Chennai has an open-minded audience, say city college bands

Let’s admit it: college rock bands are where all the hotties on the campus congregate. Right? While that’s not going to change, what is definitely changing is the importance namma college bands are gaining, thanks to their passion for taking the band to a vera level, and not just letting it be a mokka ‘college band’. And this is why our college bands and culturals have given the world some first class musicians — like Benny Dayal (Madras Christian College alumnus).
There’s one more reason for this: Chennaiites’ acceptance of different genres of music and musicians. Age group of the artistes, the platforms they play on, be it open mic or solo events, they come to listen to them all, and judge purely on the merit of what they hear, and this, say the young ones, helps talent shine. All of this only means that

World Music Day

, or not, we can go trippin’ over to the city colleges to listen to their tunes, and why they rock, any day...

Band:

Spotlight

College: DG Vaishnav College
Genre: Alternative pop rock
Band Members: Laxman Arvind (vocals and guitars), Vignesh Yaddanapudi (lead guitar), Sridhar Elamaran (keys), GD Vijay (bass) and Rohit Surya (drums)

Final-year, Viscom student, Laxman Arvind and his band members have come a long way from just being the high-school band performing in school and college culturals. “When we started, the Chennai band scene was quite good, and also competitive. We started writing and composing our own songs. But it was in college that we got more freedom to do what we wanted to, and get to perform for a wider audience. We keep in touch with all the popular bands and musicians from all over the country who come to perform in the colleges, and they motivate and share important tips, tell us how to get better.”

Band:

Pristine

College: NIFT
Genre: Rock Band
Band Members: Mohammad Arief
(keyboard), Nived Devadas (drummer), Mukul (Rhythm guitarist), Harnongeh Timung (lead guitarist), Ajul Sreejay (percussion), Hiba Sherin, Poorvi Kar and Sarena D'Souza (singers)

It’s been a year since Pristine was formed by Mohammad Arief. The band has three singers and five instrumentalists, and Arief says the sole reason the band came into existence was because, “We wanted to participate in various competitions organised all over India in NIFT institutes.” He adds, “Soon, we started participating in all the music competitions in and around Chennai and even won two college competitions. We got to perform in the Global Music Fest held in a city mall and also at DakshinaChitra, in an interactive music event. Our college has been really supportive, in fact, they provided us with all the band instruments to perform at various events.”

Band :

Tune Station

College : Guru Nanak College
Genre: Indian contemporary music
Band Members: Manoj Krishna (lead singer and front man), Vijay Ganesan (guitar), Sebastian Satish (keys), Adithya Gopi (bassist) and Barath Dhanasekar (drums and percussion)

Manoj Krishna, a BSc Viscom first-year student, has become a familiar face in the music scene after winning Singing Stars contest recently. He was in school when he, along with his friends, formed the band ‘Tune Station’. It’s been over a year now and he thanks his school teachers and now faculty in college for encouraging him to pursue what he loves. “Balancing academics and music is challenging, but thanks to institutions that have understood my talent and passion. I have been able to concentrate on both. Since I’ve been exposed to many forms of music, and my academics also somewhat revolves around the same, everything is shaping up well for me. After winning the singing reality show, I have been getting many opportunities to perform.”

Band:

THEEPETTI

College: Loyola College
Genre: Light music (regional music), western and jazz
Band Members: Adithya RK (vocalist), Akkarsh N Kasyap (violinist), Jaiyson (guitarist), Motchath Magnus (drummer), Bharath Boat (keys) and Sanjai Shine (bassist)

The story of Theepetti (which means matchbox) started when the band members from different departments of the same college happened to meet during an inter-department competition. They all were unique in their own ways and wanted to see if they can perform together as a band. “We had gone to Mount Carmel College, Bengaluru to participate as a team and we won the competition. That’s when we decided to form our own band. It’s really nice when the faculty from the college supports students in extra-curricular activities. They even sponsored our trip to Bengaluru and also keep us posted about the events we can participate,” says Adithya.

Band:

Styfer

College: SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur
Genre: Progressive rock band
Band Members: Arjun Suresh (vocals), Siddharth Krishnakumar (lead guitarist), Vikram Subramaniam (keys), Ashwin Badrinath (bassist) and Varun Tandon (drummer)

This is a band of engineering students. Though they are from different departments in the same college, they manage to take time off to practice together. But it isn’t easy, or fancy, they aver. “Our college has a music club, but unfortunately they don’t encourage people to form bands, write their own music or promote any band-related events. We’ve been performing outside the college and that’s where we’ve got the maximum exposure, thanks to places like Unwind Center, who are also organisers of music events in the city, who give young artistes like us chances to perform. Coming back to college, not all our professors know we’ve formed a band as the faculty is strict about attendance. But if colleges encourage students for such things, it would help us maintain a balance in life.”


More Music Makers

College: Measi Academy Of Architecture
Solo Artiste: Nitika Kurian
Genre: Pop, rock, jazz, soul music, hiphop

Third-year, architecture student, Nitika is excited about her first single, set to release next month. “It’s RnB/soul music. I perform in hotels, clubs, malls and wherever there is a space to perform. I feel social media has helped me a lot as an artiste as many have connected with me through my Instagram handle. My college doesn’t have any connection with cultural activities, so, we don’t have any platform to celebrate music. My interest is self-driven. Being an independent musician, it is also difficult when it comes to payments because people don’t like to pay young artistes.”

College: MOP Vaishnav College for Women
Solo Artiste: Akshara Shridharan
Genre: Indian songs (Bollywood, Kollywood) and Carnatic

Second year BA Economics student, Akshara started singing professionally at the age of 3. She has been performing in orchestras for a long time and now performs in colleges fests. “The music scene in Chennai is quite encouraging towards young musicians and it surprises me at times that people like to listen to young musicians from various genres. Earlier it used to be only senior artistes, but now the platform is more flexible I feel.”

College: KM College of Music & Technology
Solo Artiste: Indu Sanath
Genre: Indian pop

Indu has been singing with various bands in the city on a freelance basis for four years now. “I’ve been performing gigs and also, sing in our college. What I like about Chennai is that there is an acceptance for all kinds of genres of music, from Carnatic, rock, pop to anything… people of this city never say no to music and this sort of music culture we would never find anywhere in the country.”


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