Chai'vinists and proud!

On September 1st, a group of ‘happy’ guys took Bengaluru’s music lovers by storm — Indie band, When Chai Met Toast was adjudged the winner at the Sennheiser top 50 Zonal Finale in South by  Raghu Dixit and Swarathma.

Regulars in the Bengaluru’s live music gig circuit, the Kochi-based boys, who’ve been in the music scene for roughly about two years, are making waves with a rather peculiar intent —wanting to inspire happiness into people, be that joy of little things or believing in oneself to do what you want in life, through their independent music. We chat up with Ashwin Gopakumar and Achyuth Jaigopal, the band’s lead performers for more, just as they have a bunch of singles slated for release in the pipeline...

“We came with an ease of heart and left with a heartfelt is what we would like to put in short words. We are so grateful this opportunity came by and hope more and more bands apply for the next season. The Bengaluru crowd is no stranger to us. We love them as much as they love our music,” shares Ashwin Gopakumar, the lead vocalist, about their recent win. While the band wouldn’t necessarily put it up as a ‘hustling their way into winning’, Ashwin adds, I wouldn’t call it a challenge, it’s all the same family of indie musicians in the country playing a gig together. We always thought of it as a friendly competition.” The band at present consists of four members, including Palee Francis at the keyboard and Sailesh G Pai at drums.The band will further battle it out with the other zonal finalists on 21st September at Mumbai to win the title for the best band in Sennheiser Top 50.

Happy music aside, the young band is certain that they don’t want to their music to be labeled under a specific genre. “Well, we all come from different cultural backgrounds and music influences from blues to metal to electronica and surest country music too. We like experimenting with myriad tunes and genres, but calling us an Indie-folk alternative band would make most sense,” states Achyuth Jaigopal, the guitarist of the band. As interesting their music, so has been their journey. While the  band temporarily disbanded for a bit, Ashwin clarifies, “We wouldn’t call that a ‘dis-band’, we all met at different points in the bands journey. I think the whole brotherhood of how the band grew and all of us playing different roles in the band made it even more stronger in all aspects. Every band has a different sound and have their own uniqueness in what they put forward as music, we are a huge family of Indian indie musicians trying to get their music to reach people, contenders wouldn’t be a right word in this context.”

With a slew of singles slated for release by February, the days are packed for the ‘chai’vinists. “We  released a new music video two weeks ago and there are a bunch of singles coming out as music videos in the coming 6 months. The new singles are a reflection of all four of us put together in a single pocket, songwriting-wise as well as band sounding-wise. We have been making music and the sound seems to grow with us as a band.No collaborations have been planned as of now, but we would definitely be open to such a thing if everything falls in place,” concludes Achyuth.