Sustainability in rhythm: Folk-rock music band Swarathma is powering its concerts with solar energy

Sustainability has become the ‘it’ word across domains, however, greener practices are yet to become mainstream. While fashion, travel, food and beverage entrepreneurs are taking small steps to make their ventures cleaner and greener, some industries, including music, are rarely discussed.

In fact, not many are aware of how live music concerts consume high amounts of power. Typically, powering a music event or festival requires anywhere between 10 KW to 1000 KW of electricity (depending on the production, instruments, lighting, and special effects), according to certain music websites.

Breaking away from the norm of relying on diesel power generators in music events, legendary folk-rock band Swarathma comprising members Vasu Dixit (vocals and rhythm guitar), Sanjeev Nayak (violin and vocals), Varun Murali (guitar and vocals), Jishnu Dasgupta (bass guitar and vocals), and Vinay Ramakrishnan (drums) have come up with an alternative, cleaner solution. 

The band, known for its meaningful compositions that touch upon socially-driven issues like Ghum, Aasman ki Dukaan, Aaj ki Taaza Fikar or Topiwalleh, is all set to embark on India's first-ever solar-powered concert tour between May 25 and August 3, 2024, with the support of Sustain Plus Energy Foundation, SELCO Foundation, and AmpereHour Energy. 

The Swarathma India Tour 2024, which is a part of their eagerly awaited fourth studio album Raushan, will begin in Mumbai and travel to Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Indore, and Delhi-NCR, before culminating in Jaipur. 

YS Life caught up with the members of the band to learn more about the solar-powered tour, the challenges they faced in making it a reality, and how they've stuck together in the last 15 years. 

Edited excerpts: 

YS Life (YSL): How did the idea of a solar-powered tour come to life?

Jishnu Dasgupta (JD): As a band, we have observed that live concerts often tend to be an unsustainable experience. If you go backstage, you will see rows of diesel generators at festivals. People also leave behind a lot of waste. As humans, fellow collaborators and songwriters, we have ended up writing songs about the issues we believed in, including the Cauvery River conflict. 

One of our songs, Ee Bhoomi, is all about Earth becoming a paradise. Some of our other songs are about a world that we wish to live in. This is our endeavour to try and bring together the world of our songs and the real world. 

Regarding powering the sound aspect of live concerts, the way to look at it is that we are trying to replace the diesel power generator with a portable renewable energy system, which can either be charged at a solar field or the grid or another clean energy source. Our partners at AmpereHour have put together a power rig. It’s a 20-foot container that will have battery packs, inverters, transformers, and cooling systems to ensure an uninterrupted and reliable supply of clean energy. 

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YSL: What went behind the scenes to power these live concerts with clean energy? 

JD: We started having this conversation with SELCO Foundation and AmpereHour and realised that something like this is feasible. On paper, this design of a power system that replaces the diesel generator is not an impossible idea. It goes against what you normally think of when solar power comes to mind–generally, we believe its use is limited to projects that are relatively smaller in scale. 

We hope this step acts as a proof-of-concept and results in positive change—so that larger festivals like Lollapalooza or NH7 Weekender accept this solution, once we prove that it is robust and reliable. 

YSL: But there must be lots of challenges…

Varun Murali (VM): When a band goes on a tour, there are always challenges, be it in fixing of the dates, the venue, coordination, tech side of things and whatnot. But now with this clean energy source solution coming into the picture, there's a lot more to take care of. 

You are also now evaluating if this power unit can run successfully without stopping midway through a show? How do we handle such a scenario? What is the power load we need?

Typically, when we perform, we don't think about the power load consumption. We are now getting involved in this. At the same time, we are also trying to figure out how the sound team will connect to this. What are the types of plugs and peripherals that are required? 

It's been a great learning experience for us. 

YSL: Tell us more about your fourth studio album, Raushan for which you are hitting the road. 

Vasu Dixit (VD): To speak of it as an album, we don't have all the songs put out there. Currently, we've recorded four songs that have been composed over the last year and a half. 

The title of the album as well as our first song is Raushan, which means light. It emanates a positive feeling because it's the light that we look for in our everyday lives. That song is all about being liberated in situations and relationships. It was written at a time when each band member was looking for light within themselves, and within the band as an entity. 

YSL: What about the other songs? 

VD: One of the other songs is in Tamil and was a result of a songwriting workshop we did for ourselves. It was a jam that Jishnu had done many years ago. There is another song Bus, which is the result of another jam which we had at my place. I remember staring outside and wondering how the sun is shining bright and the flowers are blooming, but what is our job? Apna kaam hai bas gana gane ka (our job is to just sing). 

From there, we developed that song to convey that there's so much happening in our daily lives–politically or otherwise–but our work is to sing. We are still debating on the title of the song. 

There's also another song that is tentatively called Jaana Kahan Tha. It is about how sometimes we tend to think we've lost our way while we are on our journeys or relationships. But when we look at it from a certain perspective, we realise it's destiny that plays a part. We are all at the right place at the right time. 

We do have another 8-10 songs from which we will finalise more for the album. 

YSL: Swarathma has stuck it out for 15 years with its current team amid changing trends in the industry. How do you handle the pressure and the expectations of the evolving audiences?

VD: I think it's being true to what we do. There have been times we've been inspired and written more songs; during other times, we don't feel as connected within the band or our music. There are market standards on how many albums one must release every year but it's about what you believe in as a band. 

If your content is not genuine, your audience will not follow you. We believe we don't always have to follow the trend; we do what we feel is right for us and what works. 

We take our time to create songs that are meaningful for us, and that sometimes takes longer. It's not fast food. All in all, it's important to be honest about what we feel.