98 per cent of my music at Lollapalooza India will be new: EDM artist Chrms

Chrms aka Veer Kowli

Chrms, real name Veer Kowli, is one of the youngest and most popular talents to have emerged out of Mumbai in the electronic music scene in the past few years. The 23-year-old, who played his first gig at the age of 15, will be performing at Lollapalooza India next weekend. We spoke to the artist about what to expect from his set at the second edition of the biggest live music event in India.

How did you feel when you found out you're playing at Lollapalooza India this year?

I was just stoked. I couldn't believe it for a bit. I attended Lollapalooza India last year when Strokes were performing and that was pretty special. So, since then, I've been kind of low-key wishing I could play on such a stage, so I'm pretty glad it's happened.

You've been hailed as one of the most popular new young talents in electronic music in Mumbai, and you've been producing music since a young age. How did this journey begin and what was the inspiration behind taking this up as the one thing you want to do in life?

My parents have been very supportive since I was a kid. They have an ad agency and after school, I would just go to one of their computers that are free and just geek out and learn software and watch YouTube tutorials.

And I found these bunch of artists in like 2011 or 12 that were doing really creative stuff with their production and just their whole outlook on electronic music was different. One of them was Flume. They made me more curious as to how they make these sounds from one laptop, sounds that I'd never heard before. That was quite a turning point for me. I needed to know how these things are done. It resonated with me and I was like, okay, this is one of the channels I want to express myself through for sure.

Do you do a lot of impromptu improvisations while playing, or usually go by a set pattern of what you want to do?

I've never had a set pattern. It's always just seeing what the vibe is. If it's a live set, then I do have a thing planned. It's like a little running order of the kind of tracks I would play. And I did that at Magnetic Fields last year, actually, that was an extensive live set. And I hadn't done something like that before.

For Lollapalooza, any special prep that you're putting in?

Yes, it's the first time I'm going to be playing all this music. About 98 per cent of the whole set is unreleased music I've been making. A day before the festival, my album is out. It's five tracks. I haven't released music so extensively in three or four years, with four tracks or five tracks. It's been a while since I released any music, so I'm really excited to premiere it at Lolla, and I'm getting all my friends to do vocals, and we've been rehearsing.

BookMyShow, India's leading entertainment destination, is spearheading Lollapalooza India as the promoter and co-producer for the return of the festival's Indian edition along with global producers, Perry Farrell and C3 Presents.