| Young bands look to make it big on the national stage |
27th Jul 2013
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Members of the band The Local Train
espite the change in the music scene, rock bands have retained their popularity and footing among music lovers, mostly through continued live performances. We catch up with few bands that have become a regular feature in the musical calendars of various restaurants and clubs across the city.
Their fresh original tracks went viral online taking them to the top of the indie circuit and even beyond. Brainchild of Ramit Mehra and Raman Negi, The Local Train was formed in 2008 and became an instant hit with their song Choo Lo. The band consists of Sahil Sarin and Paras Thakur, besides the founder members. After several live performances across India, the band is now looking forward to bringing out their album this year. The founders tell Guardian20, "Forming a band is not an easy task. All the members of the band come from different musical backgrounds and it takes time to understand each other. It's music but it's also a tough business, and to survive in the industry is a real challenge. The feedback we have received is varied but Nagesh Kukunoor's was really encouraging. He said, 'A good tune grabs me or it doesn't- it's very instinctual. The tune of Choo Lo grabbed me on the first pass, it reminds me of the 70's and 80's rock ballads combined with a nice dose of Indianness'."
Winning the Chandigarh Launch Pad on Channel [V] propelled The Green Chorus band into the mainstream. "The journey of any band is not easy and there are new challenges that you have to face every day. Every other event and each audience is a challenge and you have no choice than to give your best every time," believe the founder members of the band. Conceptualised by Abhishek David, Gurkanwar Singh Sra, Sahil Sharma and Gurnazar Chattha, the Green Chorus band started performing in 2012 and till date has given more than 500 performances across India. "We got really good exposure during the national shows. Original lyrics have remained the strength of our band and today we have more than 25 self-composed and self-produced songs to our credit," they say. Today the band has seven members, where the founders take care of guitar and vocals and Bhupender, Ravi Hans and Lakshay Sharma take care of the drums, flute and keyboards respectively. The band is keen on composing music for movies and they are also working on one untitled Punjabi film as well.
The Green Chorus
Finance and convincing family and peers remain another obstacle that some of the members of different bands come across. Despite such adversities another Chandigarh based band Pratyaksh was formed in 2011 by Himanshu Sharma and Kunal Kushwah. "We knew the taste and had an idea of the music appreciated by the youth these days. Chandigarh is a hub where people from different backgrounds meet, and the idea behind creating the band was to cater to these emerging trends. We wanted to stand out from the existing bands and our mission was to enthrall the audience," they said. Where most of the bands perform with guitars and drums, the inclusion of tabla, harmonica, cajon, congo-bongo and harmonium was a testing situation for the band but they sailed through making a place for themselves in the industry. The band also got their names registered in the Limca Book of Records for the longest musical run of 14 hours in association with 94.3 My Fm. Aayat, another Chandigarh based band formed in 2012, by Stanley Choudhary, Willy TG, Goldie Naaz, Jonny, and Aman Suraj believes in change. "Ours is a multi-genre band and no other band of our level carries acoustic instruments including the cajon, tabla, dhol, dholak, darbuka, and jambe. With these instruments we try to add something new to the existing flavours of music and this creativity remains the essence of the band," claim the members.
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