Gerry Casey Interviews Ashesh Dangol

October 31, 2026

Making a Scene Brings you Gerry Casey’s Interview with Ashesh Dangol

Ashesh Dangol, widely known as the “Himalayan Hendrix,” is a Nepali blues-rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, and bandleader whose music fuses traditional blues feeling with psychedelic rock, Eastern influences, and the restless energy of a player who has spent decades pushing the genre beyond familiar borders.

Dangol’s musical journey began in Kathmandu in 1994 with the formation of Ashesh & Nekhvam, a blues-rock trio he founded with his brother Sibesh Dangol. The group emerged at a time when blues was far from the dominant sound in Nepal, making their commitment to the style both unusual and distinctive. From evening performances in Thamel, Kathmandu, the band gradually built a reputation for original music rooted in blues and rock while incorporating Eastern rhythmic and melodic ideas.

The name Nekhvam is associated with being “crazy about music,” an idea that fits Dangol’s career well. His playing is deeply informed by the electric blues and psychedelic rock traditions of the late 1960s and 1970s, but his work has never been limited to imitation. Original compositions in both English and Nepali have helped define Ashesh & Nekhvam’s sound, blending blues improvisation, rock intensity, and experimental textures into something distinctly their own.

During a European tour in 2010, Norwegian and German media began referring to Dangol as the “Himalayan Hendrix,” a nickname that has followed him ever since. The comparison reflects his fiery guitar style, extended improvisation, feedback-heavy performances, and clear connection to the psychedelic blues-rock tradition associated with Jimi Hendrix. It also became a useful shorthand for an artist bringing a Nepalese voice into an international blues and rock conversation.

Dangol has performed extensively outside Nepal, touring across Europe, Asia, and the United States and appearing at festivals in countries including Spain, Norway, Scotland, England, Germany, and the United States. His festival history includes events such as the Alamar Music Festival in Spain, Edinburgh Mela in Scotland, Fauskivalen in Norway, and blues and rock festivals throughout Europe.

His American touring became another important chapter. In 2017, he launched a U.S. tour under the banner “Searching for the Blues,” traveling through the East Coast and South and connecting his own musical journey with the places where much of the blues tradition developed. He returned in 2019 for further touring and in early 2020 took part in an International Blues Jam in Memphis during International Blues Challenge week.

In September 2023, Dangol headlined the Best Dam Blues Festival in Thiensville, Wisconsin, becoming the first Nepali blues artist or band to headline the festival. His hour-long set placed a Nepalese blues artist in front of a major American blues audience and marked another milestone in his long effort to bring the music of Nepal into international blues spaces.

That U.S. touring period continued into early 2024, when Dangol performed at the House of Blues Foundation Room in Houston, presenting original material alongside blues and Hendrix-influenced songs.

Recording has remained an equally important part of Dangol’s career. Ashesh & Nekhvam’s catalog began with Free Spirit, followed by Free Spirit II, New Spirit, Bachna Deu, and Life to Live On. In September 2022, Dangol released his sixth album, All Those Beautiful Dreams, a project shaped in part by his experiences traveling through the United States between 2017 and 2020.

Beyond the stage, Dangol has consistently connected music with social action. Following Nepal’s devastating 2015 earthquake, he and members of his musical community helped with relief efforts, including temporary shelter construction and the distribution of food, clothing, and medicine. He later toured Norway under the banner “Pray and Play for Nepal,” using music as a way to keep attention on the country’s recovery.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dangol continued that philosophy through the “Blues for a Cause” virtual live series organized through the Blues Society of Nepal. The project brought together more than 50 artists and bands from countries across Asia, Europe, Australia, North America, and South America, using blues music as a point of connection during a period of isolation.

That combination of music and purpose is central to Ashesh Dangol’s identity. He is not simply a guitarist carrying Western blues into Nepal. He has spent decades building a two-way bridge: absorbing the blues tradition, filtering it through his own culture and experience, and then carrying that hybrid voice back onto international stages.

As the “Himalayan Hendrix,” Ashesh Dangol represents a blues tradition that has traveled far beyond the Mississippi Delta without losing its emotional core. His music is blues, rock, Eastern fusion, improvisation, and personal history colliding in the hands of a musician who has made it his life’s work to prove that the blues belongs anywhere people have something real to express.