutt Sharma

Listening to a song from The Local Train is a feeling like you’ve taken a time machine back to the exact moment when that particular song had significance in your life. Their songs are so powerful, be it the lyrics or the composition, it brings back all the memories.

Abhimanyu Singh Raghav

To those of you who have not yet heard of their music, it is never too late. ‘Choo Lo’ is one of my favourite and you can hear the rest on their Youtube channel.