What happens when two drummers decide that percussion isn’t just a supporting act, but the main event? You get SNAX—a genre-defying duo that’s turning rhythm into a headlining spectacle. Born from countless jam sessions, impromptu soundchecks, and a deep-rooted love for groove, Sumesh Narayanan and Ramkumar have created a sonic force that blends Carnatic mridangam, folk kutthu beats, house, techno, and psychedelic rock into a mind-melting rhythmic experience. At the Mahindra Percussion Festival, SNAX brought their boundary-pushing sound to the stage, proving that percussion doesn’t just keep time—it tells a story. From sampling their own soundchecks to triggering live loops on the fly, every SNAX performance is an unpredictable, high-energy ride. In this exclusive chat, the duo shares their thoughts on balancing tradition with innovation, their dream of making rhythm the star of the show, and why sometimes, all you need to reset your mind is a good drum groove. View this post on Instagram A post shared by S N A X (@snax_beats) Here are the excerpts: Your sound often pushes the boundaries of traditional percussion. How do you integrate classical rhythms while maintaining your signature style? When both of us jam and endeavour into a dialogue of a musical nature, both our training backs our vocabulary and essentially help us make words and sentences with the knowledge from our own training. The beauty therein is to learn new words and sentences that one may observe and learn from another person with a different kind of training, and that leads to a process of understanding different roads and routes to thoughts and ideas within the musical realm. Zakir Hussain’s ability to innovate while respecting tradition was unparalleled. How do you balance experimentation with honoring the roots of rhythm? We constantly go back to what we have learnt and what we understand well as a base on which we are able to build. And so what that does is, the traditional repertoire that we have imbibed over time provides a starting point beyond which we are able to find variations and patterns within it, but also constantly expands our thought in a certain direction, which sometimes takes us to uncharted territories within our vocabulary. How does performing at a festival like this challenge you creatively, especially when sharing the stage with artists from diverse rhythmic backgrounds? Playing in a festival like the Mahindra Percussion Festival requires a lot of meticulous planning and understanding of what our music stands for and why we do it. Beyond the blatant and obvious love for the pursuit of creativity, a sense of purpose drives us closer to achieving an artful experience of a simple and humble human thought. An idea speaks loudest when one sees the simplest and unadulterated form of it. Same goes with what we do with SNAX. How well can we represent ourselves as a sonic force? That is our purpose right there. What new techniques or sounds can the audience expect from your performance, and how do they connect to the festival’s celebration of percussion? Both of us have grown up together as students and performers, playing together with bands of different sizes and colours for over 10 years now. We have a starkly similar but extremely varied taste of the kind of music we appreciate and follow. As adults, we also dabble quite actively as producers and what this has done to us is to enhance the experience that SNAX is capable of providing. We produce all our tracks with samples that we sometimes synthesise from scratch. Some of the base loops are recordings of us from years ago from a random soundcheck. We also trigger a lot of live scenes and loops as and when we want, so that gives us the freedom to indulge in a thought at any point in time, and so every show is different in the way we approach it. SNAX was born from a shared passion for rhythm. What was the exact moment when you both realized that this collaboration could evolve into something as unique and powerful as SNAX? As we’ve mentioned earlier, we grew up playing with a lot of bands together, and invariably we would be the first ones to soundcheck, and we almost always found ourselves grooving really hard on an idea that would have occurred to us just then and there. And we had this tight rapport, so we seamlessly indulged in that idea and spoke to each other without having to try hard. That spoke a lot about the chemistry we shared and it was a no-brainer that we instantly wanted to take it further as an act and see what comes out of it. As a rhythmic duo, all bands that we have played in featured us at the back with melody taking centerstage. We started to envision an act where rhythm takes centerstage. That’s SNAX for you. Did the Chennai music scene play a significant role in shaping your vision as a duo? How did your local environment influence the fusion approach you embrace today? Oh absolutely! As budding musicians we were constantly playing gigs, jamming with new musicians and actively trying to find our own voice