Bad Trip have been a New Delhi band since January 2020, and the one song of theirs that Spotify's Rock in India playlist keeps is Kya Pata: a January 2021 single, five minutes and thirty-two seconds long, that shifts between Hindi and English while the guitars take their time. At our 3:30 PM IST check on 16 October 2026 it sat at No. 40 of 100. A day earlier, in our 15 October 6:34 PM IST snapshot, it had been at No. 39.

Five years after release, that is still the song people find first. On the band's Spotify page at capture, Kya Pata showed 59,892 plays against 7,309 for the debut Out of Reach and 2,210 for Cold Days. I think the curators are right to keep it, and I think the reasons say as much about Rock in India as they do about Bad Trip.

Bad Trip at a glance

  • Band: Bad Trip, alternative rock five-piece from New Delhi, formed in January 2020 by vocalist-guitarist Rishab Koul (Rolling Stone India, 24 August 2020)
  • Line-up in press and on the Kya Pata video: Vedant Shandilya (vocals), Rishab Koul (guitars, vocals), Aaron Asher (guitars), Saira Ahmed (bass), Piyush Thomas (drums)
  • Rock in India song: Kya Pata, No. 40 at our 3:30 PM IST snapshot on 16 October 2026; 5:32
  • Release: Kya Pata – Single, 21 January 2021 on Apple Music and Spotify; ℗ 2021 Bad Trip; Apple genre Rock
  • Apple Music credits printed: Bad Trip (Performer); Rishab Koul, Vedant Shandilya, Saira Ahmed, Piyush Thomas, Aaron Asher (Songwriter)
  • Official video: uploaded by Bad Trip to YouTube, premiered 25 January 2021; credits mix and master to Keshav Dhar at Illusion Audio; music film by Oshin / Silens Films
  • Streaming catalogue at capture: three singles, Out of Reach (14 August 2020), Kya Pata (21 January 2021), Cold Days (17 June 2021)
  • Spotify at capture: 812 monthly listeners, 641 followers, 59,892 plays for Kya Pata

A lockdown debut, then the long song

Rolling Stone India's David Britto introduced Bad Trip on 24 August 2020, ten days after Out of Reach hit the stores. Koul had formed the band that January "out of a need to 'bring back' alternative rock and punk back into the music scene," Britto wrote, and was joined by Asher, Ahmed, Thomas and Shandilya. The piece is careful about the recording: each member tracked at home during lockdown, the parts went to Varun Kapahi at Square Wave Studios in New Delhi for mixing, and Mike Cervantes in the U.S. mastered it. Apple Music's credit panel for Out of Reach still prints Kapahi as Mixing Engineer and Cervantes as Mastering Engineer, with Bad Trip as Producer.

Out of Reach runs about three minutes. Kya Pata, five months later, nearly doubles that. I hear that jump as a decision, not an accident. The debut proved they could finish a song apart; the second single asked for a stretch of listening that only works if you trust the arrangement. Highonscore's Shaurya Singh Thapa, reviewing Kya Pata on 2 February 2021, put the high point where I put it too: "A dramatic guitar interlude from the third minute onwards," from Asher and Koul, with Thomas's drums and Ahmed's bass holding the quieter stretches. Thapa also heard Indus Creed in the room. I will not rewrite his review. I will say that a 2021 single that still sits mid-playlist in 2026 is exactly the kind of bet that review was making.

What the store prints, and what the video adds

Apple Music's Kya Pata page is thinner than the song. It lists Bad Trip as Performer and all five members as Songwriter. No mixer, no mastering engineer, no producer row. The band's own YouTube description for the official video fills that gap: mix and master by Keshav Dhar at Illusion Audio, distribution via CD Baby for Bad Trip Records, filmmaker Oshin at Silens Films, body art by Sumedha Basu.

As we have argued about who owns Indian indie music masters, a credit panel only shows what someone chose to type in. Here the ℗ line is the band's own, which matches Out of Reach's ℗ 2020 Bad Trip Records and Cold Days' ℗ 2021 Bad Trip. The missing row is Dhar. Anyone who finds Kya Pata from Rock in India and stops at the Apple sheet will not see the name that finished the record.

Cold Days, from June 2021, prints the same five songwriters plus Prajvi Mandhani. Out of Reach adds Jujhar Pal Singh among the songwriters. The catalogue is three singles and no album. Koul told Rolling Stone India in 2020 there were "tentative plans" for a debut album the next year. It has not appeared under the band's name on Spotify or Apple Music at our capture.

