BAND OF
THE MONTH
CHENNAI STREET BAND
Answered by : Srihari Jagannathan ( Front Man , Music Producer )
Q
How was the band formed and when ?
In 2015 , I ( Srihari Jagannathan - Front Man / Music Producer ) met Goutham healer ( Drummer ) on facebook requesting him to play for one charity gig that was happening in Ethiraj College chennai . We put up a set of musicians together and while jamming for the show me and gowtham shared a similar passion and vision to create our own music . That ’ s how the Chennai Street Band was formed . We released our first indie single in 2017 , It was a bi-lingual single titled Udd Chal in Hindi and Veliye Vaa kannama in Tamil . We collaborated with the bollywood singing sensation Jonita Gandhi and a renowned tamil playback singer Sharanya Srinivas for this . Post this we formed a line up to perform live with musicians Akshay Yesodharan ( Guitar ) , Renin Raphel ( Guitars ) , Adithya Gopi ( Bass ), Sebastian Satish ( Keys ). From there on we produced and released our first full length album “ Payanangal ” in November 2019 . Currently we are working on the release of our second full -length album which is a bi-lingual titled “ UPLIFT ”
Q How would you describe the music that you typically create ?
Well , I would describe our music as Honest and uplifting . By that I mean , we don ’ t create something just to follow the trend . As an artist , I want to tell a story . It can be about me , my experience or it can be our collective perspective on something but it needs to be honest . If i write something and I don ’ t feel inspired by it the next day , I don ’ t take it to the band . But if a thought or a story is inspiring us or pushing us , then we sit together and put hours into it to make it a song , because the overall aim is to just tell a story . I remember music uplifting me the first time I ever encountered it . So all we want is for our music to be pretty much the same . Our first album “ Payanangal ” is a true story of how one can find peace within themselves when they are lost . We just wanted the music to go and hug anyone who was feeling lost at that point in time . With
“ UPLIFT ” our new album , its keeping your inner child alive so we just want people to feel happy and cheerful when they plug in and listen to it .
Q
Tell us about your music making process
Like I already mentioned , the writing and the composition process happens alone if I write in Tamil , for hindi we collaborate with our songwriter - Kajinder Srivatsava . So it ’ s initially just a diary and a guitar . I don ’ t typically sit to compose . More often than not a song happens naturally and I start recording whatever little ideas I get as voice notes with an acoustic guitar backing . Once I get something that inspires me or makes me feel like this story needs to be told , I share it with the band . We typically jam together on the idea once or twice to get the tones / sonics right . Then we take it to the studios from there . Each of us in the band are unique in the way we process a story and so our basic goal is to capture each one ’ s uniqueness into the song whether it be guitar , drum , bass or synth . The oneness of it all becomes a song . We work closely with Vivek Thomas who is our mixmaster engineer and Lijesh Kumar who is our recording engineer to get the finer details of the source right .
Q
You recently released Safarnama . How did you produce that amid the pandemic situation ?
I had composed the basic idea for Safarnama in 2017 as a voice note . It was incomplete and I didn ’ t wanna push myself into completing it . Because that wouldn ’ t be organic . Post lockdown when I was casually jamming on it with the guitar , that ’ s when the Sufi / Qawwali part happened to me and in a way that completed the song . So once I composed the sufi part , I immediately sent a voice note to Kajinder ( songwriter ) and Goutham Healer ( Drummer ) and they loved the idea of it . The fact that we had to try a different genre excited all of us . Initially due to lockdown all our ideas were on zoom . Akshay yesodharan ( Guitarist ) ,
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