Elijah Wood Tours ‘Culturally Rich’ India With Soul-Funk DJ Group
Elijah Wood, best known as Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, is a part of a DJ group called Wooden Wisdom, a partnership with former indie musician Zach Cowie (a.k.a. Turquoise Wisdom). They are legit DJs — spinning only vinyl and mixing a broad range of sounds from classic disco to house to acid rock to African funk. The duo went on tour earlier this year, with their most recent stop in India to perform in Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad from September 3 to 9.
“We have brought a lot of records that many people wouldn’t have heard of here before. That’s exciting. We play a lot of soul, funk and international stuff from Africa and Turkey…we actually brought some Bollywood soundtrack mix stuff too!,” Wood told IANS in a telephone interview from Mumbai, where he performed on Thursday.
“People have been so friendly, accommodating and hospitable… it’s been lovely,” Elijah said.
The actor was greeted by fans and press when he arrived at Mumbai Airport, later revealing in interviews that India has been one of his dream destinations to visit.
“India is a place I always wanted to travel to. It is culturally and ‘culinarily’ rich… I’ve always been fascinated by India as it’s one place in the planet that has such a singular identity,” Elijah said. “The kind of rich history, incredible history of Bollywood… so I jumped at the chance to come here when the opportunity came.”
Elijah and Zach met through designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy, who have a line called Rodarte. Wood works their runway music and DJs their after-parties.
“Everything is so brand new to us, and so exciting…. it’s an entirely new experience for us,” he said of Wooden Wisdom’s tour of India.
During an interview with EW earlier this year, Elijah said he got into DJing while filming Lord of the Rings in New Zealand.
“It actually started back in New Zealand. I was working there for a long time—I was there for like over a year and a half—and I brought CDs with me, because it was pre-iPod days, so I carried like two giant CaseLogics with me… I had this crazy CD collection, and I just remember at one point, myself and Dominic Monaghan, we were exposed to like a CD-J, basically. And it was like, the notion of it was so simple, like, ‘Oh s**t, we can play music that we love and just crossfade between these songs.’ And we did it at a friend’s bar, because we were there long enough that we kind of knew local people. So that was my first experience with it, and I f–ing loved it.”
Elijah’s passion for music isn’t slowing down his A-list Hollywood career. Bloody Disgusting has posted a series of promo shots from the upcoming action/adventure flick The Last Witch Hunter, in which Wood co-stars alongside Vin Diesel, who stars as 13th century Kaulder, the last of witch hunters. Rose Leslie and Michael Caine are also featured. Directed by The Crazies’ Breck Eisner, the film hits theaters October 23. Peep Elijah Wood’s promo pic below.
Witches murdered his family… Now he is ready to devote his life to the #AxeAndCross. @woodelijah is Dolan 37. pic.twitter.com/ygBfGIatsN
— Last Witch Hunter (@LastWitchHunter) August 24, 2015
[Image courtesy Jason Merritt/Getty Images]
[Image courtesy Yogen Shah]
[Image courtesy Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for Marshall Headphones]
