It’s a fool-hardy task trying to classify ex-Them Clones guitarist Gucci Singh’s brainchild, Crazy Weather, as just a band or music project. One of Crazy Weather’s possible definitions is that of a space in which Gucci experiments with the overloading ideas of a free mind. Even though the funk/punk/alternative rock outfit’s backbone currently – after a few changes – consists of Daniel Rajan on drums, Arpan G on bass and vocals and Gucci Singh playing the guitar and taking care of the vocals, it is safe to say that the line-up is nominal. As a matter of fact, the band is independent of the concept of line-ups; ask him if he had always wanted to write music outside of Them Clones and he says, “It’s not like that, you know I write a song and then I play it with whomever I’m playing it with.” The line-up, rather the collaboration of musicians working on any track by Crazy Weather is subject to the need of the song.

Gucci explains Crazy Weather’s debut album, Half Life, which released in February this year, as a meticulous labour of love, “It was hectic, it was busy,” he says, “I sang and played bass on the album and I hooked up the mics, I mixed it down; so obviously it’s been a lot of work. In fact, we’ve ended up mixing songs fifteen or 20 times, and then taken it to the mastering stage where we have mastered each song nine to ten times.”

(Art work by Lolita Bhaduri)

Essentially the creation of Gucci Singh, Crazy Weather is more a concept or idea rather than a band. It does not limit itself to a certain genre or style or even line-up. The Crazy Weather idea initially took the backseat while Gucci was engrossed in playing with the ’Clones up until 2012, after which he started work on Crazy Weather’s debut album. A little over five years since the idea was first conceived did Gucci have a chance to finally spend his energies on recording the album – a DIY project of course.

As part of Gucci’s attempt at branching out into more different and varying forms of music, Crazy Weather first embodied itself as a thought in 2008, back when Gucci was still part of Them Clones. His tendency to touch upon everything musical is awe-inspiring and eccentric, and also the reason for the subsequent project – Crazy Weather – which was to serve as his personal dreaming and invention space outside of Them Clones. “I love funk music, I love heavy music,” Gucci admits, “so that’s definitely some of the outros that I wanted to take this down the lane of. The ’Clones had nice pop and hummable choruses and all of that. But Crazy Weather is a little more mental than that. It’s not easy on the ears sometimes.” By this time Gucci had already written a major chunk of Half Life, “Most of these songs, I had demoed with the ’Clones,” Gucci tells us. “Them Clones was my first baby, I played guitar in the ’Clones for a good twelve years, and it’s kind of like, I’ve got a progressive tinge of mind and I wanted to go heavier in terms of the songs. I wanted to make them swingier and stuff.”

Well, thank the heavens for that, with the release of their album, Crazy Weather are all set to spread the music with a lot more coming in the pipeline. Signed by UK record label, Holier Than Thou, Crazy Weather have probably increased their prospects of playing somewhere with crazier weather.

Stream Half Life by Crazy Weather below: