Satanic verses

LET’S MAKE A DEAL Bluesy howler Shilpa Ray, center, has a dish fit for the devil.

Photograph: Jeremy Balderson

Like so many New York City bands working the rock-club circuit, Beat the Devil rehearses in a closet-size room in a converted industrial building in Brooklyn. The tiny Greenpoint space is crammed with the usual cables and amps—but there are no guitars. Under the dim glow of a red lightbulb, the blues-folk trio’s leader, Shilpa Ray, is demonstrating how to adjust the levers on the band’s lead instrument, harmonium, to her voice. “I can’t sing in any of the female keys,” she says, pointing to the notches at the far right of the contraption. “I have the range of an Indian man.” She cracks open a can of PBR. “Whoops! I sprayed beer on your boobs.”

Ray’s irreverent demeanor makes it hard to believe she grew up in a strict New Jersey Hindu household where Western music was forbidden. Yet that background has everything to do with her artistic identity, and not only because she was forced to play harmonium and sing from the age of eight. “My parents raised me to be incredibly humble and stupidly modest,” she says. “I still hate them for that, because anytime someone criticizes my work, I lie awake at night wondering why. Would Mick Jagger do that?”

The slight Ray, 26, doesn’t think she looks like someone who’d front a band. Yet for the observer, any reservations disappear when she steps onstage and lets loose with her primal howl-and-rasp on lines like, “Paxil’s just a piper whose been feeling up the boys and girls / Pedophiles are easy.” The verse comes from “Plea Bargain,” the first track on the band’s recent, self-released EP, which flaunts a brutal blend of Jazz Age melody and bohemian folk, darkened with low-end grit. On the song’s chorus, Ray begs herself to relax. Indeed, she possesses a shook-up spirit, and she doesn’t hide it. During a set at Pianos last winter, she informed the crowd that the show was tanking, then demanded alcohol. When an audience member handed her a drink, she thanked him sweetly before adding, “It better be whiskey, asshole.”

If Ray acts out occasionally, it’s probably because she is still adjusting to the spotlight. A poet and shower singer for years, she stumbled upon the idea of a harmonium-led act late in 2004 at Sidewalk Café, the launchpad for such innovative artists as the Moldy Peaches, Nellie McKay and Regina Spektor. Ray wailed her songs a cappella until Sidewalk staffer and veteran antifolk musician Lach suggested she bring her instrument to an open-mike night. “It’s kind of like playing the rhythm chords on a guitar, but the sound is even richer,” Ray says. “It doesn’t have the dynamics of a guitar, but it’s interesting to find ways to make up for that.”

Mishka Shubaly, 29, provides the slovenly bass lines that balance Beat the Devil’s heavenly harmonium with pure sludge. Shubaly met Ray via Craigslist in the summer of 2005. A longtime fixture on the New York rock scene—he’s played solo and in now-defunct bands Come On and Dan Melchior’s Broke Revue—Shubaly worked as a talent booker for erstwhile Williamsburg hot spot Luxx in 2002 and ’03. “I had been listening frantically to demos, searching for something elementally different, and here it was,” he recalls. “Shilpa’s so new to the game, but she’s like Athena, sprung into this world fully formed.” Sitting nearby, Ray rolls her eyes. “Yeah, riiight,” she moans. (According to its MySpace page, the band’s personnel are: “Shilpa Ray: Idiot Savant; Mishka Shubaly: Idiot; Josh Fleischmann: Drums.”)

Though their band’s sound and lineup have jelled in recent months, Ray and Shubaly joke that a black cloud follows them everywhere. Last month, TheVillage Voice recognized Ray in its “Best of NYC” issue—except it misidentified her as Shubaly. More recently, the group’s van was towed, with all of its gear, minutes before a CMJ showcase. But these are the kinds of misfortunes that a band like Beat the Devil will make light of, and then make art of. “When Shilpa and I combine our bad luck,” says Shubaly, “we come up with amazing results.”

Beat the Devil plays Mon 20, Nov 27 and Dec 4 at Knitting Factory Tap Bar, and Dec 7 at Fat Baby.