The move happened two-and-a-half years ago, something that changed everything in their lives. It was going to be a new country, a new home, a new job and a new family. Shawn and Tamme knew India, their parents come from Kerala.
But they only knew the place through the short trips they had made, while growing up in New York. You’d think a move like that could never happen, it’s always the other way around — people from Kochi going away, for better, bigger opportunities. But then Shawn and Tamme had with them two things that could make it work in Kochi — their music, and each other.
“Home is the people you are with,” Tamme says, sitting in the Kashi Art Café in Fort Kochi. Two years in Kerala had taught them a lot. There have of course been moments they’d feel homesick but the cause they had come for, held them back.
“It's a project called MyOneSong, a collaborative songwriting and music education initiative. It is part of a larger organisation called ElevateX based in Kochi," Shawn says. The organisation has projects in music, sports and leadership development. Shawn and Tamme are co-founders of the music project. And even as they are so loaded with work finding it hard to be free for a 30-minute interview on a weekday, they have managed to bring out their first EP together this March.
“It took us two years to release these four songs. It is not every day you come out with a beautiful song,” Shawn says. Their four beautiful songs are a mix of pop, soul and folk, everything they were influenced by, while growing up with music in New York. Music has always been there in their lives. And it is getting involved in an organisation which did a lot of music in New York that brought them together.
“It may have been a pre-requisite for us. I knew I always wanted to get married to someone who would be passionate about music. That's one of the first things that attracted me to her,” he says. She nods along. It’s only post marriage — the wedding took place in Kochi — that they started performing together.
“That’s why it took us two years to bring out the EP, we were trying to figure out our sound.” They also found it easy to work together. Shawn openly admires Tamme’s voice, her full range that comes out clearly in the song Radiant. All their songs are connected with their lives.
Seasons are about the changes in life, which are the only constant — like ‘that big move to India’. Finally Home is about being married, finding your home in somebody and Fix the world is about using music as a vehicle of change. “There are two ways to do this — we could change for the better, for us and the people around us. Or else we could change the world for one person,” Tamme says. That’s what brought them to Kochi too.
The couple have been working with different groups of people — children at well off schools, orphanages, and young adults, teaching music, and helping them see the power of music. That first music camp held by MyOneSong had ended up in the making of the song Ente Kochi, a collaborative work of so many people. It is after that they wrote their own songs.
The writing happened in Kochi but the music production was done in Nashville, US, during a visit. And when it was time to name their band they came up with MG & Main. They ask you to guess what it means. Roads, they tell you, when you don’t — crossroads. Any main city in India will have an MG Road, and in the US, every city has a Main Street. Their lives are in between, at crossroads. They are still waiting for a live show in Kochi to perform as MG & Main. In India, they have been happy to observe a growing love for independent music. “In the US, it is a full-blown industry. Excited to see it growing in India.”