with innovation. Chennai is the mecca of Carnatic music and so, as a mridangist, Sumesh gathered a lot of experience by learning to play in every sabha and eventually finding his voice with fusion and experimental bands. The heavy electronic elements in our music contrast the desi sound of the mridangam well with the kutthu beats, which are absolutely Thamizh at their core. When creating new compositions, how do you decide which rhythmic patterns or instruments take the lead? Is it an intuitive process, or do you have defined roles within SNAX? It’s both actually. Most often, we think alike and an idea either stems from something we have been thinking about for a while. Or something absolutely impulsive and intuitive. Or trying to emulate something we may have heard and liked. Both of us are performers and producers all along the way in the process. The fun is to change roles as required to facilitate the other to best continue the process of songwriting or idea-indulging. Can you describe a moment in the studio or during a live performance when your synergy as a duo led to an unexpected, yet magical, musical outcome? There have been numerous occasions where both of us would play the same fill exactly the way the other did. And needless to say, we’d just gawk at each other immediately after with a typical stank face of approval. That kind of chemistry is hard to come by and we are so fortunate to be able to identify it. It comes from sheer time playing together, listening to music together and making music of different kinds together. How do you tailor your performances for different audiences, especially when playing for international crowds who might not be as familiar with Indian rhythmic traditions? We always think about merging styles of different regions together, but keeping our sounds and performance personalities in the middle of it. This ensures a healthy cross-pollination of listeners from all styles within the music. When we perform international gigs, the electronic elements construe the known and our personalities represent the unknown. When both of these ideas merge, there is a third energy that represents SNAX. Percussion is often seen as an accompaniment rather than the main act. How do you ensure that SNAX commands center stage as a percussion-driven performance? One of the driving reasons for SNAX is the desire to see rhythm take centerstage and let rhythmic ideas be the leading force in a musical performance rather than almost always being a backing element. But being energetic live performers goes a long way in holding the attention of the listeners and that is something we constantly work on. Your music bridges multiple genres. Are there any specific musical styles or cultures you’re currently exploring to incorporate into your sound? Right now we find ourselves diving into electronic dance music, house, techno, psychedelic rock and metal elements fused with desi folk kutthu beats. Have you ever faced resistance from traditionalists while experimenting with classical rhythms in a modern context? How do you navigate that creative tension? Not much really; most of them are curious to see how well these ideas blend and what they morph into as a sonic result. Classical rhythms provide a lot of elegant sophistication, while experimental sounds provide intrigue and curiosity. Is there a particular non-percussive instrument or sound you’d love to integrate into the SNAX experience to further push your creative boundaries? Both of us are pretty decent singers. Now the trick is to sing and play at the same time. Do you feel that platforms like Instagram and YouTube help demystify complex percussion for younger audiences, making it more accessible and exciting? 100%. YouTube is such a blessing when it comes to educating anyone who is interested to learn. Being able to break down complex rhythm patterns and guide through the process of combining these complexities, urging younger audiences to try the same, and hopefully inspiring more rhythm-centric acts. As artists deeply engaged with their followers online, how do you balance the spontaneity of live creation with the polished presentation that social media often demands? In both of these cases, the most important thing to ensure is to be absolutely honest with your art and to have fun at it. Whether it is something impulsive and on the spot or a deeply driven idea that’s worked upon, it’s imperative to not seek validation or any kind of approval but to stay true and honest to what runs in your mind and to simply communicate that and that alone. How do you envision SNAX evolving over the next five years? Do you see the project expanding into areas beyond live performance, such as film scoring or immersive installations? SNAX has the potential to score for films, immersive presentations with surround sound experiences, and even to organise community drumming sessions of a therapeutic and empowering nature. Nothing cleanses your mind and rejuvenates your body like a bit of drumming does. Take it from us.