Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Bloodywood opened up about “Dana Dan” being featured in the new movie “Monkey Man.” The band were stoked about the opportunity and said it was a big moment for them.

According to vocalist Jayant Bhadula, everything came about after the manager of the film’s director and star Dev Patel reached out through Instagram:

“I thought it was a scam! I got a message on my Instagram saying, ‘hi I’m Dev Patel’s manager and we’d like to talk to you.’ Later on that day I figured, ‘well, I might as well reply and see what happens, because if it’s someone that wants to fuck around maybe we can fuck them around too!’ But when I answered the video call, Dev Patel was sitting right there. I couldn’t believe it! I started babbling, like, ‘I saw you in The Newsroom, you’re great!’”

Rapper Raoul Kerr continued:

“We were told the full plot of the film and [the production team] even showed us pre-production sequences so we’d see how the song was actually going to be used. Even at that point it looked fucking awesome! It was like, ‘you’re gonna see Dev killing all these guys and ‘Dana Dan’ will be playing over the top!’ It was really hard to contain ourselves.”

Guitarist/flutist Karan Katiyar commented as well:

“You really have to give it up to Dev. When he initially spoke to Jayant he said he liked the album and would probably just use the one track. We expected him to use something like ‘Machi Bhasad,’ which is still radio friendly. But he used our heaviest, most inaccessible song! He didn’t pull any punches. The production team told us they literally cut the fight scene according to the song!”

He also discussed how the song’s theme of vengeance against oppression fits the film:

“Context matters. The chorus is literally saying ‘bring the beatdown’, but it’s also about beating the right people up.”

Katiyar also revealed that they have yet to see the movie:

“We’ve got a censor board [in India] that decides if a film can or cannot be released and those guys are still deciding because of the political and religious statements the film is making.”

Bhadula continued:

“But we’ve seen all the reviews and the hype!”

Kerr added:

“It’s frustrating. We didn’t actually ask for a preview copy, because we were planning on going to watch it as a nice break from recording [our second album]. We had this idea of all sitting together and checking it out. But we’ve got a few international friends who’ve sent us sneaky pictures or videos! Someone sent us the bit in the credits where it says ‘Dana Dan’ is written by… and I was just like ‘yes!’”

Despite being unable to watch the film, Bhadula says the band are grateful for the experience:

“All of us have watched Dev Patel and Jordan Peele in so many things over the years. We used to love watching [sketch-comedy show] ‘Key And Peele’ on YouTube, but we’d also seen ‘Get Out’ and ‘Nope.’ With Dev Patel, he was part of these huge TV shows like ‘Skins,’ and then did ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ which was one of the huge crossover films of our time. So to be involved in an action movie directed by Dev Patel and produced by Jordan Peele… it was huge for us.”