Bilingual on a playlist that still runs long

Kya Pata switches languages inside one vocal. Thapa called that a risk and credited Shandilya with keeping the transition steady. Our Indian indie languages count for Rock in India this week still put Hindi ahead of English. A song that uses both, without leaning on a film title or a guest rap verse, is doing a different kind of work than most of the Hindi rock around it.

It is also doing the length work this playlist rewards. At 5:32, Kya Pata sits among the longer third of Rock in India; thirty songs on our 3:30 PM IST snapshot run at least as long, and the median was 4:50, the same figure our song-length study keeps finding on this list. Fresh Finds India, by contrast, pulls short. A five-and-a-half-minute guitar interlude is not an easy sell on a discovery shelf built for under three minutes. On Rock in India it is almost normal.

The neighbours at No. 40 today are Motherjane's Home at No. 38, Anand Bhaskar Collective's Laajawaab at No. 39, and NAALAYAK's Jeene Do at No. 41, with Coshish's Raastey still just above that cluster. That is company that treats rock as a long form. Bad Trip fit the shelf they landed on.

What Rock in India is doing at No. 40

I think the curators picked the right Bad Trip song. Out of Reach is the origin story; Cold Days is the third single; Kya Pata is the one that needs the playlist's patience. Its play count on the band's page is eight times the debut's. Public data cannot tell me how long it has been on the list or how many of those plays came from it. It can tell me that mid-table on Rock in India, for a self-released 2021 single by a band with 812 monthly listeners, is a real slot, not a vanity placement.

Thapa ended his 2021 review by arguing that singles like Kya Pata could help "the resurgence of an alternative sound, devoid of any electronica or hip-hop sampling." Five years on, Rock in India is still the place that sentence points to. Keeping a Delhi five-piece's long bilingual track at No. 40 is one way of answering it.

Where I'm less sure

I don't know what Bad Trip are doing in 2026. The most recent primary documents I could verify are the three store sheets, the 2021 video description, the Rolling Stone India debut piece and the Highonscore review. There is no album on Spotify or Apple Music, and I found no later interview that updates the line-up or confirms whether the "tentative" album Koul mentioned in 2020 was abandoned or simply delayed.

I have heard Kya Pata through the store previews and the public video; I am not writing as if I sat with a full studio session. The listening moments that matter for this piece are the ones Highonscore and the arrangement make hard to miss: the language switch, and the guitar interlude after the three-minute mark.

What this publication thinks

Kya Pata earns its place. It is the record where Bad Trip stopped proving they could finish a lockdown single and started asking for five and a half minutes of your attention, in two languages, with a guitar break that still sounds like a bet on alt-rock without the sampling shortcuts around it. What lets the story down is everything around the song: a store sheet that drops Keshav Dhar, a catalogue of three singles, and an album that was only ever "tentative" in print.

If the playlist brought you here, play Kya Pata, then Out of Reach, then open the YouTube description and read the credits under the clown in Connaught Place. That is still the fullest public record of who finished this song.

FAQ

Who are Bad Trip?

Bad Trip are an alternative rock five-piece from New Delhi, formed in January 2020 by vocalist-guitarist Rishab Koul. Rolling Stone India (24 August 2020) lists Aaron Asher on guitar, Saira Ahmed on bass, Piyush Thomas on drums and Vedant Shandilya on vocals; the Kya Pata video credits the same five on those instruments.

Which Bad Trip song is on Rock in India?

Kya Pata, at No. 40 of 100 at our 3:30 PM IST snapshot on 16 October 2026. It was at No. 39 in our 15 October 6:34 PM IST snapshot.

When was Kya Pata released?

Apple Music and Spotify date the single to 21 January 2021, with ℗ 2021 Bad Trip. The official video premiered on the band's YouTube channel on 25 January 2021. Rolling Stone India included it in an RSDailyMusic list on 1 February 2021.

Who wrote and mixed Kya Pata?

Apple Music credits all five members as songwriters and the band as performer. The band's YouTube description credits Keshav Dhar at Illusion Audio with mix and master. Apple's page does not print a mixer or mastering row.

Do Bad Trip have an album?

No album appears under the band's name on Spotify or Apple Music. Their streaming catalogue at our capture was three singles: Out of Reach, Kya Pata and Cold Days. In August 2020 Rishab Koul told Rolling Stone India the band had tentative plans for a debut album the following year.

Sources

Cover: Bad Trip, band photograph as published with Rolling Stone India's 24 August 2020 Out of Reach feature (credit on that page: Courtesy of the artist); shown in full and centred on a matching grey field at 1200×630 by discography.in. Source: https://rollingstoneindia.com/new-delhi-rockers-bad-trip-debut-with-heavy-ballad-out-of-reach/

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