It’s not often Nepal sees interna­tional bands coming specifically for a small, one-day festival. It’s even less often we see a woman on bass who literally rocks the stage. This is what happened last Satur­day, Sept 29, during the Kathmandu Blues & Roots Festival.A psychedelic/rock/blues band from Austin, Texas, The Well were the only band of the day that got the crowd on its feet. Performing their own originals, they describe their influences as early metal, the likes of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, and 90’s bands such as Nirvana, The Melvins and Sleep. Jason Sullivan, drums, and Ian Graham, guitar and vocals, shared “Our music genre is in the seed stage. When we started it was incredible small, with mainly older, and only a handful of younger, bands. And then it just took off and we are kind of popular within the genre now because we have been there forever.”

 

I asked them how a band from Austin ended up at a Blues festival in Kathmandu. “We were playing in Chicago with a band called Midnight Wolf from Dallas. Kiran Byanjankar, who has an entertainment company in Chicago, came to see Wolf, saw us and asked if we would like to come to Nepal. We spoke to him just that one time and a year later it went into motion,” says Sullivan.

 

With only a few days in Nepal, The Well was keen to see as much as possible of the country and cul­ture. Just as well, (no pun intended!) as prior to playing at the Blues & Roots Festival, The Well were thrown headfirst into the Nepali music scene when they took the stage in Butwal along with Kathmandu’s Shree 3 and local Butwal band, Rock Gene. “They had a really cool setup there, the sound was crazy awesome,” says Lisa Alley, bass and vocals. “Every­one was stoked and wanted to take photos with us, and the environment was really comfortable for the audi­ence and us.”

 

So, aside from Butwal, have they managed to see anything else of the country? “This is our first time to Asia and we have seen Butwal and every little place in between there and Kathmandu! We have also seen the Indra Jatra festival, the chariot, which was impressive, and masked dancers. This is what I came for,” says Sullivan. “Aesthetically Nepal is beautiful everywhere you look. They have an eye for shape and colour and architecture… even the way the trucks are decorated. It’s like a car­nival,” says Sullivan.

 

“We visited Lumbini. It is awesome that Buddha was born there. We also eat a lot of local food, learned how to eat with our hands, and saw buf­falo brains being served at Satish’s house,” says Alley. (Satish Sthapit, Newaz, is a founder of the Blues & Roots Festival.)

 

Why such a short time in Nepal? “We are going straight from Kath­mandu to Rome for the start of a month-long European tour from October 3 to 28. We are hitting it hard right now as we have our third album coming out with Riding Easy Records. We just finished record­ing and mixing right before we left (for Nepal),” says Alley. “It's always nice to get out there and remind people you exist before releasing another album. In February we will tour the US to coincide with the album launch.” Back at the Blues & Roots Festival, I caught up with Kiran Byanjankar whose company Tarang Entertainment both hosted The Well and sponsored the Blues & Roots festival this year. “We are based in Chicago and showcase events for the Nepali diaspora.

 

Our motto is “let’s have fun”. If our involvement in the Blues and Roots Festival goes well this year, we will continue to be involved and help the festival grow,” he says. The crowd at this year’s festival certainly had fun so here’s to seeing Kiran, Satish and the rest of the gang bringing us more cool music in the future !