FROM RAVEENA TANDON TO SKRILLEX, BLOODYWOOD'S 'NU DELHI' IS BOTH A GLOBAL AND LOCAL FORCE

'Our plan with this album is to give it a larger lifespan,' the folk-metal band's rapper Raoul Kerr says

- By ANURAG TAGAT

It's a bittersweet feeling when Japan no longer feels like an “alien planet” for Raoul Kerr. The rapper from folk-metal band Bloodywood—India’s biggest export in heavy music right now—is back in the Land of the Rising Sun for the third time, playing a three-city headline tour after releasing their second album, Nu Delhi.

Back in July 2022, after their first album, Rakshak, was out independently, Bloodywood hit up the prestigious Fuji Rock Festival. Kerr recounts they even went viral on Japanese Twitter after the performance. “Fuji Rock is as big online as it is offline. There was a guy who closed his store and left a handwritten note on the front, saying, ‘Sorry, the restaurant’s closed today. I’m going to go watch an Indian metal band. That’s where the love story began,’” Kerr says.

Japan is just one of the international markets Bloodywood have become regulars in, jumping back into tour life after a year’s break to work on Nu Delhi. Now, they’ve already embarked on a headline tour of Europe—supported by extreme metallers Demonic Resurrection and prog band Midhaven on select dates, in a first for Indian metal—that proves that Bloodywood aren’t just hashing out a formula.