Gutslit, the band with the European ear

The Gutslit lineup: (L to R) Narang, Kaushal, Pinto and Rajagopal

Based in Mumbai and funded by Russian producers, Gutslit has emerged around Europe as a major success. The band’s heavy and shrill brand of music has sold very well in Russia and they have been critically and financially well received.

They are loud. They are shrill. Their music is brutal and their videos are graphic. They are the band you have never heard of. They are Gutslit, completing their 10th anniversary this month and are one of India’s most successful death and grind metal band playing in the European circuit. Based in Mumbai and comprising mostly of NRI citizens, the band is made up of bassist and founding member, Gurdip Singh Narang, vocalist Kaushal LS, guitarist Prateek Rajagopal and drummer Aaron Pinto.

In 2011, Gutslit was a remote entity playing a strain of metal music that was neither appreciated by the mainstream Indian audience nor by the hardcore fundamentalists in the underground scene. It was at this point when they were approached by French gore-grind artists, Pulmonary Fibrosis who offered them a chance to produce a split CD with them and Gutslit’s first album, Contorted Mutilations was released. It was also with Fibrosis that they also got their first exposure to the international scene as they toured Thailand as the French band’s second act.

By 2013, their performances at BIG69 (the biggest metal fest in India) had caught the attention of Russian record label, Coyote Music who signed them up immediately before sending them over to Bangkok for their first major international gig. This was followed by the success of the Russian produced album, Skewered in the Sewer. The album performed better than they could hope for especially in the Eastern European front with sales in Russia and the Czech Republic crossing what it had grossed in India. As the band played out their signature slam set in Dominion: The Death Fest in Mumbai, their Russian producers finally got them their first ever European gig in Czech Republic. Their performance in Trutnov was the first time that they played live before their European audience and Narang with his signature Sikh turban got the nickname, “Brutal Sardar.”

It has been five years, one successful album (Amputheatre), one EP and four European tours since then and Gutslit is more popular than ever in the European metal scene. Narang and company have performed everywhere from Paris to Moscow while they still meet with luke warm responses in India. With their European popularity, now undisputable, the band now plans to make an identity for themselves across Asia. They are scheduled to play across the continent in cities ranging from Dubai and Delhi to Tokyo and Seoul. Following this, they are scheduled for a tour across the birthplace of metal music – the US which in turn, would be followed by a return to Paris and Munich.