Rushabh Roymon – Punk as an Embodiment of What the Mainstream Skips

Opinion

Rushabh Roymon – Punk as an Embodiment of What the Mainstream Skips

Roymon is an interesting character who fluctuates between long rants and intense pessimisms as much as his music oscillates between sounding like The Strokes and Green Day.

He is part of a band called Jaded Clowns, a duo called Delhi Metro Seat, but mostly he is a solo artist whose music is a broad mix of punk inspirations.

Modern Love and Expiration Dates fuses The Voidz and The Strokes to create a deeply sentimental exploration of modern romance.

Rushabh Roymon – Punk as an Embodiment of What the Mainstream Skips

Modern love and expiration dates

Blink of an eye then you leave me

Swiping right to be left alone

Digital age please baby love me

There’s a groove. There’s a catchy chorus. Is This It by The Strokes is an obvious sonic recall for any listener.

Rushabh Roymon – Punk as an Embodiment of What the Mainstream Skips

Modern love you always want it fast

You make us all just disposable options

The song is an ode to our perpetually unromantically online generation and as real as it can possibly get. Julian Casablancas would confuse it for one of his tracks. The resemblance is striking.

Take my heart and put it on a tray
Make and break it in terrible ways

This music is the sound of a generation that grew up blasting Green Day, The Strokes and the like. Lyrically there’s a lot of wallowing in self-pity, a cultural analogy and a pessimistic mockery.

Getting close just to fade away
Another heartbeat came another heartache

The poetry is in the streets. Punk is an embodiment of all those elements that the mainstream evades. A subtle rage shapes all of Roymon’s music. That rage is both personal and political.

Rushabh Roymon – Punk as an Embodiment of What the Mainstream Skips

Little Bird Fly Away echoes a politics that is both deeply personal and intensely sentimental.

Glad we connect, such a beautiful gift of fate

Mirror to my heart and a reflection to my soul

You taught me what it means and feels to be loved, to be cared for

Wish you a life as beautiful as your soul

Just Like Heaven by The Cure is an obvious lyrical and compositional inspiration. The melody, the chorus, the structure and the lines are fossilized from the original opus. Roymon takes his inspirations and breathes his own over all of it.

Innocence in her eyes

And a heart’s that’s rare to find

Only wish that she will always be fine

Love and laughter, she’s got a lot of care

The style of The Strokes, the voice of Billy Joe and the craft of The Cure mix to create a cohesive dynamite.

You came into the night of my life

Like a blessing in disguise

Roymon hails from Jabalpur and after one too many binges of American Idiot and Is This It he took onto the punk ideals. He has failed mostly in all else – but never in music.

Rushabh Roymon – Punk as an Embodiment of What the Mainstream Skips

Delhi Metro Seat is a side project of Rushabh Roymon with Decibal Duke – both of which sound like usernames for video game characters. Their music is just as quirky as their usernames.

Meher is a great instrumental. Just fast groove on an electric guitar combined with great production to create a melody that recalls early LCD Soundsystem and later King Krule.

Catloaf is a meaningless fun song. It has a party quality to it. A-raise-your-hands-in-the-air-bop-your-head-feel and a striking originality that is both punk and funk at heart.

Decibal and Rushabh tell me that Delhi Metro Seat is just about having fun together. They’re just goofing around and making bangers. The production quality on these songs is minimal but there’s a striking craftmanship on display.

If punk is about not caring then I Don’t Want You to Show Me Your Boobs is a song that doesn’t care at all.

I don’t want you to show me your boobs

Cause I wanna know where my taxes go

The song is as catchy as its title. The hook is that the song truly doesn’t want to see boobs and is far more interested in politics.

The government’s gonna rip my pocket

But I don’t want you to rip my soul

Politics and love are both explored on the same verse that is invaded by noise from traffic and non-diegetic sound from background.

Scandalize the streets

Vandalize my sheets

We gotta go a long way from here…

It is a peacefully beautiful song that ought to be played over and over and over…

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