Ever since its formation in 2005, heavy metal music band Scribe has enjoyed a huge fan following among the youth, thanks to references to Hindi cinema villains in its songs and album names. The Mumbai-based band comprising Prashant Shah (guitar), Akshay Rajpurohit (guitar), Srinivas S (bass), Viru (drums) and Siddharth Basrur and Viraaj Saxena (vocals) loves all things loud and often pays an ode to Bollywood baddies through its music. Excerpts from the interview with Prashant Shah:

(Left-Right) New Scribe vocalists Siddharth Basrur, Viraaj Saxena, guitarist Akshay Rajpurohit and bassist Srinivasan

Q. Hail Mogambo is your third album after Confect and Mark of Teja. Why do you use Bollywood references in your album and song titles?
A. We’re movie buffs, irrespective whether it’s Bollywood or Hollywood. The ’80s and ’90s were memorable eras in the history of Indian cinema. Movies such as Mr India, Andaz Apna Apna, Khel, Kishen Kanhaiya and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar gave us memorable villains. Till date, we enjoy watching the films and the antics of the villains as they are stupid, entertaining, and fun. Hail Mogambo continues from where Mark of Teja left off. It’s a grand opus of evil rising to power and assuming total control of the world and its inhabitants.

Q. You released your first album in 2008. How have you evolved as artistes since then?
A. Evolution with music goes hand in hand with personal changes. We started off writing music that we thought sounded good to our ears. We didn’t care about people buying our album. We were just inspired kids who wanted to make noise. We’re still kids, but now we do care about how we structure a song, how the album sounds production-wise and ensure that we maintain a certain quality across the board.