Junkyard Groove, one of Chennai’s most prominent bands, has been missing in action, where new releases are concerned. Famous for their live performances, they recently released three songs from their new EP ‘+ & -’ —Mother, Losing Her and Shooting Star — much to the joy of fans who have been waiting for a long time. With a new line-up, the lead vocalist Ameeth Thomas speaks to us about the recent releases, his band and more.
“I decided to release an EP instead of an album because people don’t really listen to albums anymore. So, three songs have been released now and we’ll be releasing more in batches of three in the coming months. We’ve already released the video for Losing Her, the second video is being shot and the third is made up of our live performances,” explains Ameeth.
He adds that it’s different from the past, “because it’s me going back to what I used to do — sitting with a guitar and writing down music. There was some electronic music in the last album, which I didn’t enjoy, so that won’t be there this time around,” he elaborates.
The line-up is new too, with Joshua Mark Raj on guitar as earlier, Jithesh James Dharmaraj playing the bass and his brother Rithesh Dharmaraj on the drums. “I usually like to keep changing the line-up. The best part about this time is that all of us sing, so the backing vocals will be great. We’ve always been a vocal and guitar-based band, but we’ve never had all band members singing. Everyone is extremely energetic on stage, so I’ll have some stiff competition there,” he laughs.
Talking about his inspiration for the songs that have been released so far, he explains, “Losing Her was written almost three years ago, but I never got it out. Mother started off as a joke — I love the blues and I started playing a certain riff off, which my friends made fun of, so I decided to turn it into an entire song. Shooting Star has been inspired by a documentary I watched, about a Russian army man during the Cold War, who refuses to launch nuclear weapons.”
The group will be soon playing in Hyderabad, Kochi and Calicut, during their tour this month. Talking about live gigs, Ameeth admits, “Live performance is where the money lies, plus, I immensely enjoy performing on stage.”
